Eli Lake is Not Very Bright

A couple of days ago, Eli Lake assured us that Putin, despite his maneuvers, would not not invade Ukraine. My reaction at the time was, to borrow from Hermione, "What an idiot!" Not because I thought it was particularly likely that Putin would invade, but because I thought it was particularly stupid for a supposed intelligence insider to publicly make such a claim, and even stupider for his supposed sources to tell him such a thing.

No sooner published than Putin deploys troops strategically in Crimea.

Lake's rejoinder? Oh my gosh, US spies were wrong!

On Thursday night, the best assessment from the U.S. intelligence community—and for that matter most experts observing events in Ukraine—was that Vladimir Putin’s military would not invade Ukraine. Less than 24 hours later, however, there are reports from the ground of Russian troops pushing into the Ukrainian province of Crimea. It’s hardly a full-blown invasion. But it’s not quite the picture U.S. analysts were painting just a day before.

It's not as if Lake and his idiot sources had sent him an engraved invitation or anything. Not quite, but close.

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