President Trump* questioned President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election, using their epic first face-to-face meeting to directly raise what has become a vexing political issue for the White House.Right. Tell me another one.
Mr. Putin denied any meddling, and aides for each offered differing versions of the exchange. But both sides said the two leaders quickly turned to a discussion of how they could work together, including on combating cyberattacks and de-escalating the war in Syria.
Nowhere in the account is it explicitly stated that there was no independent observer in the room. Who was there was Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, both of whom are fully capable of deception and lies and, frankly, are very good at it. And Trump, who wouldn't know reality if it bit him hard on the ass. Trump has a long track record of believing in his own con. You can bet your ass that he still believes that the crowds at his inauguration were the largest ever, that three million people voted illegally, that Obama was born in Kenya, and so on and so forth.
Which leaves Tillerson, who, like every other Trumper, isn't going to go against his boss.
About the only thing that those four worthies could say that I would believe is "the Sun will come up tomorrow."
And even then, I'd make sure that I had fresh flashlight batteries on hand.
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{1] Judith Miller is holding for the editor on line 1.
Richard Engel predicted that in the absence of note takers, the two different diplomats would be telling different stories of what happened in the meeting, and to watch for which story gets accepted as real to see who got more of their way, and more importantly, just what that way might consist of.
ReplyDeleteWell it seems that Lavrov and Tillerson are indeed giving disparate accounts of how the meeting went down, with the most notable difference being Lavrov claiming that president four-year-old "fully accepted" Putin's claim that Russia did not, in fact, meddle in our election.
Tillerson, for his part, seems to be emphasizing "working together" with Russia and "looking forward" and tentative agreements on cease fires in Syria (make that a small area of Syria) and a commission (or some such horse shit) on the conflict in Ukraine. There was also some cybersecurity stuff, which seems to nicely coincide with the massive voter suppression program they are launching.
These can be broadly read as victories for Russia in that the normalizing of the situation in Syria is a retreat from our previous position (that Assad had to go) and the Ukraine thing is just a precursor to the lifting of sanctions, and of course if we do our own voter suppression it lessens the need for Russia's "active measures" which in large part were aimed at suppressing the Democratic turnout, when it is highly likely that we will be watching them more closely than last time.
Then there is the gift to Putin that he, personally, really wanted: To share the international stage as the leader of a "superpower" instead of the kleptocrat that he actually is.
I guess they must just think we're really stupid, and I have to say that sadly, some of us really are.
-Doug in Oakland
They are both kleptocrats. Putin is much better at it.
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