The Disgraceful Politics of Personal Destruction
Has Targeted a Young Ukrainian-American Student
This sort of thing has no place in our society
Below my text you will find a post from something called
Gateway Pundit
. The post is inaccurate in the extreme and, among other things, dangerous.
Why dangerous?
In addition to dragging an innocent family through rumors and innuendos that are not true, the post suggests to me an analogy that unfortunately applies to Ukraine.
If one happens to be standing near a sewer explosion they get sh__ all over them. Figuratively Ukraine has been standing next to a hyper-partisan American sewer explosion and is getting sh__ all over itself and the relationship it has had and needs with the United States - and the United States needs with Ukraine.
This stuff needs to stop!
Until receiving the post below I was totally unaware of
Gateway Pundit,
but I was immediately troubled by its post when it was forwarded to me.
Whatever else is going on in the partisan political dynamic involving Ukraine, this so-called “Breaking Exclusive” seemed way over the top and, frankly made little sense to me. So I did some checking.
You can read what is said about a young woman and her family in the post below but here is the truth.
Ivanna is a young Ukrainian-American activist, born in Michigan, who is interested in helping Ukraine.
Ivanna
interned
for Nancy Pelosi in 2017 and like many, if not all, congressional interns on both sides of the aisle loved the experience of Capitol Hill. She also worked at the
United States Embassy
in Kyiv for the last five years as a summer hire.
Currently she is an honors student in her fourth year at the University of Michigan/Ann Arbor.
I mentioned she is an activist – she has participated on panels regarding Ukraine including one in Washington organized by Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur as Co-Chair of the House Ukraine Caucus. She has spoken at a forum on Chornobyl at Oakland University in Michigan. [I add that I have participated in numerous programs regarding Ukraine with Ms. Kaptur and others in the Ukraine Caucus - sometimes as their guest and sometimes when they have been guests of our U.S.-Ukraine Foundation. I have been published on Chornobyl and Nadia, my wife, has spoken forcefully about Chornobyl and the disgraceful Kremlin response at the United Nations.] Heck, I am proud to identify with Ivanna!
Ukraine has been a bipartisan issue with broad support in Congress and that bipartisanship needs to remain, and remain strong. The current hyperactive partisan finger-pointing here with Ukraine being bounced around in the process should not be allowed to weaken our support for Ukraine in its fight to defend itself against Putin’s military, propaganda, and clandestine war against Ukraine.
As for the others mentioned in Jim Hoft’s “Breaking Exclusive,” the photos of Roman Woronowycz are from his Face Book page when he was visiting his daughter in Washington. He is from the Detroit area, worked for
The Ukrainian Weekly
(and American publication), then the Detroit
Free Press,
and then went to work for USAID (with postings in many countries and is now in Kyiv). He is not and has never been in the Department of State’s Foreign Service. The photos of his wife with a rifle came from her volunteer efforts delivering supplies of food and clothing to the Ukrainian warrior volunteers on a weekly basis during 2013-2015. [Note that in Ukraine like happens here – volunteers respond to crisis faster than government. When Russia invaded it was first volunteer warriors who offered resistance. It took time for Ukraine’s military – which had been decimated under Ukraine’s previous president who was for all intents and purposes under Putin’s strong influence.] Her photo in the
Gateway Pundit
post with the gun was/is simply a memory after a soldier let her hold his unloaded weapon. She was born in Ukraine, but has been a naturalized U.S. citizen since the 1990s.
I have no idea as to Ivanna’s or her parent’s partisan American political views. One clearly is to imply a view by reviewing the
Gateway Pundit
post, but keeping in mind all the errors in the post I would have to consider the whole thing fake news. And - more important to me - consider instead how the spreading of the email surely affects Ivanna and her family. It is a disgrace they have had to put up with this. They should not be collateral damage to the hyper partisanship here in Washington.
Nor should Ukraine be collateral damage to an American partisan battle – we must work to see Ukraine remains appropriately a bipartisan concern with all sides of our political spectrum supporting Ukraine.
The type of conspiracy garbage below must stop!
