Vince Dao's take, above, is not a bad one.
I watched Trump standing on the tarmac at the US Military Base in Anchorage, waiting for Putin. He did a couple of hand claps as Putin approached. I thought nothing of it. But the left went insane. Why is he "applauding this war criminal" and so on.
The left also went bananas over the red carpet. Which, tbf, I'd not even noticed. When I did notice, coz the numbers going crazy about it -- "showing appalling levels of respect and cringe to this dictator", I recalled my time as a diplomat, all those years ago in China. And the protocol. Which is: when you have a Head of State arriving, you give the Red Carpet. So that's all that was.
Weirdest: the left's reaction to the flyover of a B2 bomber flanked by F15s. To them, somehow this was, like, kowtowing to Putin. Huh?! To me, it seemed like what it was: an out-ant-out power move. You could even call it brazen. Showing Putin what America has that no-one else does. After all, who can forget the shape of those stealth bombers, that flew over to Iran in Operation Midnight Hammer, precision bombed Iran's nuclear program back into the stone age, and flew back, without a single defensive shot being fired by Iran. It was a beautiful, perfectly executed bombing raid (whatever you think of whether or not it was needed). Then they drove by, Trump and Putin together, an array of American fighter jets and attack helicopters. A pretty good show of force, I reckon.
The left comments were all negative, said Putin had "rolled" Trump and nothing came of it. I don't know how they know that, given that there was very little revealed. But Trump and Putin did meet for three hours and there's to be follow up meetings with the EU leaders and with Zelensky next week. So it can't exactly be nothing.
One guy on the legacy media, Mike Smerconish on CNN, did give an opposite take to the bluster and outrage on the left, CNN and MSNBC mainly. That there was no grovelling by Trump, says Smerconish, and that we need to wait to see if there's any results. And, that it's always worth talking. As Churchill is said to have said: "Jaw jaw is better than War, war". Which is also what Trump has said repeatedly. That he just wants to stop killing.
Devory Darkins gives a pretty reasonable take too. He's a vet, and has a head on his shoulders. Here's his video today.
