Source: Washington Post
by Ramesh Ponnuru
“You’re a government official and you have just learned that some of your employees have shot and killed a civilian. You don’t have all the facts, and there are discrepancies in the initial accounts. What do you do? For most of us, I presume, the answer is to call the victim’s family to express condolences and then to promise the public a full investigation followed by whatever consequences the results warrant. That’s how previous administrations, regardless of party, would have responded. But the Trump administration views such niceties as weakness. Looking weak, giving an inch to the critics, must be avoided at all costs. … If the administration were consciously pursuing a strategy optimized for producing confrontation rather than for bringing down the number of illegal immigrants, it would be proceeding just as it has been.” (01/28/26)