No, I’m not saying it, but somebody certainly is. And that somebody is the New York Post. When the most recent ember under the Russia, Russia, Russia smoke emerged this week, I wearily wrote about it, describing the debacle as fishy sounding enough to warrant a closer look. The release of Junior’s emails certainly gave President Trump’s detractors plenty to crow about and continue banging the drums, but even with the presumed effort at belated transparency setting the presses on fire yet again, what we’re seeing appears to be the work of a political novice. The President’s son was probably eager to find something to assist in Dad’s campaign efforts, but having spent no time swimming among the gators in the DC swamp, he really shoved both feet in his mouth.
That doesn’t mean that I think DTJ is unintelligent. He strikes me as a sharp, capable guy who has achieved impressive success in the private sector. He’s just not a politician. Still, the New York Post was a bit less charitable than I when they concluded (as I mentioned above) that, Donald Trump Jr. is an idiot.
We see one truly solid takeaway from the story of the day: Donald Trump Jr. is an idiot.
In the heat of your father’s presidential campaign, a bozo British publicist e-mails you to set up a sitdown with a “Russian government attorney” promising “documents and information” to “incriminate Hillary” courtesy of the “Crown prosecutor of Russia” as “part of” the Russian government’s “support” for dad — and you eagerly take the meeting…
Democrats and the media are frothing to find something criminal in it all, with the most unhinged talking treason. What it clearly was, was criminally stupid.
Their conclusion runs along the same lines as my prediction on Monday. In the end, it’s highly unlikely that even the most ardent opponents of the President will find anything criminal here, no matter how many cow pies they throw at the wall. There seems to be no provable connection between the now infamous “Russian lawyer” and the Kremlin. None of the important “documents and information” she promised turned out to have enough meat on them to amount to a hill of beans. And there’s no evidence that the President knew the meeting even happened.
But that doesn’t mean that the primary objective of the story wasn’t achieved. The MSM has a new chew toy and they won’t be letting go of it until they find a replacement. Dan Balz at the Washington Post was quickly out with a column describing these revelations as being, “unlike any other in the Russia investigation.”
As for the rest of Dan’s colleagues at the Washington Post, this magic elixir is certainly working. I receive the Post’s “Today’s Headlines” email each morning and today there were eight items in the “Top Stories” section and six in the “Opinions” section. Of those 14, eleven of them were about DTJ and Russia, Russia, Russia. There was, to read the Washington Post, virtually nothing else going on in the world.
But will they succeed in their desire to undo the results of the last election? That all comes down to the word we keep hearing over and over again from the most impeachment-minded among the media and the Democrats – collusion. Was DTJ actually trying to “collude” with the Russian government to influence the election? Or was he gathering opposition research? Whatever the intent, it failed spectacularly, but by allowing the story to fester and then leak out in this fashion he’s given his father yet another headache and provided a moveable feast for cable news roundtables.
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