Biden’s bomb on getting rid of Putin: How’s it playing?

NEWS AND OPINION:

The press appears to be either alarmed, shocked or confused by President Biden’s new tough talk, showcased with much ado during his appearance in Poland on Saturday. Among other things, Mr. Biden declared that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” which prompted choice headlines in the last 48 hours.

“Joe Biden just dropped the biggest word bomb of his presidency” (Fox News); “Biden’s barbed remark about Putin: A slip or veiled threat?” (The New York Times); “Kremlin says it’s not for Biden to say if Putin stays in power” (Reuters); “Was it a gaffe or an escalation? Biden prompts concern after saying Putin cannot remain in power” (USA Today).

Then there’s “Joe Biden’s worldwide walkback” (Axios); “How Biden sparked a global uproar with nine ad-libbed words about Putin” (The Washington Post); “President Biden’s speech in Poland a catastrophe” (New York Post); “Biden lashes at Putin, calls for Western resolve for freedom” (The Associated Press); “Biden’s comment that Putin ‘cannot remain in power’ triggers shock: He did call for regime change” (The Wrap).

It is of note that a few headlines suggested or flirted with the idea that the blunt statement was not “ad lib” at all, but rather a strategically planned moment attempting to influence the outcome of the invasion and the U.S. role in it.

FOR THE LEXICON

“Tiger Team.”

Things appear to be taking on a whole new tone at one strategic location.

There is a new “Tiger Team” at work in the White House. The group is tasked with developing responses to increasingly alarming Russian aggression in Ukraine, this according to The New York Times. The group meets three times a week, in classified sessions, The Times noted.

“The group, known internally as a Tiger Team, is a new version of the one assembled last fall when it appeared Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine,” noted CNN.

“The top scenario the teams are working on is Russia using chemical or biological weapons. The strategy group is working to monitor and mitigate risks, while considering how to advance and defend U.S. interests,” said an analysis by The Hill.

“We are working to continue to ensure that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a strategic failure,” a senior White House official told the news organization.

Yes, well.

The term “Tiger Team,” incidentally, is not new, and has been used for several decades in — among others — the business, technology, scientific and federal sectors to designate a team focused on program solving.

“Tiger Teams are cross-functional teams pulled together for a period of time to address a critical issue,” noted the General Services Administration in a formal guide on “running tiger teams.”

MANLY MEN

Dire circumstances often bring out interesting discussions.

“Where the hell are our Gen. Pattons?” asked former President Donald Trump during a campaign-style rally in Commerce, Georgia, on Saturday night.

At the time, Mr. Trump was expressing annoyance with the image of the U.S. military presence on the world stage in a lengthy commentary.

In his own style, HBO host Bill Maher also wondered about a similar issue.

“Maher laced into liberals who attack men for having supposed ’toxic masculinity.’ The ’Real Time with Bill Maher’ host used Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and men taking up arms to defend Ukraine from the Russian invasion as examples of how masculinity can be anything but toxic,” the Blaze noted in a handy summary of Mr. Maher’s broadcast, also on Saturday night.

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the crisis in Ukraine, it’s that everyone loves, and the world still needs, grown-ass men,” the host told his audience.

“Maher noticed that American women are obsessing over Zelenskyy, who the New York Post and Forward labeled as a ‘sex symbol’ earlier this month. Maher stressed that progressives can’t consider Zelenskyy a sex symbol while also denouncing masculinity as toxic,” the Blaze noted in its review.

A BRIEF REALITY CHECK

The media offers one version of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One significant pollster offers additional insight.

And that insight is stark.

The Russian invasion has “created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times,” according to a Pew Research Center analysis of United Nations data.

“A month into the war, more than 3.7 million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries – the sixth-largest refugee outflow over the past 60-plus years,” wrote Drew DeSilver, a senior writer for the center.

“There are now almost as many Ukrainian refugees as there were Afghan refugees fleeing the first Taliban regime in 2001, according to figures compiled by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They represent about 9.1% of Ukraine’s pre-invasion population of about 41.1 million – ranking the current crisis 16th among 28 major refugee crises by share of population,” Mr. DeSilver said.

The situation has an additional side, however.

“The Pew Research Center examined all cases in the UNHCR’s database since 1960 where there were at least 500,000 refugees and similarly displaced people from a given country in a given year. The analysis doesn’t include “internally displaced persons” — those who have fled or been forced from their usual homes but haven’t yet crossed an international border.

“Earlier this week, UNHCR head Filippo Grandi estimated that, all told, 10 million Ukrainians — nearly a quarter of the population — had been displaced either internally or externally by the war,” Mr. DeSilver later noted.

POLL DU JOUR

• 16% of U.S. adults think the U.S. is “already at war with Russia.”

• 41% think the U.S. is “not at war with Russia now, but will be within the next year.”

• 34% think the U.S. is “not at war with Russia now, and will not be within the next year.”

• 1% think the U.S. will be at war with Russia “in more than a year.”

• 8% are not sure about the issue.

SOURCE: An NBC News poll of 1,000 U.S. adults conducted March 18-22.

• Follow Jennifer Harper on Twitter @HarperBulletin