In her article on the subject, Glick appears to agree with me on what Trump was trying to do:
Trump tried to strike a balance. He spoke respectfully of both Putin’s denials and the US intelligence community’s accusation. It wasn’t a particularly coherent position. It was a clumsy attempt to preserve the agreements he and Putin reached during their meeting.
And it was blindingly obviously not treason.
In fact, Trump’s response to Lemire, and his overall conduct at the press conference, did not convey weakness at all.
Lemire is the AP reporter who asked the “gotcha question.”
But Glick takes her analysis further:
In Obama’s first summit with Putin in July 2009, Obama sat meekly as Putin delivered an hour-long lecture about how US-Russian relations had gone down the drain.
As Daniel Greenfield noted at Frontpage magazine Tuesday, in succeeding years, Obama capitulated to Putin on anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, on Ukraine, Georgia and Crimea. Obama gave Putin free rein in Syria and supported Russia’s alliance with Iran on its nuclear program and its efforts to save the Assad regime. He permitted Russian entities linked to the Kremlin to purchase a quarter of American uranium. And of course, Obama made no effort to end Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.
TRUMP IN contrast has stiffened US sanctions against Russian entities. He has withdrawn from Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. He has agreed to sell Patriot missiles to Poland. And he has placed tariffs on Russian exports to the US.
So if Trump is Putin’s agent, what was Obama?
But that was then. This is now. And the reason behind the reaction of Trump’s opponents is quite obvious: impeachment. To get there, they must drum up the most outrageous charges against him, state them with vehemence and conviction and near-unanimity, and count on both the ignorance and/or the animus towards Trump of enough US voters in November to elect a Democratic-dominated House and pave the way for a successful impeachment vote.
As Glick writes:
To objective observers, the allegation that Trump betrayed the United States by equivocating in response to a rude question about Russian election interference is ridiculous on its face. But Democratic election strategists have obviously concluded that it is catnip for the Democratic faithful. For them it serves as a dog whistle…
But by embracing Brennan’s claim of treason, Pelosi, Hoyer, Schumer and other top Democrats are winking and nodding to the progressive radicals now rising in their party. They are telling the Linda Sarsours and Cynthia Nixons of the party that they will impeach Trump if they win control of the House of Representatives.
Indeed.
One thing I’ve never completely understood is why a party would want to impeach a president if they don’t know they have enough votes in the Senate to convict that president. That’s the higher bar, as the GOP discovered when they tried Clinton. Yes, I realize they believe that impeachment weakens a president, and it certainly distracts any president subject to it. Do they think Trump would voluntarily resign if impeached? I certainly don’t think so. Do they think they would get a Senate conviction because enough Republicans would vote with them? Perhaps.
Glick goes on to list all the ways that this campaign by Trump’s opponents weakens us in foreign affairs. It’s well worth reading the whole thing.
But Trump’s opponents do not care about that. Many of them would dearly love to weaken us on the world stage, and the rest are so consumed by their Trump-hatred that nothing else matters to them.
No comments:
Post a Comment