BUT HE HURT VLAD'S FEELINGS...:

[T]he president's off-the-cuff words were no gaffe. They were the truth, admirably clear and concise. It was Biden's staff that blundered by insisting that he didn't mean what he said. Why wouldn't he mean it? Putin is a homicidal war criminal who bombs hospitals and apartment buildings and has sent thousands of innocents to early graves. Of course such a monster should not be in power.

Biden's ad-libbed line came at the end of an emotional speech that linked the fight to repel Russia's vicious aggression to the heroism of the Cold War generations.

"Today's fighting in Kyiv and Mariupol and Kharkiv are the latest battle in a long struggle: Hungary, 1956; Poland, 1956, then again 1981; Czechoslovakia, 1968," said Biden. Once again, he continued, Russia has "strangled democracy" at home and abroad. Once again it is "using brute force and disinformation to satisfy a craving for absolute power." Once again, America and its allies are in a "battle for freedom."

Biden will never be blessed with the eloquence of a John F. Kennedy or a Ronald Reagan, but his remarks in Warsaw echoed their calls for the liberation of captive nations and the defeat of oppressors. "A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never erase a people's love for liberty," Biden avowed. "Brutality will never grind down their will to be free. Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia."

Tweet   @brothersjudd