Reaction to Trump statements by liberals is preposterous

John Podhoretz:
Every now and then, as I read supposedly hot news stories and the social media reaction to them, I feel ­myself growing a white goatee and having my white hair curl up on the sides of my head as I turn into Mugatu, the piano-key necktie designer from the movie “Zoolander,” while I shout: “Am I taking crazy pills?”

For example: The big story over the weekend that President Trump said in 2018 that he wanted to pull out of NATO. This is a story? Trump had described NATO as obsolete back in 2015.

Moreover, Trump has ­expressed deep skepticism of the value of alliances — any alliances — going back to 1987, when he took out an ad in the New York Times to warn we were being screwed by Japan.

The idea that Trump needed the Kremlin’s guidance to want to pull out of NATO or diss European allies is Mugatu-level preposterous.

The other crazy pill they are shoving down my throat is the story about how the FBI launched an investigation into Trump’s possible “collusion” with Russia following the firing of the agency’s then-director, James Comey, in May 2017.

The mainstream media are treating this story as a key piece of evidence that Trump is, in fact, a Russian asset. Now, look: Readers of this column know I am no fan of the president’s, and his ­solicitiousness toward Vladimir Putin dating back to the beginning of his campaign is one of the many reasons.

Even so, all this story shows is that something went very wrong ­inside the FBI under Comey’s stewardship. It also reveals how the liberal hatred of Trump in the journalistic class is leading to an abandonment of core principles when it comes to the proper conduct of law enforcement.
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There is much more.

Podhoretz offers a dose of sanity to crazy talk emanating from the left in recent days.  Trump has had issues with NATO members that have nothing to do with Russia.  He sees NATO members as virtually free riding on the backs of US military and not pulling their share.  Germany is especially suspect because it wants the US to defend it while it becomes more dependent on Russian natural gas, instead of buying US LNG.  He is right about that.  The Germans have allowed their military to deteriorate to the point where they have few operational aircraft to even contribute to the defense of Europe.  Trump also correctly sees the EU as an unfair trading partner with barriers to American companies.  Making them more of a partner in trade has nothing to do with Russia.

There seems to be a group of people in the media and in the intelligence community who have been made paranoid by Trump's statements and style.  They are the ones who need counseling.

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