The following editorial originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
President Joe Biden learned the hard way last week about the dangers of going off script at the end of a speech heavily criticizing Russian leader Vladimir Putin for his unprovoked war against Ukraine.
At the end of the speech, Biden blurted out, “For God’s sake, this man cannot stay in power.” The words themselves were spot on. The only problem was the person speaking them.
As the United States learned during four years under Biden’s predecessor, a president who doesn’t carefully measure his words, especially in times of crisis, can easily get himself and the country into deep trouble. President Donald Trump potentially incriminated himself on a few occasions and created headaches for his aides when his off-the-cuff remarks insulted foreign leaders, wrecked alliances and inspired people to experiment with dangerous, bogus coronavirus remedies.
For all of Biden’s careful pronouncements and wartime decisions designed specifically to avert a direct superpower confrontation that could provoke World War III, he managed with a nine-word sentence to confirm Putin’s warnings that the United States seeks to dominate Russia and install a U.S.-friendly regime.
Putin warned as recently as February that “there should be no doubt that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country.” As if to raise the specter of nuclear retaliation, he added, “All necessary decisions have been taken in this regard.”
It’s a safe bet that any American move toward regime change in Russia would, in Putin’s mind, constitute a direct attack. Biden, who insisted that his words were personal feelings and didn’t reflect a policy change, had the effect of bringing the world a step closer to the very danger he most feared: a provocation that leads to World War III.
In truth, Russia is long overdue for a new leader — a sane leader who doesn’t keep a 30-foot conference table between himself and his guests, and who doesn’t concoct bizarre scenarios of “denazification” to justify invading a neighboring country headed by a Jew.
Putin took control of a nascent post-Soviet democracy in 2000 and, in the course of a few years, converted it into a full-fledged dictatorship. He has deployed agents to assassinate his critics. He has banned use of the word “war” to describe the slaughter in Ukraine. Press freedoms have been annihilated. Last week, media were banned from carrying reports of four Russian journalists who interviewed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
This madman deserves to be replaced — by his own people. The way to do it is to flood Russians with the truth about their president’s war crimes and atrocities via the internet, broadcast media, printed information and any other means.
Putin didn’t hesitate to meddle in 2016 to help put Trump in office. It’s only fair that the United States should return the favor against Putin.
