Trump-hate does funny things to the analytical capabilities of at least some so-called "experts."

This brings us to the famous Brookings Institution expert on Vladimir Putin, pal of Democrats, former NSC official, and Trump impeachment witness, Fiona Hill.

Asked about Trump and the Russians, and the invasion of Ukraine, at a forum in Chicago, the celebrated Trump-hater came up with this logic bomb.

According to The Hill:

Former Trump White House national security official Fiona Hill said Russian President Vladimir Putin had "to explain everything to all the time" to former President Trump.

"He had to keep explaining things, and Putin doesn't like to do that," Hill said this week, speaking at a Chicago Council on Global Affairs event in remarks reported by Insider.

Hill added that Putin intentionally chose to invade Ukraine during President Biden's tenure in the White House.

"He thought that somebody like Biden, who's a transatlanticist, who knows all about NATO, who actually knows where Ukraine is, and actually knows something about the history, and is very steeped in international affairs, would be the right person to engage with as opposed to somebody that you have to explain everything to all the time, honestly," the former national security official added.

Perhaps she should tell that to the Ukrainians. 

According to Hill's ace expert geostrategic analysis, Trump was this moron who so unnerved Putin that he refused to invade Ukraine as a result of it.  Biden, by contrast, was a svelte and nimble political power player who was essentially Metternich, so Putin decided to invade and bomb the hell out of Ukraine while Biden was in office, because he was "the right person to engage."

As if Putin's idea of "right" is the same as America's, or for that matter, Ukraine's.  Perhaps she can notify the Ukrainians how lucky they are that they got invaded by Russia because Putin felt more comfortable with Biden in power than with Trump.

The idiocy of the whole claim starts at the granular level.

First, who the hell thinks that Dotard Joe ever had any druthers or common sense on foreign policy in general, let alone Ukraine, even before he went senile?  Hill notes that he's been "steeped in international affairs," which is laughable, given that most of that dating from his Senate days amounted to sleazy overseas business deals with his son as frontman and assorted junkets where he got to ride the airplane and claim he'd been in dangerous zones for his stump speeches.  President Obama certainly didn't want him anywhere near foreign affairs beyond attending overseas funerals — because he was wrong on everything.  Biden, noted a far smarter foreign policy hand, Bob Gates, who led Defense and the CIA under multiple presidents, has been "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."  And all that was before he went senile. 

But according to Hill, Biden was the smart guy, and Trump was the imbecile.

Now let's look at Trump.  It's hard to think Trump didn't know where Ukraine is on a map, given his involvement in international real estate deals as well as the Miss Universe Pageant, which came well before his presidency.  Trump's a huge extravert and constantly meets people, including people from odd fields like boxing and entertainment, which is where policy experts like Hill would never go.  All of those people have given him perspective on human nature — from greed to incentives to a need for fame to episodes of kindness.  That's foreign affairs.  Trump also was a master dealmaker, tumbling down and pulling himself back up again with a scrappiness Hill will never know.  He always knew that the best course of action is to keep one's adversaries guessing.  Of course he would have used a technique like having Putin explain things, which, as a reader of body language, he'd be able to tell that Putin abhorred, to keep Putin off balance and guessing.  It would be a head fake.  Putin, the wily former KGB operative, would know about this and employ it, too — as he did by bringing in a dangerous dog to German chancellor Angela Merkel to unnerve her, knowing that Merkel was afraid of dogs.  Trump forcing Putin to explain every detail to him is bound to have made Putin think that Trump was unpredictable — and hold off on doing anything crazy, for fear of the reaction.  When you've got a wily operator like Putin afraid of what Trump will do if he does X, Y, or Z, then the smart course for Putin would be to do nothing, not wanting to disturb the potential beast.

That's smarts, and Trump had them.   

So this is what passes for analysis?  That Putin chose to invade Ukraine because Biden was supposedly smarter and more experienced?  (Biden, after all, wrote the book blurb to Hill's book.)  And that Putin held off because Trump was so ignorant?  And that goes to show how smart Biden is?  Perhaps the Ukrainians will differ on this analysis.

But here we have it: Fiona Hill, the expert.

It just goes to show that Trump-hate does terrible things to the logic of Trump-haters.  It raises questions about the value of her other "research."

Image: Screen shot from Chicago Council on Global Affairs video, via YouTube.