Everything’s Coming Up Buttercups

Stop.
Interviewing.
Bill.
Fucking.
Barr.
Seriously.
Stop.
You fucking idiots.

Thank you.

— Jo 🌻 (@JoJoFromJerz) March 13, 2022

A) He’s trying to sell books.

B) He’s not fooling anyone who wasn’t fooled before.

At least Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell didn’t try, after Watergate, to rehabilitate what was left of his shredded reputation by writing a self-glorifying memoir claiming that he had significantly restrained Nixon.

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) March 13, 2022

Besides, we got that, right?

This is true. But Putin does not act alone. None of this would be possible if millions of Russians did not go along with it. That doesn't mean all Russians go along with it - many, even many millions, are bitterly opposed - but don't imagine a war can be the work of one man. https://t.co/B2iuPwuJg4

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) March 14, 2022

As the cliche has it: “You and what army?” (And can we declare a moratorium on people who “know” what Putin wants? It’s not helping. I know what I just said, but I’m tired of this line of “analysis.”) Russia is bogged down in Ukraine.  NATO could push Russian forces back across the border about as easily as Saddam was pushed out of Kuwait. Hell, Ukraine may yet do it.

Someone needs to run ads reminding Americans of Trump’s love for Putin and how Trump tried to screw over Ukraine. https://t.co/8vIxtZpSg4

— Eric Columbus (@EricColumbus) March 13, 2022

Yes, we’ll always have videos.

I was born in 1983. It’s strange to live in a world where world war feels like an imminent possibility.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 14, 2022

Please. By the time I was 28 (1983, IOW), I’d lived through the Cuban missile crisis; Vietnam; the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, and disco (don’t laugh if you weren’t there). My memory of the missile crisis (and all the movies/TV shows about nuclear war) was asking my mother why we didn’t have a bomb shelter. I remember the room and her standing at the ironing board. She said she didn’t want to live in what we know call a post-apocalyptic world where the living envy the dead. Imagine your mother telling you that; and why you’d never forget it.  Especially when you realized she was right. What other generation grew up with that knowledge?

I also remember “duck ‘n’ cover, CONELRAD, public fallout shelters, and the testing of air raid sirens. I was born into the threat of the “final” world war, which was relieved, but not ended, by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Old people get to say “Suck it up, buttercup.” If only because so many younger people whine in public about how many bad things in the world worry them because they think they can make the bad people go away. They can’t. Suck it up.

! https://t.co/ewSPC37YPK

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) March 14, 2022

Something much more useful.

What if (instead) this was actually a coup plot that Putin put down? https://t.co/amNQ6E6OYj

— (((Sen. 𝔾🇺🇦𝕝𝕕𝕞𝕒𝕟))) (@NotAbouThatBase) March 14, 2022

See? We don’t know what Putin’s thinking. We don’t even know why he’s doing what he’s doing.

“Hi, I’m the guy who drove the getaway car for the guy who robbed your house.

I’ve written a book about what it was like working for him and I’d love it if you bought it.”

— every Bill Barr interview

— Jay Black (@jayblackisfunny) March 13, 2022

Every crisis is an opportunity. I like exposing Bill Barr for what he is. Better than people thinking he quit because he was so noble.

Two sides to every coin, people. Like this:

"Russia’s invasion has reminded us of how puny and recklessly trivial our nation’s debate has become. It is wholly unequal to the threats facing democracy, world order and freedom."

Wisdom from @EJDionne on the need for our politics to meet this moment:https://t.co/VWPDNfhyUy

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) March 14, 2022

Putin may have done the world a service. Funny how evil does that, now and again. Reminds us of what we could lose, I mean. It’s not worth it, but we seem to insist on making it work that way. Trump did us that service. Putin’s doing it for the world.

So it goes. Mostly because we insist on making it go that way, while insisting that’s just the way it is.