1. The bombing was for domestic consumption. According to The New York Times, “The Pentagon informed Russian military officials, through its established deconfliction channel, of the strike before the launching of the missiles, the official said, with American officials knowing when they did that Russian authorities may well have alerted the Assad regime.” In other words, the object of Trump’s Tomahawks was not Syria’s capacity to deploy gas, but domestic liberal opponents .....

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3.  The bombing reveals that there are no limits to the media’s ability to be awed, if not shocked, by manufactured displays of techno-omnipotence. ......

4.  All criticism from the Democratic leadership has been framed in terms of procedure, focused on the fact that Trump didn’t get congressional approval. Schumer, Schiff, and the rest of them have all pronounced thusly, promising to bring the matter to Congress. This is exactly the kind of danger I warned about here, comparing Democrats’ opposition to Trump—and particularly their obsession with Russia—to Iran/Contra. That was a crime that should have handed the keys to all three branches of government to the Democrats. Instead, by accepting the premises of Reagan’s objectives but dissenting over how he achieved them, Democrats blew it then, just as they blew it in 2004 when John Kerry ran for president criticizing how the war in Iraq was being waged but accepting the justifications for why it was being waged. ................

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