The White House has been scrambling to decipher President Joe Biden’s remarks in a major speech made in Poland Saturday after he said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, should not be allowed to remain in power.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said at the end of his speech in Warsaw, Poland. While the Washington Post says the president ad-libbed the remark, administration officials have been careful not to hint at Mr. Putin’s removal from office, knowing that it would be taken by the Kremlin as a dangerous escalation.
Almost immediately after Biden’s speech, the White House insisted that the president was not calling for regime change with his comment about Mr. Putin remaining in power, according to the New York Times.
“The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” a White House official said in a statement to reporters. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”
Even the Kremlin had something to say about Biden’s off-the-cuff remark. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov told Reuters: “That’s not for Biden to decide. The president of Russia is elected by Russians.”
Peskov later told Russia’s RBC that Biden was clearly “the victim of many misconceptions. This speech – and the passages which concern Russia – is astounding, to use polite words,” Peskov said. “He doesn’t understand that the world is not limited to the United States and most of Europe.”
A “Gaffe” from the heart
“This is one of those speeches where the one-liner in many ways drowns out the intent of the speech,” veteran diplomat Aaron David Miller told the Washington Post. “I guess you can call this a gaffe from the heart. If Biden could close his eyes tomorrow and have 10 wishes, one would be there’s a leadership change in Russia.”
Tom Nichols, in a story in the Atlantic, calls the line an “unforced error” by the president. “What Biden was doing, of course, was being Joe Biden. He was speaking for all of us, from the heart.”
Nichols also adds that “we should now let his remark pass for what it was—an outburst—and get back to helping Ukraine save its independence.”
The truth be told – Joe Biden publicly voiced exactly what people all across the globe, have been talking about – Putin has to be removed from power. Hopefully, the Russian people will hear the world’s message.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
