The Heritage Foundation is under fire again for failing to say and do exactly what establishment neocons want regarding U.S. funding for Ukraine. This time, the think tank’s crime is — I’m not kidding — being quoted in Russian media.
If America’s foes quote critics of the Biden administration, that apparently means those critics are wrong and their objections to Biden’s policies can be dismissed. So goes the thinking, anyway, of National Review’s Jim Geraghty, who devoted an entire column to making this asinine argument on Friday.
Here’s the background. Back in August, Heritage said the federal government should prioritize helping Americans recover from natural disasters like the Maui wildfires instead of funding a grinding war of attrition between Ukraine and Russia. In an op-ed, Heritage President Kevin Roberts noted the Biden White House was trying to sneak yet more Ukraine funding into a bill that would add money to FEMA’s depleted Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), rightly calling it an underhanded, back-door trick to advance an unpopular policy.
After the op-ed ran, Heritage followed it up with a short video making the same point: that the White House was trying to “hold hostage” disaster aid, and that “until Joe Biden offers a plan to end the war, Congress shouldn’t approve another cent.” (That’s a view, by the way, a plurality of Americans now share, while a supermajority say there should be a “time limit” for Ukraine aide, according to a recent Gallup poll.) The 30-second spot also made the entirely fair point that total U.S.
