ROGER KIMBALL: Prudence is a Virtue.
The ethical man is also the prudent man. Is Joe Biden prudent? Was it prudent to talk about the prospect of Armageddon when his relevant audience was not a bunch of Democratic moneybags but an increasingly isolated and jumpy Russian dictator?
This was something that worried Emmanuel Macron, the president of France. “We must,” he said in response to Biden’s talk of Armageddon, “speak with prudence” when we speak of such matters. “I have always refused to engage in political fiction,” Macron continued, “especially . . . when speaking of nuclear weapons.”
Most of the time, I am not part of the French president’s fan club. But I do think that he is 100 percent right in this case. It is good, peace-loving advice. It is a pity that Biden and his handlers seem less and less willing to follow it.
Related: Who’s our real president? Joe Biden — or the staffers who keep walking back his comments?