Welcome to Beg to Beg to Differ.

The Bullworks Weekly Roundtable discussion featuring civil conversation across the political spectrum.

We range from center left to center right.

I'm Mona Charren, indicated columnist and policy editor at the Bullwork, and I am joined

by our regulars Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution and the Wall Street Journal

and Linda Chavez of the Nisk Cannon Center.

Damon Linker is out this week with COVID, but we are fortunate to be joined by Ben Wittis, co-founder of Lawfair

and Senior Fellow at Brookings as well, and our special guest this week is Charles Lane,

columnist for the Washington Post. Welcome one and all. I would like to begin

with the letter that was sent by the Progressive Caucus this week to President Biden

urging that he change his position on Ukraine. The group of 30 progressives did a lot of throat clearing about how much

they support Ukraine and don't like it when aggressive fascist dictatorships invade

other countries but they said,

we urge you to make vigorous diplomatic efforts

in support of a negotiated settlement and ceasefire,

engage in direct talks with Russia, explore prospects for blah blah blah blah and they went on that way.

I think this letter had become public for maybe 24 hours before it was withdrawn with a story about how there was

some staffer who had screwed up. I'm going to start with you Chuck Lane. I'm going to quote Jake Auchincloss, a Democratic

member of Congress who said, this letter is an olive branch to a war criminal who's losing his war.

What say you?

There's so much to say.

I've actually wrote my column about it this week.

...