PATHETIC – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  Joe Biden is in Eastern Europe, trying to convince our allies there that Obama really cares about them.  Apparently, he's running into mass skepticism.  Gee, I wonder why.  From WaPo: 

VILNIUS, Lithuania—Vice President Biden’s we’re-all-in-this together tour of Eastern Europe, a two-country stop that concludes here Wednesday, has highlighted not only the growing regional anxieties over Russia’s designs on Ukraine but also how much work the Obama administration has to do to convince allies of its support.

At its core, Biden’s message here and in Poland was a simple reaffirmation of what one senior administration official called a “bedrock commitment”: The United States would honor NATO’s basic premise that if one member nation is attacked, all would come to its defense.

What?  We have to reassure allies that we will honor our treaty commitments?  This is what American foreign policy has come to?

“President Obama and I view Article 5 of the NATO Treaty as an absolutely solemn commitment which we will honor,” Biden said in an appearance with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, referring to the collective self-defense clause in the agreement. “We will honor.”

A timely message, perhaps, as Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated Crimea’s return to Russia through an annexation the Obama administration and its European allies have called illegal. But having to deliver the message at all is a measure of how uncertain Eastern Europe remains as it confronts an expansionist Russia - and how uncertain many leaders here are of the Obama administration’s intentions to help.

In some ways, the anxieties are the inevitable result of America’s military retrenchment after more than a decade of war.

COMMENT:  Biden is having a tough time for good reason.  One of the first things Obama did when he came to office was to cancel the anti-missile systems promised to Poland and the Czech Republic.  And he conspicuously sent a bust of Winston Churchill, which had rested in the Oval Office under Bush, back to Britain.  And he started badgering Israel, but went to Cairo to apologize for America's "sins."  And he ignored the North Korean nuclear breakthroughs.  And he was almost silent when Iranians rose up against their government in 2009 and looked to America for support.  And he has cut the defense budget in the face of Russian and Chinese military expansion. 

Good luck, Joe.  But I'm afraid America's allies are counting the days until your boss rides off into the sunset.

March 19, 2014