There were Congressmen and Senators waving miniature Ukrainian flags. At one point the crowd actually broke out into a spontaneous chant of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” It was that kind of night.

During the long opening section of his State of the Union address last night, Joe Biden sounded like nothing so much as a president delivering a State of the Union address at the outset of a war between the United States and Russia. Four sentences in, he was declaring an “unwavering resolve that freedom will always triumph over tyranny” — a line that brought the gallery roaring to its feet.

At the end of the speech, Biden said, “God bless our troops” and then, in an apparently impromptu flourish, added what was probably supposed to be “go get ’em.” I’m sure he meant that as a general expression of enthusiasm for America’s military machine “getting” various enemies around the world — but in the most disturbing of a great many verbal stumbles over the course of the evening, it sounded like he said “go get him.” I’m sure I’m not the only one who had the momentary nightmarish thought that “him” might mean Vladimir Putin.