The Collusion Narrative Collapses

As everyone expected, the Russian collusion narrative definitively collapsed yesterday. When the Justice Department indicted thirteen Russian trolls and three Russian companies for attempting to influence the presidential election it added that no Americans had been part of the plot. We had already had it on excellent authority that collusion is not a crime, but no one much cared about that.

Democrats who cannot accept that they lost to Donald Trump have been trying to undo the election results in the name of… you guessed it… democracy. They have been on television baying at the moon, accusing Trump of treason, mass murder, dementia and bad sex… all of which are supposed to be grounds for impeachment… or worse. 

You recall the mini-frenzy over Trump’s health, both mental and physical. You recall that the dementia narrative collapsed when Trump’s physician spend an hour answering idiotic questions from reporters who knew nothing of medicine. Anyway, it ended the dementia narrative. Puff… up in smoke.

Time to move on to another narrative, another way to undermine and delegitimize a president who won a fair election. All in the name of democracy… which depends, in very large part, on the ability to accept when one had has lost and to extend a gracious hand to the winner. Who’s undermining democracy now?

Anyway, the Wall Street Journal editorializes this morning that we ought perhaps not throw ourselves into the highest dudgeon over yet another media machine doing opposition research and trying to influence hearts and minds. Compared to the Republican and Democrat influence machines, to say nothing of the mainstream media, this Russian trolls were small change:

The indictment also contains no evidence that Russia’s meddling changed the electoral results. A U.S. presidential campaign is a maelstrom of information, charges and counter-charges, media reports and social-media chatter. The Russian Twitter bursts became part of this din and sought to reinforce existing biases more than they sought to change minds. Their Twitter hashtags included “#Hillary4Prison,” for example, which you could find at the souvenir desk at the GOP convention.

Of course, while this was all happening, the man in charge was Barack Obama. It is  useful to remind ourselves of this, being as the hatred of Donald Trump, hatred that is positively dripping off the lips of his media detractors, is really an expression of mad love for Obama… the Messiah, sent by God to save America, the man who could do no wrong. It counts as one of the greatest cover-ups in American history, this effort to excuse all of Obama’s errors:

The indictment also makes us wonder what the Obama Administration was doing amid all of this. Where were top Obama spooks James Clapper and John Brennan ? Their outrage became public only after their candidate lost the election. If they didn’t know what was going on, why not? And if they did, why didn’t they let Americans in on the secret? President Obama sanctioned Russia for its meddling only after the election.

Fair enough, the Journal explains that we need to hear more from the White House:

All of which makes the White House reaction on Friday strangely muted. Its statement understandably focused on the lack of collusion evidence and made one reference to “the agendas of bad actors, like Russia.” But given how much Russia’s meddling has damaged his first year in office, Mr. Trump should publicly declare his outrage at Russia on behalf of the American people. The Kremlin has weakened his Presidency. He should make Russia pay a price that Mr. Obama never did.

As for those who are cheering the Mueller exoneration of Trump, we should all keep in mind that the investigation is not over and that, for all we know, the next round will not be so favorable to the president.