[guest post by Dana]

Two takes that I’ll just leave here for you to consider.

First, Andrew McCarthy at NRO has written a thought-provoking piece, Democrats Know the Election Was Legitimate but Persist in a Dangerous Fraud:

Russia is a hostile regime whose intelligence operations — from cyber to propaganda to political assassination to promotion of rogue regimes and factions — are formidable. Many of us were warning against Putin while George Bush was gazing into his eyes for a “sense of his soul,” the Bush administration was imagining Russia as a “strategic partner,” Hillary Clinton was resetting our path to cozy relations, Barack Obama was appeasing Putin in desperation to keep the perilous Iran nuclear deal on track, and Donald Trump was “bromancing” the dictator. So if Democrats have suddenly decided the Kremlin is a malign force, we should welcome them and fight the urge to ask, “What took you so long?”

Russia did not “hack our election.” But Russia is our “number-one geopolitical foe” — to quote Mitt Romney’s bull’s-eye assessment, the object of such media-Democrat scorn. Putin’s anti-American operations in the run-up to the election — which were directed, according to our intelligence agencies, against both political parties — should be a matter of serious concern to all Americans, as should Russian machinations in the Obama years, the Bush years, in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

Yet, rather than encourage a responsible evaluation of what we’re up against, Democrats and their media allies are promoting a fraud: If you take the Russian threat seriously, it means Russia stole the election and, ergo, that Donald Trump is an illegitimate president. Since that is not what happened, Republicans — who should be pushing Trump toward a harder line against Moscow — will be constrained to refute the Democrats’ allegations. The Democrats will demonize Trump, while Trump sympathizers sound like Putin’s defense lawyers.

In the Kremlin, they’ll be smiling.

Second, Mark Cuban, avid troller of President Trump, went on an interesting Twitter rant last night:

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana