The gunsmoke from Donald Trump Junior's email looks thin at best

Reactions to each development in the Trump-Russia scandal tend to follow the same pattern. At first, journalists express incredulity and then horror. It doesn’t matter if the Team Trump member under suspicion is Mike Flynn, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Junior, even big daddy Trump himself, everybody agrees this is big news. Dots are connected and then, click, we all conclude that Russia ‘hacked’ the election.

Then, once the initial flush of excitement, passes, everybody says ‘where is the actual evidence?’ Or ‘is it really that bad?’ And the Trump-Russia scandal subsides for a few days. People who are inclined to accept Trump’s presidency say that the media has gone mad over the Russia thing. People who aren’t lament that the free world has just rolled over and accepted that the world’s greatest power has been tricked by the Kremlin, and look out for the next big Trump-Russia story.