In Principle, If

It's All Completely Notional

Perhaps you share my reaction to in principle, if summits: as soon as I hear about one, a filmy layer of distrust and seething hatred gets in the way, and I can’t think of anything other than some hyperactive doucherocket head of state receiving accolades for being ‘statesmanlike’ and gnarling whatever narrative about hitting the phones he can muster.

Milliseconds later, I don’t care.

Trying out this whole ‘diplomatic coup’ thing (as opposed to snarky pretending ‘the rest of the world doesn’t care’ thing) is really rather a lot like the whole ‘wearing new shoes on a long walk’ thing.

Last time I checked, Russia was waiting for info about what the results of the next Putin-Biden meeting would be before promising to attend it, if, of course, Putin doesn’t first recognize the independence of Russia-occupied puppet republics in Donbas and further invade Ukraine.

That’s where we’re at.