I think I can still hear them partying in the Kremlin.
Vladimir Putin and his inner circle are toasting each other with shots of vodka and loud singing.
I can’t understand Russian, but I recognize the tune – “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
After the thrashing Putin gave to President Joe Biden at their “summit” meeting in Switzerland this week, the devilish former KGB operative has every reason to celebrate.
Someone asked me on a scale of 1 to 10 what score I’d give to Biden for his G7 meeting in Britain and his one-on-one meeting with Putin in Geneva.
I gave Biden a five for just showing up in Europe. Then I started subtracting – all the way down to zero, because that’s what the U.S. got from Biden’s trip.
The G7 leaders were a joke.
All they did, besides welcome Joe into their club of declining countries, was issue a weak communique after three days of posing for group photos on a beach in a posh holiday spot on the Cornish seacoast.
Biden supposedly wanted the G7 to join him and be tough on China for its human rights abuses, its takeover of Hong Kong and its non-market economic policies and practices.
But the leaders of the world’s most advanced countries – who are deep in the economic pocket of China – chickened out.
Instead of ripping into China for unleashing a virus that killed 3.5 million people around the world, they meekly urged its Communist rulers to be more transparent and show more respect for human rights.
The G7, which was more interested in showing how progressive it is, pledged to vaccinate poorer countries, create a global tax for corporations and spend many billions to fight climate change.
The G7 was a useless three-day publicity stunt for mediocre prime ministers and presidents, but Biden’s meeting with Putin in Geneva was the diplomatic disaster it was predicted to be.
Russia and Putin got everything they wanted – and paid nothing for it. Plus, they got it all before Biden even left the ground in Washington.
We – i.e., Biden – had already shut off our oil pipeline, begun destroying our booming energy sector and okayed Russia’s natural gas pipeline to Germany.
What did Biden get from Putin – whose military is closing in on Ukraine and playing war games off the coast of Hawaii?
Copyright 2021 Michael Reagan, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.