I am forcing myself to read the long, long, long New York Times report on Soviet Russian hacking of the Democrats. What is most striking – other than the ridiculously overdone analogy of the hacking of the DNC before the 2016 election to the Watergate burglary of the DNC before the 1972 election – is the sudden role reversal.
For decades, the Times has mocked the right’s disdain for Moscow. The Gray Lady was the very model of the anti-anti-Communist, personifying the progressive piety that Americans agitating over Russian spies and Soviet infiltration of our government were more of a threat than the Communists they so despised. But suddenly, now that Hillary Clinton has lost the presidential election – an outcome which, the Times fleetingly concedes, just might have had more to do with her profound weaknesses as a candidate than any Russian perfidy – the Times has decided that Putin’s regime has achieved “an ominous historical landmark.” Now, it is Good People who are righteously indignant in their determination to confront our Russian enemies, while Trump and his see-no-evil supporters must be condemned for their indifference to our peril and anxiousness to make nice with the Kremlin.
I’ll have more to say about the Democrat-media “Russians Hacked the Election” narrative in a column coming shortly. For now, though, I can’t help but think that somewhere, Bill Buckley is having a good laugh.