Reading Mr. Mueller

It has now been two weeks since the redacted Mueller report hit the street, enough time for us to begin — but only begin — to digest its meticulously prepared, bone-rattling conclusions.

For some, the headline — seized upon and hammered relentlessly by Donald Trump and his lowlife band of criminals, would-be autocrats, and political enablers, led by the utterly shameless William Barr — was that no criminal charges were being brought. But that does not begin to be the whole story, not by a country mile, even though Trump would like us to believe that it is. Indeed, with his characteristic pathological dishonesty, he has crowed that the report goes way beyond even that, representing “complete and total” exoneration of all wrongdoing.

Well, it turns out America was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.

B.L.U.F.

So here’s the real bottom line, which fortunately has been well-reported in the legitimate media, and continues to gather steam with each passing day and further revelations:

The Mueller report laid out a damning portrait of a presidential campaign that eagerly accepted the help of a hostile foreign power in order to win the White House; that was well aware of Russian efforts to interfere on its behalf and welcomed those efforts; that enthusiastically entertained meetings with foreign nationals…