As I listened to this week’s first episode of The Editors today, something Jim said made me kick myself over having missed it. Our friend Abe Greenwald made a similar point on the Commentary podcast.
Both of them invited our attention to Trump White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s claim of “self-defense” regarding the controversial second strike that killed two shipwrecked survivors of the first September 2 missile attack on a suspected drug boat. Jim and Abe made excellent points about how this self-defense claim was absurd on its face (there being no threat out in the middle of the ocean from the remnants of a small boat and whatever suspected drug cargo remained after it had been hit by a first round of missile fire). The self-defense gambit is also in tension with other rationalizations that administration officials have given.
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