Um, what?

Joe, my man, I have bad news.

This is the Democratic version of the Bush administration boasting in 2004 that they’d kept us safe from terror. True, critics replied — except for that one time.

Via Contemptor, what was Sleepy Joe *trying* to say here? Because if he was trying to say what he ended up saying then he really is too old to run.

“Let me put it this way, if he wins re-election, I promise you there’ll be no NATO in four years or five years.”

“No more NATO,” Biden said. “Why did we set up NATO, Chris? So no one nation could abuse the power in the region in Europe, that would suck us in the bay they did in World War I and World War 2. It’s being crushed.”

“Look at Putin. While Putin is trying to undo our elections, he is undoing elections in Europe. Look what’s happening in Hungary, look what’s happening in Poland, look what’s happening in Moldova. Look what’s happening. You think that would happen on my watch or Barack’s watch? You can’t answer that, but I promise it wouldn’t have, and it didn’t.”

Maybe he’s making a point about Putin expanding his influence campaigns abroad. Fine, okay, Biden might say, Russia successfully interfered in our election, but at least Barack and I would have cracked down afterward and tried to stop them from interfering in others.” Laying aside how pitifully lame that answers would be, though, is it remotely plausible? Russia famously walked all over the Obama administration.

"If you elect me President, I'm not just going to let Putin invade Ukraine, blow passenger jets out of the sky and tamper with our elections, and I especially won't say anyone who thinks that has a cold war mentality and is outdated." https://t.co/XwAcRq9i7G

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 5, 2019

Miller could have also included the time Obama wimped out after threatening to bomb Assad and then let Putin broker a chemical-weapons “disarmament” deal for Syria instead. We’re talking about a guy here whose most memorable foreign policy pronouncement during the 2012 campaign was mocking Mitt Romney to his face in front of 50 million people for believing that Russia was still America’s foremost enemy abroad. O and Joe weren’t just weak on Putin, they were denialists.

And so, to his point that Trump might try to withdraw the U.S. from NATO during his second term (a legit worry), one might reply that NATO will be toothless regardless of who wins next November. Whether there’s still a formal treaty in place or not.

To its credit, the media hasn’t been shy about noting how weak Obama’s response was in 2016 upon learning of Russian campaign interference. (Although that’s likely just because they’re miffed at him for having damaged Hillary’s chances by his inaction.) This WaPo piece from late 2017 is probably the most well-known story on the subject…

“It is the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend,” said a former senior Obama administration official involved in White House deliberations on Russia. “I feel like we sort of choked.”…

“The punishment did not fit the crime,” said Michael McFaul, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia for the Obama administration from 2012 to 2014. “Russia violated our sovereignty, meddling in one of our most sacred acts as a democracy — electing our president. The Kremlin should have paid a much higher price for that attack. And U.S. policymakers now — both in the White House and Congress — should consider new actions to deter future Russian interventions.”

…but BuzzFeed was on the same beat months earlier with a feature entitled “How Russia Hacked Obama’s Legacy.” You would think Biden would be sensitive enough to perceptions *on his own side* that he and O whiffed on Russia that he’d take care not to go into tough-guy mode when discussing Trump’s flaws, but no. I wonder if Harris or someone else will ding him for this at the next debate, knowing how sore a subject Russian interference remains for Democratic voters. If they’re looking for a president who’ll stand up to Moscow, clearly Biden’s not the guy.

Nice job here by ace reporter Chris Cuomo, by the way, allowing Biden’s bizarro “wouldn’t happen on our watch” comment to go completely unchallenged.