Thinking people among us would like to believe Vladimir Putin’s brutal, bloody invasion of Ukraine might unite our American leaders no matter the color of their party banners.
But we already see that the kind of joined-at-the-hip steadiness our politicians adopted after 9-11 is elusive if not impossible in today’s fractured body politic. As President Joe Biden urges NATO to hold a united front, we’re not doing the same here at home.
Look no further than the Tennessee and Georgia delegations of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.
In fairness to our majority Republican lawmakers, most of them steered clear of the former guy’s atta-boy to Putin. Donald Trump, ever the Putin champion, called him “savvy” for his opening salvo to a renewed cold war and possible prelude to World War III.
As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Patricia Murphy put it this week, “Politicians’ reactions in a crisis can sometimes tell you more than you’ll learn in an entire campaign. Are they serious? Are they substantive? Are they focused on their country, their party, or themselves? Is this person up to the job they have or say they want?”