Rubio says Patriots weren't 'deliberately denied'; Zelensky asks for the ones Washington still won't release.

…(cont) Here is where the story stood before Tuesday. On October 15th Zelensky told the Financial Times Ukraine was done honoring the cease-fire on Russian oil refineries — "the block is out," he said — and the next day the president called that a disgrace on television. The same week, the Washington Examiner reported the Pentagon was holding up Patriot interceptor shipments that NATO allies had already paid for, with no explanation given. Representative Fitzpatrick promised "full accountability" on it. A former ambassador, William Taylor, said on CBS the pressure in this belonged on Putin, not Kyiv. Four Republican senators and their Democratic colleagues wrote the Pentagon asking whether anyone had ordered the restriction on Ukraine's Starshield satellite access. The British defense secretary said they'd be asking Secretary Hegseth the same thing.

I read all that to Anthony. He said it sounded like a discovery problem — somebody has the answer, and the answer hasn't been produced. I don't know contract law.

Then Tuesday happened.

Secretary Rubio spent forty-five minutes on the phone with Zelensky, the New York Post says, to tell him that nothing had been "deliberately denied." The same day, in India, Rubio told reporters the delay was because "we have our own needs too." Is holding something back for your own needs the same as not denying anything on purpose?

Zelensky had more to say that same day. He told the Guardian that Washington gave no warning before a Russian missile barrage hit power plants in Kyiv Sunday night — his air force spokesman said eleven o'clock came and went with nothing. On CBS, the same day, he asked for something specific — not new weapons, interceptor missiles European countries had already bought, sitting somewhere, that Washington still hasn't released.

I went out to the garage that night because the porch light needed a bulb and I didn't trust myself with the stepladder in the dark. My neighbor Carl has had my torque wrench — good one, the click kind — going on two months. When I asked for it back he told me he never said I couldn't have it, he just hadn't gotten around to finding it. It's sitting in his garage right now, as far as I know. He's not denying me anything. He also doesn't have the wrench in my hand.

Anthony had his keys out Thursday morning, halfway to the car, when I knocked on the window — one more thing, I said, before you go — because I'd been saving a line from back in September I hadn't read him yet. The Hill, September 25th: Zelensky saying the president had given the "final OK" on the Patriot license, "concrete agreements," his own words, three weeks before the Secretary of State called to say that nothing had been deliberately denied.

So was there an agreement, or wasn't there?