President says Putin has 'really let me down' at the Chequers press conference; the next sentence is about Palestine.

Hon. Thursday morning at Chequers, the country house outside London where British prime ministers entertain heads of state. Joint press conference. American President. British Prime Minister. Two podiums. Two flags. Cameras.

The President was asked, naturally, about Russia. He answered, naturally, about Russia. He said, in the same long sentence in which he said many other things, that Vladimir has really let me down. Vladimir. As in Vladimir Putin, the man who is, by all available evidence, conducting a continued war of aggression against Ukraine, the man who has been sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, the man for whom an arrest warrant exists at the International Criminal Court for the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children, the man the President of the United States hosted on a red carpet in Anchorage on the fifteenth of August.

Let him down. Like a contractor who did not show up to install the cabinets.

The next item. The Prime Minister, who is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has decided that the United Kingdom will recognize Palestinian statehood. He did so the week before. The President made it clear at the podium that he disagrees with this decision. He used the word disagreement. He said it at an angle that did not quite get to fight. The Prime Minister stood next to him while he said it.

After all that, the two leaders announced a tech prosperity investment package, the figure on which was 250 billion pounds across the Atlantic. They announced it together. They smiled. The Prime Minister called it the biggest investment package of its kind in British history by a country mile. They shook hands.

The investment number is real. The Putin letdown is also real. The disagreement on Palestine is also real. All three of these things were said at the same press conference. The reporters did not know, at the end, which one was the headline. The headline turned out to be the let me down, because the let me down is the kind of phrase a man uses about somebody he had a deal with and not about an ongoing land war on European soil.

You ever notice how the men who say peace through strength keep ending up let down by the people they thought peace was for sale with.

Funny how that works.