So I Was Wrong Again -- American Politics and No Way Out
About 30 years ago there was a Kevin Costner movie called "No Way Out". If you never saw it and ever intend to, there is a major spoiler coming. Anyway, Costner is a military officer having a fling with a woman played by Sean Young, who is also having a fling with Costner's superior officer. Sean Young turns up dead (probably a fantasy for the director since every director who worked with her wanted to kill her). There is some sense that Costner's superior officer may be guilty, and Costner is named by the officer to lead the investigation, but with a twist -- the officer is trying to get the girl's death blamed on a mysterious Russian spy, who may or may not even be real, to divert attention from his adultery and possibly from the fact that he was probably the killer. Things evolve, and it appears that Costner is going to be framed not only for the girl's death but also as the probably mythical spy. The movie is about Costner desperately trying to escape this frame, and in the end is successful. But in the final scene, Costner is seen speaking in Russian to his controller. He is the spy! The original accusation was totally without evidence, almost random, meant to divert attention from his superior's likely crimes, but by accident they turned out to be correct.
I feel like that with the Russian election hacking story. For months I have said the Russian election hacking story was a nothing. It made little sense and there was pretty much zero evidence. It was dreamed up within 24 hours of the election by a Clinton campaign trying to divert attention and blame for their stunning loss. I have called it many times the Obama birth certificate story of this election.
But it turns out that pursuing any Trump connection whatsoever with Russia has turned up some pretty grubby stories. In particular, seeing a Presidential campaign -- and the President's son -- fawning over unfriendly foreign governments to get their hands on oppo research is just plain ugly. That the Clinton campaign may have done shady things to get oppo research of their own is irrelevant to the ethics here (and perhaps one good justification for electing Republicans, since the media seems to be more aggressive at holding Republicans to account for such things).
Sorry. I fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never underestimate the stupidity and ethical flexibility of politicians."
Postscript: In general, my enforced absence from both twitter and highly partisan blogs is going quite well. I will write more about it soon, but I have to mention this: I had a small break in my isolation yesterday when I was scanning around the radio on a business trip. I landed on Rush Limbaugh, and would have moved on immediately but the first words I heard out of his mouth were "golden showers". OK, I was intrigued. He then used that term about 3 more times in the next 60 seconds (apparently he was going with the "everybody does it" defense of Trump by accusing the Clintons of getting oppo research from the Ukraine, or whatever). Anyway, any issue that has a Conservative talk show host discussing golden showers from Russian hookers can't be all bad.
