Moscow, Monday, Feb, 14. Woof Bluster with an SOS report for Spoof On Sports. The imminent threat of Russia's invasion of Ukraine disappeared Monday as President Vladimir Putin offered a Valentine's gift of peace to the world. The "no war" decision followed his Saturday telephone conversation with U S President Joe Biden in which Putin offered a diplomatic solution to the tense situation on the Ukraine border. If Biden would exert pressure on the International Olympic Committee, forcing that body to allow 15-year-old Kamila Valieva to skate in the women's figure skating event at the Beijing Olympics, Putin would end the threat of a Ukraine invasion.
While Biden failed to mention the Putin proposal when his office gave a brief report to the press of Saturday's phone conversation, it is known that Biden made a series of follow-up calls to China prior to the favorable decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sports which allows Valieva to compete on Tuesday in the women's event. Olympic officials will not confirm that Biden made such calls, but several members of the arbitration committee who had been most vocal in calling for Valieva's suspension insisted the decision to let her skate was reasonable since she might be disqualified after the event is over.
Republican congressmen were incensed, however, both by the Olympic committee's decision and by the president's interference in a sporting event. Mitch McConnell, Republican minority leader in the Senate, called for the impeachment of the president. "Politics and sports shouldn't mix," he said, "and the president has crossed that red line in the sand. Furthermore, we have repeatedly warned of the leftist nature of the Biden administration, and his bowing to the will of a former communist, now capitalist, Russian president is a clear example of his administration's cow-towing to the Russian party line.'
There is one hitch in this arrangement. If the skating judges don't award Valieva enough points for a gold, will the invasion be back on?
