Opinion Just when you thought Josh Hawley couldn’t stoop any lower …
washingtonpost.com

In search of a position that would set him apart from his rivals among the Senate’s young conservatives, Hawley arrived at the cockeyed notion that adding two robust military powers with vibrant economies would somehow increase NATO’s burden on U.S. resources.

By “lonely” I mean that Hawley was the only senator to vote no. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) looked ready for a stiff drink as he contemplated this epic display of grandstanding idiocy. “If any senator is looking for a defensible excuse to vote no, I wish them good luck,” McConnell said — fully aware that the Missouri, um, senator had already announced his opposition. “This is a slam dunk for national security that deserves unanimous bipartisan support.”

A slam dunk indeed. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) shares Hawley’s boundless ambition, although in Cotton’s case, there is some justification for it — not least a military experience that permits him to understand certain basics. Said he: “Aside from their military strength and economic power, Finland and Sweden also allow us to turn the Baltic into a NATO lake, bottle up Russia’s Baltic fleet, cut off its isolated military base at Kaliningrad and expose Russia itself to much greater risk in the event of conflict.”