Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
The Nat-C View from "National Review".
First of all, I did not find DeSantis’s statement to be particularly offensive. Did it lack the moral clarity I would prefer? Certainly. The use of “territorial dispute” to describe Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (the initial goal of which was to absorb the country wholesale if possible) is the sort of studied, bloodlessly “neutral” language choice that suggests a degree of audience pandering. But unless you want to elevate in-the-weeds policy disputes about which weapons systems to send to Ukraine into elemental moral choices between Good and Evil in United States politics, then the criticism of DeSantis cannot properly be that he wrote out a careful, line-straddling response to the question.Because I have a brain and enjoy using it on occasion, I can clearly see that this “position statement” on Ukraine has been lawyered within an inch of its life to signal to voters that DeSantis, while not a Rand Paul–like isolationist, is also not a kept pet of the neoconservative Republican old guard (who, as Charlie delicately pointed out in his earlier piece, don’t exactly have the finest track record on these matters). DeSantis is wooing Trump or Trumpy voters, not voters like me. (Voters like me want to see someone conservative and effective win the nomination, so that we win the presidency and get to do enjoyably conservative things. We can already agree about DeSantis, regardless of whether he is our first choice or not.) I suppose some expect me to find the compromises politicians make in positioning themselves in presidential politics — the way they trim and tack in the political winds without letting their masts snap or sails shear away — to be something to condemn.Nah. And you will never stampede or shame me into thinking otherwise. Furthermore, Ron DeSantis has nothing really to defend; his campaign wrote a statement I pretty much agree with...So I find it insulting that we are being asked to pretend that this is the latest in a series of “disqualifying” acts committed by Ron DeSantis when it is no such thing...
So sayeth the Nat-C National Review. And there you have it... unabashed support from the National Review of the hideous inbred stepchild of Germany's National Socialist Party, which Germany intelligently banned long ago.
It's always good to know the red herring flavors your enemy prefers to fattens it's strawmen upon.
It makes it much easier to deploy reason's wind and blow them away.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/desantiss-ukraine-statement-was-careful-electoral-politics-and-thats-a-good-thing/
14 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Delusion gives birth to further delusion in order to maintain the delusion.
It's the nature of the beast.
It's what delusion does.
Which is why reason must rule where delusion dwells, because in the absence of reason, our freedoms cease to exist within the realms of our existence.
May reason rule.
As the kids say, "it's not a bug, it's a feature". 
Mel Brooks always applies!!
I've yet to watch History of the World Part II... I can hardly wait!
The statement Florida governor Ron DeSantis provided Fox News host Tucker Carlson regarding his outlook on Russia’s war against Ukraine and the West’s commitments in that conflict will be finely parsed for months to come. It deserves to be. DeSantis has staked out a position he will struggle to defend and, should he emerge as the GOP nominee next year, potentially represents a significant liability for his campaign.
“While the U.S. has many vital national interests,” DeSantis’s statement began, it has become clear that “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.” DeSantis cites the urgent threat posed by the “economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party,” which is presumably going unmet because of the West’s commitments in Europe.
This weak and convoluted statement is likely to haunt DeSantis in both the primary campaign and, should he make it that far, the general election. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is a “dispute” over territory in the same way a bank robber and depositor have a “dispute” over money. This statement establishes equivalencies between invader and invaded that do not exist. DeSantis may struggle, as any honest broker would, to explain why the hypothetical prospect of a Chinese land grab in the Pacific is of more immediate urgency than the ongoing Russian land grab in a state that borders U.S. allies with whom we have defense pacts.
snip
Ultimately, the specifics of this political document will be forgotten, but the sentiment DeSantis expressed in it will not. What the United States is defending isn’t just Ukraine’s sovereignty against an expansionist power that is hostile to its very existence. It’s safeguarding the security and alliance architecture that emerged after the Second World War and became a continental bloc at the end of the Cold War. America’s allies are not passive participants in this effort, and they will defend their interests with or without America’s imprimatur. If America tells European allies that they are on their own, Europe will behave accordingly in disparate and uncoordinated ways. A schism would serve Moscow just fine. Russia’s goal is to break that alliance, and its war in Ukraine still has the capacity to advance that objective. In the absence of Western support, Russia will win its war of aggression. Is DeSantis prepared to defend that outcome as a by-product of his policy preferences?
“While the U.S. has many vital national interests,” DeSantis’s statement began, it has become clear that “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.” DeSantis cites the urgent threat posed by the “economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party,” which is presumably going unmet because of the West’s commitments in Europe.
This weak and convoluted statement is likely to haunt DeSantis in both the primary campaign and, should he make it that far, the general election. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is a “dispute” over territory in the same way a bank robber and depositor have a “dispute” over money. This statement establishes equivalencies between invader and invaded that do not exist. DeSantis may struggle, as any honest broker would, to explain why the hypothetical prospect of a Chinese land grab in the Pacific is of more immediate urgency than the ongoing Russian land grab in a state that borders U.S. allies with whom we have defense pacts.
snip
Ultimately, the specifics of this political document will be forgotten, but the sentiment DeSantis expressed in it will not. What the United States is defending isn’t just Ukraine’s sovereignty against an expansionist power that is hostile to its very existence. It’s safeguarding the security and alliance architecture that emerged after the Second World War and became a continental bloc at the end of the Cold War. America’s allies are not passive participants in this effort, and they will defend their interests with or without America’s imprimatur. If America tells European allies that they are on their own, Europe will behave accordingly in disparate and uncoordinated ways. A schism would serve Moscow just fine. Russia’s goal is to break that alliance, and its war in Ukraine still has the capacity to advance that objective. In the absence of Western support, Russia will win its war of aggression. Is DeSantis prepared to defend that outcome as a by-product of his policy preferences?
my thoughts:
Where did this article (slating DeSantis and putting forth pretty strong statements that we must support Ukraine against the Russian threat) come from?
Well, if truth be told.....
it came from a link in the article at the link in this sentence from your OP National Review article:
I fall in mostly on the side of Charles C. W. Cooke on this matter substantively, and furthermore share his disdain for hecklers who would presume to act as our assignment editors.
here is the direct link for the article I just posted above, at the top of my reply:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/03/ron-desantis-gets-ukraine-wrong/
yes, it is also a National Review article
they seem all over the place
Cooke appears to be flailing about without any targeted SCOTUS candidate in mind for 2024.
The GOP is devoid of reason.
The GOP is fully delusional.
The GOP ought to be abolished and outlawed as Germany did with their Nat-C Nationalist Socialist Party
Cooke's just another shade of lipstick on the Nat-C Chauvinist Pigs feeding on the cadavers of our citizenry.
It's disgusting.
Cooke was the author of the ' Bill Kristol Has No Business Making Demands of NR' article at the link in your OP article (your OP article author was Jeffrey Blehar). I know it is a bit confusing, LOLOLOL.
Blehar included Cooke's article in your OP article, and Cooke included Rothman's article in his article. That is how I found the Rothman article I posted. (I am NOT a National Review fangirl, lol, so was unaware of any of this beforehand.)
Thanks for the OP!
cheers
Cel
