David Ignatius on Biden’s Remarks on Putin: ‘Worthy Adversary’ Was Just Right

EXCERPT:

KLOBUCHAR: “And here’s Biden, and he’s, 'We’ll see what happens. We want to make agreements if we can. But we’ll make clear what the red lines are. He’s a worthy adversary.' The opposite of the kind of nasty, sharp language that Putin was using kind of opened the door to some reasonable balance. And I think if Putin is looking for this moment to shake hands with a strong president, which I think Biden showed this week he actually is, Biden has given it to him. I also think Biden has set himself up pretty well to be sharp about some very specific no’s, some red lines. He’s made clear that on cyber, on ransomware, there are going to be red lines coming out of this meeting. So, you know, it’s so different in tone from Trump. He’s not a supplicant, he doesn’t need Putin. He doesn’t want to be Putin’s friend. I thought the worthy adversary, it was just right in saying, 'I’m ready to sit down with you. I’ll give you that. But I’m not going to give you anything else.'”