What happened to make the Germans write better about Biden’s visit to Poland than some of the opposition and the media say?

I read with disbelief the contributions of some journalists and opposition politicians who used US President Joe Biden’s unannounced visit to Kyiv to attack the Polish government.

They argued that Biden’s meeting with President Volodymyr Żeleński would overshadow the subsequent visit of the President of the United States to Warsaw. Is it blacked out? We will be able to judge this in a few tens of hours, when the plane carrying the US president leaves Warsaw Chopin Airport and takes off. But that was not the most important thing about this visit. She could and had the right to surpass the later ones. The point is that we rather enjoy this visit to Kiev, because the war in Ukraine is our common cause. I don’t understand how it was possible to write that it would “overshadow” Biden’s visit to Warsaw. The US president went to Kiev to show Putin that he cannot count on the West succumbing to Russian terror. That will certainly make the Ukrainians happy, but it should also make us happy. Especially that the continued and strong support of the West for Ukraine is also in our interest. And President Biden assured yesterday and today that the free world will not give way to Russia. The visit to Kiev reinforced these commitments.

READ MORE: Bielecki Is Furious Again! “Kiev became the most important thing for Biden and Poland was just a stopover.” Commentators: “Disgusting and anti-Polish”

Years ago I gave up hope of substantive criticism of the government from the Civic Platform. Every authority needs criticism. But the platform chose otherwise. She bet on “totality” of which she became a hostage. I have written about it many times on our website. But it seems there are times in history when you have to rise above political divisions. This “moment” has been going on for almost a year now. It started on February 24, 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine. I remember that only a few years ago it was said that the question of Polish security had been removed from current politics. That words on this issue should be weighed and not used as a club to beat political opponents. I don’t know if it really was. Maybe before 2015? I know there was such a belief that this should be the case. But today even that belief no longer exists. Nowadays, any opportunity is good to hit a political opponent. I must admit that I look at it with increasing disgust, but also with melancholy, because it doesn’t get any better.

Criticism and even open ridicule from some opposition politicians and journalists meant that even in the German press one could read much more flattering remarks about Poland. And it must be emphasized that these comments were often simultaneously critical of the German government. So it has come to the point that even the Germans speak and write better about Biden’s visit to Poland than part of the opposition and the media in our country.

READ MORE:

– The German press on the “symbolic” visit to Poland. “Tagesspiegel”: Biden in Kiev and Warsaw. Berlin or Paris are not on the route

– “Frankfurter Rundschau”: Biden flies over Germany to Poland. It seems that Warsaw is the new Berlin. “But it’s not all…”

– Western media welcomed the attitude of Poland and the courage of Joe Biden. “Le Figaro”: “Poland literally embraced Ukraine”

So we have a situation where part of the Western media appreciates Poland’s efforts to help Ukraine, while part of the Polish opposition and its supporting media write something completely different.

Agreed, disagreements are normal in a democracy. You can even say it’s Christmas because if there are no holidays, it means there must be something wrong with democracy. It probably has more in common with the regimes in Minsk or Moscow. There is also no shortage of critics of Biden’s visit to Kiev and Warsaw in the United States itself. But in the Polish public debate all brakes are already loose. There are practically no boundaries here. Unfortunately, this will not bring Poland any good.