Bill O’Reilly, the one-time Fox News commentator, once famously asked Donald J. Trump whether Vladimir Putin is a “killer.” The Donald offered a typically stupid response.
He said the world is “full of killers,” and then said the United States has killed people, too.
The Donald couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the obvious, that his pal Vladimir Putin is a killer and that he deserved worldwide recrimination for his history of mass mayhem and misery.
Now comes the news we see pouring out of Ukraine. The armed forces that Putin commands are killing innocent people every hour of every day. Children are dying from bombs and artillery blasts. So are women, including pregnant women. Russian propagandists deny that Russian troops are targeting hospitals, except the videos being broadcast from the field of battle tell they are doing exactly that.
Hey, we all know we’re dealing with a killer. Never mind the brainless responses of The Donald to a perfectly succinct and cogent question.
We know the nature of the individual with whom we must deal. It gives me some hope — fragile though it feels at this moment — that the global knowledge of this man’s past and now his present will condemn him to a future of scorn and condemnation.