Ron DeSantis has shown plenty of leadership as governor of Florida, but he shies away from the challenge when it comes to the war in Ukraine.
In a written response to questions from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, DeSantis hedged: “While America has many important national interests … further entanglement in the territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”
Penalty: USA faces no directly Threat from Russia
But this is much more than a “territorial dispute”.
Vladimir Putin claims that all Ukraine rightfully belongs to Moscow, refusing to recognize Kiev’s sovereignty.
It is a blatant attack on the entire world order – and thus on American interests.
And “territorial conflict” is a very lame way of describing an unprovoked aggression that includes brutal attacks on civilians and other war crimes.
If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, it will show other regimes (China, Iran, etc.) that aggression works.
And Russia itself will seek to advance on other countries, including those responsible for the defense of NATO ally America.
Beating Putin, or even crippling his war machine, is America’s defense.
DeSantis must know this, but he’s rather hedging the risk of losing voters who don’t get it. (Understandably, since even President Joe Biden has refused to make the case.)
Nor does supporting Ukraine “confound” America Either way.
That doesn’t make Putin our enemy any more than he already was, and nothing (except good sense) can stop Washington from “getting out” tomorrow.
DeSantis was on safe ground when he decried Biden’s “virtual ‘blank check’ funding of the conflict for ‘as long as it takes,’ without any defined objectives or accountability.”
The president was a little confused on the details before the Moscow attack, when Biden tried to stop Putin by threatening sanctions when he was supposed to deliver weapons to Kiev.
Nor does war “distract from our nation’s most pressing challenges,” as DeSantis puts it, and many pessimistic fallacies echo right in logic.
A nation with a $7 trillion budget and over 2 million federal civilian employees can send aid to Ukraine and chew gum at the same time; Biden does not want to To deal with those challenges.
At least DeSantis hasn’t done Trump and declared himself firmly isolated on Ukraine, as the leftist media might pretend.
But the fact is that outlets like The New York Times want to pretend it is did This is a clear sign that the government needs to correct course and show real backbone here – to lead, not dodge.
DeSantis hasn’t even started his campaign yet, so he has room to correct this mistake.
But he won’t win the GOP nomination by dodging tough questions.
