Burn After Reading
I have nothing to say about the latest revelations about Donald Trump Jr.’s emails, because Ross Douthat has said it all in pictures. Or, rather, the Coen Brothers did:
I was not really a “Burn After Reading” fan but the Coens did see this whole thing coming.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) July 11, 2017
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Don Jr. before meeting the Russkies: pic.twitter.com/JoVqTd8CYG
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) July 11, 2017
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Don Jr. checks his email … pic.twitter.com/sc6JdA3fjt
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) July 11, 2017
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— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) July 11, 2017
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— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) July 11, 2017
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This Kevin Drum post is also worth reading, if you are still capable of caring about anything in this regard, and haven’t adopted eastern fatalism in defense of the West.
UPDATE: Ross Douthat’s perfectly-titled post on the subject is an excellent rejoinder to the various and in-isolation-convincing arguments that the smoking gun wasn’t really loaded:
[W]hile this is not direct evidence that the president of the United States was complicit in a virtual burglary perpetrated against the other party during an election season, it’s strong evidence that we should drop the presumption that such collusion is an extreme or implausible scenario.
Instead, the mix of inexperience, incaution and conspiratorial glee on display in the emails suggests that people in Trump’s immediate family — not just satellites like Roger Stone — would have been delighted to collude if the opportunity presented itself. Indeed, if the Russians didn’t approach the Trump circle about how to handle the D.N.C. email trove, it was probably because they recognized that anyone this naïve, giddy and “Burn After Reading”-level stupid would make a rather poor espionage partner.
Read the whole thing.
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