As I noted last evening, now that the collusion hoax is approaching China Syndrome status, most of the people who flogged the story are running for cover. Some, like the oleaginous Turkish guy on YouTube, are claiming that they never actually claimed that Trump conspired with the Russians before the election, but rather afterwords.

Let me be clear before we find out what’s in #MuellerReport, my contention has been that the collusion was after the election. I’ve said countless times that I don’t care about tweets sent during election. Hope Mueller investigated connections to Russia before & after election.

— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) March 22, 2019

Oddly enough, this has been picked up by the pathetic, sniveling William Saletan at the Slate group blog. Saletan claims that because Trump is carrying out a (I would argue successful and America-centric) foreign policy and is not engaging in military adventurism, that means he’s a traitor. (See New From The Left: Well, Even If Trump Didn’t Collude With Russia He’s Still A Traitor). And the unctuous, plagiarizing Fareed Zakaria is now trying to use CNN (the only network that didn’t get anything wrong about the collusion hoax…except the hoax).

CNN’s @FareedZakaria: “The real puzzle remains: Why has Trump been unwilling to confront Putin in any way on any issue?

And will Venezuela be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?" pic.twitter.com/huTENTxI7M

— CNN (@CNN) March 31, 2019

(As an aside, doesn’t his head look like it was Photoshopped onto a tiny little set of shoulders? I’m surprised that pencil neck could even hold that melon of a head up.)

I suppose this is trenchant commentary if one simply forgets everything that happened before and after January 20, 2017.

Who ended ABM deployment to Europe?
Who made fun of Mitt Romney about Putin’s intentions?
Who ignored the Russia invasion of Georgia in 2008?
Who tried to “reset” the US-Russia relationship?
Who was president when Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea?
Who allowed Russia to act as our intermediary in negotiations with Iran?
Who was president when Russia sent military forces to Syria?

And who can forget this?

My friend Omri Ceren points out, that if Putin wanted a stooge then he did a terrible job of selecting one:

This is illiterate. Trump sanctioned Russia officials for election interference/Ukraine/human rts, withdrew from INF they were abusing, hit them on steel, sent defense asst to Poland & lethal asst to Ukraine, put sanctions on their Iran ally, bombed their Syria mercenaries, etc. https://t.co/2QgZPZO6ZJ

— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) March 31, 2019

You can add to that list, Trump’s focus on energy domination and trying to make US natural gas a viable alternative to the natural gas Western Europe buys from Putin.

The left seems determined to push this Putin-controls-Trump story. No matter how you cut it, Trump has been much more confrontational in his acts with Putin than Obama ever was. Where Trump is excelling, in my view, is in not personalizing the conflict. By remaining cordial with Putin but allowing and directing actions to rein in Russian meddling both here and with our allies and in our sphere of influence, the chances of inadvertent armed conflict goes way down…unlike the case under the petulant, self-absorbed Obama.

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