 Dear President Vladimir Putin, I'm so sorry that I was not your mother. You plan a trip. You want to go there? I want to go to Italy for four years. I haven't been able to make it because of of the pandemic. And now this, you know, it's like who's gonna what's going to happen there? Yeah. But at the same time, he's being compelled by God. Whenever something earth-shattering and awful happens, we've come to expect grifters, celebrities and attention whores to go to the mattresses with the dumbest and most self-obsessed takes imaginable. That's all well and good. Viva free speech. But we shouldn't stand for that from the serious people, the policy makers, activists and media figures who keep telling us how smart, informed and wise they are. That's especially true when we're talking about actual war. So here's a word to the would be wise. You don't have to serve up glib, instimatic replies that would make Joy Behar wince in the hopes of building a consensus for your preexisting obsessions. The Democratic Socialists of America whose ranks include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders don't have to rush into print to blame America first when Vladimir Putin defies international law. Former Wisconsin governor and perennial Republican presidential contender Scott Walker doesn't have to turn a hot war into a hot take about Joe Biden and immigration of all things. Supposedly sober journalists like NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Angle don't have to flow trial balloons about blowing up rushing convoys and starting World War Three. John Kerry, Joe Biden's special envoy for climate change, doesn't have to drag the topic immediately back to the melting Arctic ice pack. I hope President Putin will help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate. State liquor authorities in Virginia, Oregon, Utah, Ohio and New Hampshire don't have to rush to ban Russian alcohol from store shelves. Democratic members of Congress like Eric Swalwell don't have to propose kicking every Russian student out of the United States right this very moment. And Republicans like Adam Kinzinger can just say no to no fly zones. That would be an absolute act of war. War hysteria is a real thing and it drives decent people to stupidity, madness, and worse. When America declared war on Germany during World War One, people all over the country killed doxins out of patriotic fervor. Walter Jones was the North Carolina congressman who got the house cafeteria to rename French fries Freedom Fries after France refused to join our 2003 invasion of Iraq. Within a couple of years, he regretted not just his culinary intervention, but his support for Operation Iraqi Freedom. And he spent the rest of his life apologizing for a catastrophic military action based on bad intelligence. War is complex and filled with unexpected outcomes. Will the rush say to cut everyday Russians out of the global economic system have its intended effect? Or will it simply increase the scale of human suffering and the resolve of the aggressor? Passwords teach us the folly of quick decisions and courses of action informed by bad information and emotion. Our elites, especially our elected leaders, can leave the glibness to the rest of us and maybe, just maybe, think before they swarm social media like Russian tanks driving deep into Ukraine.