The other way around

Iwant you to stand in front of a mirror. Now I want you to imagine Barack Obama is 40 days into his presidency, and that during his campaign he repeatedly and inexplicably praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Next imagine that late in the campaign and in the weeks that followed that brought Obama into office, American intelligence agencies determined conclusively that Russia had hacked the Republican National Committee and released thousands of stolen emails that were damaging to Obama’s opponent. And that Obama’s campaign vigorously denied any contact with Russian officials before or after the election.

Then imagine that not long after the inauguration, Obama’s national security adviser was found to have lied about having contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. He in fact spoke with the ambassador in December, the day the outgoing president issued sanctions against Russia for interfering with the election. The adviser was fired. Questions persisted. More evidence began to surface that people connected to Obama had been in contact with the Russians during the campaign.

Imagine that President Obama continued to deny there was any issue and brushed off reports as fake news, criticizing the intelligence community for leaking information to the press.

As calls for an investigation into the Obama campaign’s connections to Russia grew louder, news broke that Obama’s new attorney general had been less than honest during his confirmation hearing when asked if he had contact with the Russians. Imagine the attorney general said his meetings were part of his work as a senator, but then news came out that the trip to the convention was paid for through the then-senator’s campaign fund.

Next you learn that an Obama campaign official who made a change to the Democratic Party platform during its national convention, a change Russia would like—the only change that candidate Obama’s campaign requested—also met with the Russian ambassador during the Democratic National Convention.

Imagine all of these things. And remember that President Obama and members of his campaign all said specifically and repeatedly that there had been no contact with Russia. Imagine. Now look into that mirror. If this were true, would you think there should be an independent investigation into contacts between the Obama campaign and Russia? Are you angry?

If you answered yes to either of those questions and you don’t feel the same way right now about the connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, you need to ask yourself: What is the difference between these two men?

Now look in the mirror again, long and hard. Because you have one last question to ask yourself.

And I think you know what it is.