While all facts are true, not all facts are relevant.

And what are the relevant facts in this crisis where 100,000 Russian troops are now stationed along the Ukrainian border?

Fact one: There is not now and never has been a vital U.S. interest in Ukraine to justify risking a war with Russia.

History tells us that. Even as Ukraine was suffering in the Stalin-induced Holodomor, the terror-famine of 1932-33, President Franklin Roosevelt granted diplomatic recognition to the Bolshevik regime.

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As 1991 turned into 1992, America appeared to have arrived at the apogee of its national power and world prestige.

President George H.W. Bush had just sent an army of half a million men to expel, in a 100-hour campaign, Saddam Hussein's invading army from Kuwait. The world, including Russia, China and Iran, had supported U.S.-led military action to overturn Iraq's aggression.

Our Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, had just collapsed and disintegrated into 15 nations. The Warsaw Pact had dissolved. All of Eastern Europe was free. We were the sole surviving superpower.

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Here we are on the eve of Christmas, that day of joy set aside for celebrating the birth of Christ who came down to earth 2,000 years ago to show mankind the way to eternal salvation.

Yet, the present mood of America at Christmas 2021 seems better captured by Jimmy Carter in his "malaise speech" in July of 1979, several days before he cashiered half of his Cabinet.

"The threat" to America, said Carter, "is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation."

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"Get off our front porch. Get out of our front yard. And stay out of our backyard."

This might stand as a crude summary of two draft security pacts Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov delivered last week as Russia's price for resolving the crisis created by those 100,000 Russian troops on Ukraine's borders.

Ryabkov's demands appear to be a virtual ultimatum, designed to be rejected by the U.S. and NATO and provide Moscow with a pretext for an invasion and occupation of part or all of Ukraine.

Among the maximalist Russian demands:

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As President Joe Biden's poll numbers sank this fall, and the presidentially ambitious in his party began to stir, the White House put out the word.

Forget all that 2020 campaign chatter about Biden being a "transitional president." He intends to run and win a second term.

Well, perhaps. Yet, skepticism abounds.

First, if Biden ran in 2024 and won, his second term would extend to January 2029, when he would be 86 years old. He is already, at 79, the oldest president in history. Does Biden look like a signal-calling quarterback with seven years of playing days ahead of him?

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