As the old Vulcan proverb states: “Only Nixon could go to China.” And basically, that’s been my attitude about Donald Trump entering negotiations with North Korea. Hey, nothing we’ve done for the past 70 years has worked with the Norks. Technically we’re still at war with them. So I’ve been willing to keep an open mind. My instincts have been wrong a lot over the past few years, so maybe my innate revulsion at this idea is wrong too. Why not let this guy try and talk to them? He’s all about making deals, right? What’s the worst that could happen?
Today I found out.
President Trump on Otto Warmbier: “I really believe something very bad happened to him, and I don’t think that the top leadership knew about it…(Kim Jong-Un) felt very badly about it…He tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.” pic.twitter.com/EWnw7BzVNe
— Axios (@axios) February 28, 2019
“[Kim Jong-un] felt badly about it. He knew the case very well. But he knew it later. You’ve got a lot of people. Big country. Lot of people. And in those prisons and those camps, you have a lot of people.”
So Trump’s defense of his negotiating partner, in the case of Otto Warmbier, is that the repressive totalitarian regime that brutally tortured and murdered an American citizen… um… just didn’t keep track of him? The North Koreans have destroyed so many lives that Otto Warmbier just got lost in the shuffle? Kim Jong-un is so busy running his enormous concentration camps that he doesn’t have time to worry about some American kid who got tortured to death?
That’s the best-case scenario?
At the risk of sounding like an un-American cuck RINO traitor who probably wanted Hillary to win, I don’t believe this ridiculous story. Kim Jong-un knew exactly what happened to Otto Warmbier. Trump knows he knew. Trump knows we all know he knew. And now Trump is lying to our faces about it, because…
Well, it could be any number of things. #NeverTrump will tell you that he just enjoys lying, and he’ll never miss an excuse to snuggle up with a dictator. #AlwaysTrump will tell you that he’s a master negotiator, this is all part of his brilliant plan to get the Norks to denuclearize, and anybody who has a problem with it just wants war.
And why wouldn’t Trump believe Kim? After all, it’s not as if he works for CNN or the NYT. He’s not a real enemy.
I don’t know why Trump is lying this time, and I don’t care. It’s still a lie no matter his motives, or the motives of the poor souls who somehow feel duty-bound to keep cleaning up his messes. There may come a day when I regret not being one of those people, but it sure ain’t today.
Look, if you want to pretend that Trump is a genius for sniffing Kim’s Emmental-scented farts and swooning at the scent of roses, go right ahead. I didn’t like it when the last POTUS lied to me about Americans who were killed on foreign soil, and I don’t like it now. Rationalize it any way you want, but it’s still wrong.
Scream at me all day long, tell yourself whatever soothes your cognitive dissonance, but you can’t make me deny the truth: Otto Warmbier was murdered and everybody knows it.
And if all that didn’t enrage you enough, Trumpkins, here’s a parting shot from the only guy you hate more than you hate me:
Kim’s next offer to Trump will be partial denuclearization if he agrees to hand over the rest of the Warmbier family
— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) February 28, 2019
“The Art of the Deal”? Suckers.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member