Good ol' sloppy Joe

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Ukraine on Monday to reassure its leaders that Washington has not forgotten the country (Moscow Times)

High bar there.

The streets of Kiev were shut down as a security precaution for Biden’s visit. Ordinary Ukrainians, however, were largely indifferent to the vice president’s arrival, and newspapers had little coverage ahead of his visit.

Keep up the good work. Note that Biden is supposed to have experience dealing with Slavs (SALT II, "lift and strike" Balkan strategy in the 90s, etc).

Obama was less than warm with Medvedev and Putin; now Biden is giving the impression that we'll "support" Ukraine in its NATO bids ("We are going forward, we have chosen a European path," - isn't Yushchenko just adorable?)-- hopefully they don't think "support" has anything to do with, y'know, aid- military or monetary.

Many observers say the combination of Russia’s base, Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, and Crimea’s mostly Russian-speaking population is a diplomatic tinderbox waiting to explode.

We'll get your back like we got Georgia's, no worries, man. And if the Russians turn off the gas again, oh, dude, we're so there.

It looks like the Ukrainians have come off their 2004 Orange Revolution high, though, so maybe they'll be smart enough never to buy into western promises. Otherwise it looks like all we've done this month is piss everyone off and set ourselves up to disappoint.

In other news, even Britney Spears is smart enough to keep her kids out of Russia.

After the St. Petersburg gig, where she played to 15,000 fans at the Ice Palace, Spears immediately left the country, deciding to spend the two nights before her Moscow show in Stockholm instead. A spokesperson in Moscow confirmed that she left the country between gigs.

There's almost too much warm fuzziness going around. My oh my.