If there’s one clear lesson from the Brittney Griner/Paul Whelan controversy that’s keeping partisans in America’s culture wars all worked up, it’s this: Stay out of Russia.
As my man Charles P. Pierce puts it in Esquire: “The government there appears to be operating on the same business plan as the drug cartels in this hemisphere, or the Somali ship hijackers: Grab up an influential hostage and get what you can in return.”
