But What About . . .?
19th April 2019
Charles C.W. Cooke resists the cuckiness of his colleagues at National Review.
David [French] writes:
the idea that anyone is treating this report as “win” for Trump, given the sheer extent of deceptions exposed (among other things), demonstrates that the bar for his conduct has sunk so low that anything other than outright criminality is too often brushed aside as relatively meaningless.
I disagree. It is, in fact, a “win” for Trump. The central question in American politics over the last two years — and, indeed, the central question that the investigation into Russian interference gradually evolved to answer — was not “is Donald Trump a good person?” or “is Donald Trump a liar?” or “is Donald Trump fit to be president?” or even “does Donald Trump behave well when under investigation?” It was “is Donald Trump a traitor who colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election, and if not, did his campaign do so on his behalf?” The answer to that question — to those questions, in fact — is a resounding “No.”
People in politics, especially people in Washington, persist in measuring Trump by the behavior they expect of Garden Variety Politicians, and whenever he doesn’t match their expectations they denounce his failure to meet their expectations as some kine of character flaw. What they forget is. that there is no basis in either history or morality for Garden Variety Politician behavior to be held up as some sort of ideal. It’s just what they’re used to. Deception is like breathing to a Garden Variety Politician; to complain about Trump is merely to complain that his sliminess is different from te expected sliminess and therefore somehow unacceptable. Additionally, the deranged hatred of Trump is such that even when he does the sort of stuff that Garden Variety Politicians do, they complain about it just because he’s Trump. Obama lied as often and as frequently as Trump is accused of doing (and don’t get me started on Bill Clinton), and even lied in circumstances where Trump tells the truth — such as the objectives of programs — and yet he’s still the Magic Negro and Trump is somehow Hitler.