In the classic fairy tale, the wife of a fisherman keeps demanding more and more of an enchanted flounder. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky keeps coming back to Joe Biden for more weapons, bigger weapons, always more and more. At the same time, he claims that his country is winning.
Ukraine as the Fisherman’s Wife
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
3 Comments. Leave new
“Brandon the Enchanted Flounder,” a literary classic.
Actually, Biden would be the fisherman, who everyone who reads the story wonders aloud, how could he make such a mess of this? Three wishes and he botched everything. It’s like those people who win the lottery and end up dead broke. Here’s his three wishes:
1. I wish I’d let Bernie win it fair and square.
2. I wish they’d never dragged me out of retirement.
3. I wish I’d picked anyone, anyone, even an inanimate carbon rod instead of Kamala Harris as my president, I mean vice president. What was I thinking? I mean, what were the people who tell me what to say and do thinking? Look at the fiasco I have to navigate now. They won’t let her run as president because we might as well just hand it right over to, uh, what’s his name? Trump. And I’m too tired to even hope to actually run for president if I have to leave my basement. Maybe we can declare another COVID emergency?
4. Oh, I wish I had more wishes.
(The fish: Actually, yes, you are permitted to wish for more wishes. Funny how no one thinks to ask about that before they exhaust their wish supply. Sanders probably woulda. …)
Zelenskyy’s political future is on the line, which is why he demands the armory of the US National Guard. He has probably made promises to certain Ukrainian oligarchs and those promises are probably not getting kept. He does not want to end up like Diem of South Vietnam, he wants to victorious like Lech Walesa in 1989-90, but I think he will be whacked in the end when his usefulness is over and the ownership class of Ukraine needs a scapegoat.