Believing Vladimir Putin might as well say the earth is flat

It's worth the subscription of The New Yorker to read Andy Borowitz.  During this media era of manufactured fake news, making it up just because you can, the humerus "close to the issues" Borowitz Report provides a safe place where real news readers can enjoy facts that are tied to creative satire.  

It's like putting real news inside an effervescent bubble where the reader can watch the humor just pop right out, as soon as the puns are absorbed.  What's even more entertaining is how Borowitz writes these satirical gems nearly spontaneously with the real news (or fake news made real and visa versa).. Like an M & M's candy machine, the readers never know exactly what flavors will be dispensed when the tasty treats roll out of the trough.

This particularly hilarous treat appeared in my inbox on Sunday, about a day after Donald Trump told the international media about how he believed Vladimir Putin, who claimed innocence in the Russia meddling of the 2016 election.  This exchange happened in Vietnam, but nobody recorded the dialogue.  Nevertheless, Donald Trump said he has confidence that Vladimir Putin told him the truth, regardless of what the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Great Britian's intelligence services had as overwhelming evidence to prove otherwise. Obviously, Donald Trump is telling more lies about the exchange with Vladimir Putin. Yet, what's even more certain than the fabricated "innocence" is that the Kremlin is rolling in laughter about how easy it is to trick Donald Trump.

Kremlin folks are laughing and Andy Borowitz knows it! So we can all laugh together about Donald Trump.

Andy Borowitz immediately responded to this breaking news:

Mueller Immediately Closes Investigation After Hearing Putin Proclaim His Innocence

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The special counsel Robert Mueller announced on Saturday that he was closing the Justice Department’s Russia investigation, “effective immediately,” after hearing that President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, said he was innocent of any election meddling.

Moments after learning about Putin’s assertion, Mueller hastily assembled his staff of investigators to inform them that, now that Putin had fully exonerated himself, there was no point in continuing the probe.

“Vladimir Putin says he did nothing,” Mueller told his staff. “That’s good enough for me.”

Speaking later to reporters, Mueller said that, by disbanding his investigation, he was following the time-honored law-enforcement tradition of taking a suspect’s word for it.

“For the past several months, we’ve assembled tax records, cell-phone recordings, bank transfers, and e-mail communications that indicated Russia was involved in the election,” a visibly shaken Mueller said. “Somehow, we got it wrong—very, very wrong.”

As for his future plans, Mueller said that his first order of business was to write a hearfelt letter of apology to Putin.

“I feel terrible knowing that I’ve spent all this time investigating a person who did absolutely nothing wrong,” he said. “Hindsight is 20/20, but I really should have called him first and asked him what really happened.”

(After reading the Borowitz satire, at least I can laugh along with Vladimir Putin over this exchange. Oddly enough, Putin, along with his Kremlin colleagues and I are all laughing about the same person - Donald Trump is the butt of our shared humor.)

On the other hand, those who chose to believe Vladimir Putin and trust Donald Trump to proclaim the innocence of the Russian government meddling during the 2016 election, might as well believe the earth is flat. Ant, surely, that is not funny.