Dec.09

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

A Slam Dunk for Biden?

One wonders what George Washington would think if you could bring him back to life and tell him that, one day in December of 2022, the biggest story in the land would be about a Black lesbian basketball player who was traded to the Russians for an arms merchant. Once you explained to him what basketball is, and possibly what a lesbian is, our guess is he'd be pretty surprised.

In any event, that was indeed the big news of the day yesterday. After many months of negotiations, the Biden administration has secured the return of Brittney Griner, the professional basketball player who was arrested, tried and convicted on possession charges after being found to have a small amount of hash oil in her luggage. The price for this was giving arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as the "Merchant of Death," back to the Russians.

The political benefits for the Biden administration are pretty clear here. He was getting hammered for letting Griner rot in a Russian prison, especially by groups representing Black women voters, and especially since the charges against her were pretty clearly trumped up (no pun intended) in order to give Vladimir Putin a bargaining chip. Now, the hammering can end, and the President got himself a nice photo-op:

Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner.

She is safe.
She is on a plane.
She is on her way home. pic.twitter.com/FmHgfzrcDT

— President Biden (@POTUS) December 8, 2022

Who is the woman in the pictures? That's former U.S. senator Kamala Harris, who is now the vice president. Oh, wait. You're probably wondering about the other woman. If so, that's Cherelle Griner, Brittney's wife.

So, Biden gets a "win." That said, it's not an unqualified win by any means. There are also many potential angles for criticism here. Among them:

• The "Job Is Not Done" Angle: At the start of this week, there were three high-profile cases of Americans being held in Russian prisons on apparently dubious charges: Griner, teacher Marc Fogel (possession) and former Marine Paul Whelan (espionage). The White House rescued one, and was unable to extricate the other two. This seems terribly unfair to some, especially since Whelan is nearing 4 years of imprisonment whereas Griner had served less than 1. However, the Russians said that they were only open to discussing Griner, and that Whelan and Fogel were off the table. This is not surprising, as Griner is a popular celebrity in Russia and her imprisonment was causing some blowback from Russian citizens. In any event, the President was left with a choice of rescuing one of the three or rescuing zero, and he chose the former option. Even Whelan's family said they understood why Biden made the choice he did, while nonetheless lamenting that their relative remains incarcerated.
  
  
• The "Unequal Stakes" Angle: On its surface, "arms dealer for basketball player" seems like something of a bum deal. After all, nobody is likely to be seriously harmed if and when Griner goes back to playing basketball. Not so if Bout goes back to selling arms (or to spying, as is rumored to be part of his portfolio). However, it is worth noting that Bout had already served 11 years of a 25-year sentence, and that the judge in the case (Shira Scheindlin, now retired), felt and the time and continues to feel, that the sentence was too harsh. Her hands were tied by federal sentencing guidelines, and 25 years was the minimum that she could impose. So, Bout has paid a pretty serious price for his crimes, perhaps even the appropriate price. And while he could go back to dealing arms and/or spying, it's not going to be easy, given that everyone is now watching him closely, and that any networks and/or connections he had have been neglected for 11 years.
  
  
• The "Enabling Bad Behavior" Angle: This, in our view, is the most substantive criticism to be made here. Again, it's pretty clear that Griner was arrested so that Vladimir Putin could leverage her for concessions from the Biden administration. And it's worked, which means that Putin and other rogue leaders will be encouraged to try the trick again. Even some of Biden's fellow Democrats were critical on this account. For example, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) issued a statement that read, in part: "We must stop inviting dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans overseas as bargaining chips, and we must try to do better at encouraging American citizens against traveling to places like Russia where they are primary targets for this type of unlawful detention."
  
  
• The "Woke" Angle: There are also some who are arguing that Biden saved Griner and not the others because she's Black and lesbian and Whelan and Fogel are white and straight. You will not be surprised to learn, for example, that this was the first thing that Tucker Carlson said on his show last night. Of the four criticisms we've listed here, this is the silliest one. As we note above, Griner was the only one of the three made available by the Russians. Further, the very best evidence that an idea is stupid is that Tucker Carlson embraced it.

In the short term, this is going to be a big story, at least through the weekend. In the long term, we're not so sure. For the Democrats, it's not really something they can run on in 2024. And for the Republicans, and in particular their media allies, the story doesn't fit their particular needs when it comes to ongoing outrage. They prefer things that are clear and simple, even if those things have to be made up out of whole cloth. The Griner situation is complicated, and there are many shades of gray. Further, most of the things that really have legs when it comes to the Carlsons and Sean Hannitys of the world have a conspiratorial angle. There generally has to be at least a hint of shadowy forces operating behind the scenes. We don't see that here. So, our guess is that Fox, et al. will have dropped it by this time next week. (Z)