The Russians Cross the Democrats’ Red Line: Appearing to Help the GOP

From the first Morning Jolt of the Democrats’ convention week:

The Russians Cross the Democrats’ Red Line: Appearing to Help the GOP

Let’s face it: Democrats don’t distrust Moscow for their militarism, their occupation of Crimea, their threats to NATO or their cooperation with the Iranians and Syrians. The Democrats are finally angry at Vladimir Putin and Russia because they think they’ve done something to help the real enemy, the Republican nominee.

The New York Times points out that we’re living in topsy-turvy times, where the Democratic candidate is posing as the hawk against Russia and accusing the Republican nominee of being a stooge of Moscow:

Even at the height of the Cold War, it was hard to find a presidential campaign willing to charge that its rival was essentially secretly doing the bidding of a key American adversary. But the accusation is emerging as a theme of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, as part of an attempt to portray Mr. Trump not only as an isolationist, but also as one who would go soft on confronting Russia as it threatens nations that have shown too much independence from Moscow or, in the case of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, joined NATO.

Actually, flip the terms “rival” and “key American adversary.” They’re not charging that Trump is helping Russia; they’re charging that Russia is helping Trump.

I’m old enough to remember when a “reset button” was going to make Putin’s Russia our friend!

Good times, good times.

The WikiLeaks hacking of the Democratic National Committee is terrible…but also delicious.

Some of the revelations are not that surprising.

It’s not surprising that Black Lives Matter activist and former Baltimore mayoral candidate DeRay Mckesson was vetted as a possible surrogate for the DNC.

Donna Brazile was always fairly open about her preference for Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders, although it’s a little bit surprising to hear her discussing a desire to “cuss out the Sanders camp.”

DNC staffers dismissing MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki as a “hipster pitbull”? Okay, I didn’t see that coming.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz calling up Phil Griffin, MSNBC President, to complain after “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski called for Schultz to “step down”? That just confirms our suspicions that Democrats are more sensitive about press criticism and have more backdoor avenues to shut it down or discourage follow-ups.

Will the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz placate the Bernie Sanders delegates and fans? Why should it? The damage is done.