I want you to imagine that you have recently taken a job as a senior editor at the New York Times. Your mission, well understood by you, is to co-ordinate the coverage to spin the news of the day in a way to present Democrats in as favorable as possible a light, and Republicans as unfavorably as possible. In particular, you understand that Donald Trump must be shown as the devil incarnate, while Joe Biden is a kindly fellow who just loves his family. No problem.

But now you are suddenly presented with the news of the past few days. The “Justice” Department, under the control of Biden henchman Merrick Garland, has just taken the unprecedented step of indicting Trump, who currently holds a commanding lead in the polls to be the Republican candidate in the next presidential election, for the supposed “crime” of repeatedly asserting that the last election was stolen — an assertion that has been a perennial in presidential politics for decades without anybody ever being indicted for it. Meanwhile, a transcript of a witness’s testimony before a House committee earlier this week has just been released, with the witness having offered testimony to close the loop with the last piece of a clear quid pro quo bribery scheme involving millions going not just to Hunter Biden, but also Joe, with U.S. taxpayer funds used to the benefit of corrupt Russia-allied Ukrainians.

OK, this is a tough one. How are you possibly going to spin your way out of it?

With every passing day it becomes more and more clear that we have a President who has been for years, and may still be, in simplest terms, on the take.

Using family members as fronts, and the prerogatives of elected office as bait, he has presided over a bribe-collection business that has leveraged U.S. foreign policy and foreign aid to rake in millions for the clan, mostly or entirely from business interests aligned with the worst of our adversaries on the foreign stage.

In your wildest dreams, could you ever have imagined that the U.S. presidency could sink so low?

And yet, even as the known facts become more and more definitive, and the remaining potential defenses more and more implausible, there continues to be complete unanimity among senior Democratic Party officeholders and their press supporters in the ongoing defense of the President.