Clapper lambastes Russia; wait, isn’t Joe Biden in Russia?

Vice President Joe Biden is in Russia, lecturing officials there on the need for reform but emphasizing his earlier and friendly metaphor, echoed by his boss Barack Obama, that it is time for the U.S. to “push the reset button” in its relationship with Russia. While in Moscow, Biden also met with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

While Biden is in Moscow, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He tells visibly stunned senators that the biggest threats to our nation are Russian and China. Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) suggests that in his opinion, Iran and North Korea are more menacing to the U.S.

Soon thereafter, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) goes on Fox News and calls for Clapper’s resignation. “Three strikes and you’re out” — the first strike, Graham explained, was seeming not to know, while being interviewed on ABC, that men allegedly planning a terrorist attack had been arrested in London, and the second was describing Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood as “largely secular.”

About the only worse example of flatfooted timing would have been if Clapper had delivered his remarks last January while President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama hosted Chinese President Hu Jintao at a White House State Dinner.