Yo, Donald Trump! Eli Lake has so had it with you! Listen up! Condemn Putin, goddamnit! Condemn him and all his works! No more of your tricks! No more “tough action and words from the underlings, and baffling nonsense or sinister silence from the president.” Stop being so sinister! Eli is putting you on notice:
“This can no longer do. It’s time for the president to address the Russian attack in his own words on and off camera. If Trump doesn’t take this opportunity to show a bare minimum of presidential leadership, then he will be proving his most virulent opponents correct when they say the president has something to hide about his relationship to Russia.”
Trump’s waffling on the recent attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter is indeed Trump at his worst (pretty much), suggesting, among other things, that he really doesn’t consider murder a bad thing necessarily, but Eli’s hysterical reaction—and dire threat that Trump’s failure to cleanse himself by obeying Eli’s command shall be taken as an official confession of guilt—is, well, funny. It’s “funny” that Eli and his neocon compatriots in arms, like Bret Stephens and Eliot Cohen hate Trump because they’re afraid he’ll make peace, while people like myself hate him because we’re afraid he’ll make wars.
Afterwords
The split between neocons and, well, normal people is exemplified by their delight at the appointment of political attack dog Mike Pompeo as secretary of state. Hey, we won’t have peace when Mike’s around!
UPDATE
The U.S. has both sanctioned Russia for interfering in our elections and joined with Britain, France, and Germany in condemning Russia’s response to British demands for information about the use of “Novichok” nerve gas in Great Britain as so unsatisfactory as to strongly suggest Russian involvement in the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal. Whether this will be sufficient to assuage the ire of Eli remains to be seen.
