This year, one day after his perfunctory commemoration of Pearl Harbor, our president abandoned an ex-Marine – Paul Whelan – in a Russian penal colony.

President Biden, instead, brokered the release of, as Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts emblazoned on Twitter, “a Black queer woman” who plays basketball.

Brittney Griner was swapped for Viktor “Merchant of Death” Bout, who was once shoulder to shoulder with Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s most-wanted list.

Given Biden’s string of derelictions and betrayals, this desertion shouldn’t be a stunner. He’s turned a blind eye to the protesting citizenry of Iran and China, destabilized Afghanistan, and effectively turned our southern border agents into Walmart greeters.

I am appalled by December 8th’s revelation.

Over 50 years ago, a young Navy pilot named John McCain was shot down during the Vietnam War. A couple of years into his detainment at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” the Viet Cong offered to release McCain. McCain declined. He abided stalwartly by the military’s code of “first prisoner in, first prisoner out.”

Conversely, Brittney Griner, known for her WNBA season-long snubbing of the national anthem, is now back on U.S soil. Paul Whelan left behind, she is being bizarrely lionized in a woke spotlight of identity politics.

What respect I would have had if Ms. Griner had shown the preternatural courage of one John McCain, and with patriotic guts fully exposed, proclaimed to Russia, the United States and the world: “I, Brittney Griner, will leave no man or woman behind.”

Scott R. Hammond
Portland