THE RIGHT IS THE LEFT:

First, the obvious: Had it been Barack Obama, rather than Donald Trump, who suggested a moral equivalency between the United States and Vladimir Putin's Russia, Republican politicians would not now be rushing through their objections to the comparison in TV interviews while hoping to pivot to tax reform.

Had it been the president of three weeks ago who had answered Bill O'Reilly's comment that Mr. Putin "is a killer" by saying, "We've got a lot of killers," and "What do you think? Our country's so innocent?" conservative pundits wouldn't rest with calling the remark "inexplicable" or "troubling." They would call it moral treason and spend the next four years playing the same clip on repeat, right through the next election.

In 2009, Mr. Obama gave a series of speeches containing passing expressions of regret for vaguely specified blemishes from the American past. Examples: "The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods in history." And "we've made some mistakes." This was the so-called Apology Tour, in which the word "apologize" was never uttered. Even so, conservatives still fume about it.

This time, Mr. Trump didn't apologize for America. He indicted it. He did so in language unprecedented for any sitting or former president. He did it in a manner guaranteed, and perhaps calculated, to vindicate every hard-left slander of "Amerika." If you are the sort who believes the CIA assassinated JFK, masterminded the crack-cocaine epidemic, and deliberately lied us into the war in Iraq--conspiracy theories on a moral par with the way the Putin regime behaves in actual fact--then this president is for you.

Only he's worse.

Tweet   @brothersjudd