I have a real problem with:

• any leader, especially a democratically-elected one, addressing the democratically-elected legislature of the United States, while wearing military fatigues or any military dress. We have not (yet) had a military coup.
• The Speaker of the House, who tore up President Donald Trump's State of the Union, fawning all over a foreign leader, even to the point of displaying a Ukrainian flag. They would never celebrate the American flag that way.
• It's worth noting that Zelensky, who is Jewish, wished his audience a "Merry Christmas" but not a "Happy Hanukkah." It was a bit strange.

I have long admired Zelensky for his courage in standing against Putin -- a threat Democrats belatedly realized only because of their befuddled conspiracy theory that turned Putin from Obama's pal to their domestic enemy.

I also find his general ingratitude unappealing. He lectured to Israelis about how Ukrainians -- some of whom joined the Nazis in persecuting Jews -- saved Jews from the Holocaust. He attacked Elon Musk, whose satellites arguably saved Ukraine when Russia shut down the country's Internet, at massive cost to Musk, for having the temerity to suggest that negotiations might be necessary.

Now he wants more money from Congress. "Is it enough? Honestly, not really."

I think Zelensky gets away with this because Democrats have fetishized him; because people in the "military-industrial complex" are making money hand over fist; and because the Biden Administration has decided that this is a cheap way to remove Russia as a world power. They might argue that their strategy is working: after all, the Russian military has been exposed as something of a paper tiger, at least in conventional terms, and Russia has lost global support.

But, as in Iraq, a vacuum created by the erosion of one enemy has created new room for another: China. Russia is now closely tied to China, economically and otherwise, and a defeated Russia would simply become China's northern colony.

I don't think the U.S. should stop supporting Ukraine. But I do think that Biden, who campaigned on "diplomacy," should do more to insist that this war end with a lasting peace agreement and not with Russian capitulation or regime change.

There was some hope when Republicans looked certain to win Congress, when Kevin McCarthy said that the days of the blank check were over. The weaker Republican result, coupled with Mitch McConnell's astonishing willingness to fork over additional billions to every Democrat spending authority, have meant that the one possible brake on the march to expanding war has been removed.

I fear that the Democrats' absurd foreign policy may lead us -- and Ukraine -- to disaster. And I wish they cared as much about our border as theirs.