ROGER KIMBALL: The Ukraine debacle showcases Joe Biden’s many failures.

Speaking of economic matters, do you remember the good old days when America was energy independent, nay, when it was producing so much energy that it was actually a net exporter? Probably you do. It was was recent as 2020.

Then came the Biden administration. One of their first acts was to shut down the Keystone Pipeline, a major source of energy production, not to mention thousands of jobs in the US. At the same time, they green-lighted the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to bring gas from Russia to Germany. In response to Putin’s excellent adventure in Ukraine, the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, suspended certification of the pipeline, but since Germany, having shuttered its nuclear power plants, is heavily dependent on the gas supplied from Russia, it is anyone’s guess how long German resolve will last.

I bring in gas in order to present you with this cheery data point. In 2020, when Donald Trump was president, the price of natural gas was $4.36 per 1,000 cubic feet. In 2021, with Joe Biden presiding, prices more than doubled, averaging $9 per 1,000 cubic feet. Not only does that mean that it costs more to heat your house this winter. It also means means that the US is helping to fund Russia’s military adventurism.

I am not sure that most Americans could locate Ukraine on a map. And the truth is our interest in the region is negligible. It has been important to Hunter Biden’s cash flow, it is true, and it has furnished Joe Biden with an opportunity to display his thuggishness on television, but it is a thoroughly corrupt state that is teetering on the edge of economic collapse. Some cynical commentators think that the media and The Committee are riveted on Ukraine as a way of distracting attention from such things as runaway inflation, the stock market disintegration, and the institution of police tyranny in Canada. Sounds plausible.

In any event, as my friend Roger L. Simon observed, the crisis in Ukraine is entirely on Joe Biden. We’re told that Biden’s approval rating is down to 39 percent. That’s the official number. The real number, I suspect, is in single digits.

Well, Biden still has the blue states to prop him up — oh, wait: Yikes: Just 36% rate Biden’s performance as “good” — in New York.