For those members of the Washington establishment who have observed the rise of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with dismay, last week was a time to celebrate. The D.C. uniparty — liberal corporate media shills and Bush-era Republicans alike — cheered when the governor committed what they think is his first major blunder when he expressed skepticism about the uniparty’s current favorite project: an open-ended commitment to the war in Ukraine.
When asked to comment on DeSantis’s claim that fighting for Ukraine’s territorial claims was not a vital national interest of the United States, Sen. Lindsey Graham dismissed DeSantis’s statement last week, saying, “The Neville Chamberlain approach to aggression never ends well.” On March 21, Texas Sen. John Cornyn repeated the Chamberlain dig against Federalist CEO Sean Davis.
The jury of left-leaning, pro-war GOP and Never Trump talking heads on the networks allege DeSantis’s statement that the fighting in Ukraine is a “territorial dispute” was an unforced error that severely damages his 2024 prospects, if not disqualifies him for the presidency. They’re wrong both about the policy and the politics of opposing an open-ended commitment to an endless and unwinnable war in Ukraine.
Making the conclusions about this kerfuffle particularly misleading, it came in the same month the country observes the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. While most Americans rightly remember that war as a catastrophic error, some of the same people attacking DeSantis are trying to rewrite the history of the last war they promoted.
Graham,
