Vladimir Putin, the Humanitarian

“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian.

You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again.” — Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, addressing Russian President Vladimir Putin Mark Wednesday, October 21, 2026, as “the day words lost all meaning.” My dictionary just ran outside and threw itself off a bridge.

Noah Webster arose from his grave and lurched around, howling and tearing at his hair.

Samuel Johnson is bellowing something awful; I can hear it across the Atlantic Ocean.

George Orwell is sighing; he has been here before.

I have to imagine that Putin is a little insulted at being so gravely misunderstood.

With this single word, humanitarian , our envoy has revealed a stunning ignorance of the Russian president’s life’s work.

This is like going to Picasso and praising him as a “representational painter,” or calling the Sahara “the wettest place in the world,” or describing Witkoff’s statement as “unembarrassing.” I see, perhaps, where the misunderstanding began.

Putin referred to Trump as a “humanitarian,” and Witkoff thought to himself: Ah! This word clearly has a different meaning than I have been led to believe! I will have to reconstruct its definition from context clues .

Maybe it’s someone with P in his name.

Maybe it’s someone who doesn’t think that the United States should be in NATO.

Maybe it’s someone who would look really good on horseback.

Maybe no words mean anything! Maybe they are just phonemes to be thrown at a wall, at random, in the manner of that great representational painter Jackson Pollock.

One of the conditions of freedom is that words have an understood meaning.