Interestingly, Ann Althouse has proposed an explanation for this political and public relations disaster that lets Trump off the hook, sort of. She wrote,

“I would have assumed Trump shared the video because of the material that took up the first 97% of the video. It’s somber technical material about tampering with voting machines in the 2020 election. I would have assumed that he never even saw the discordant image of the Obamas as apes that is spliced in at the very end, in the last 2 seconds.I would have speculated that some sneaky person spliced that image in to trick Trump supporters into passing the video along unwittingly and becoming targets for accusations of racism. Who sticks around for the full 62 seconds? Well, maybe some people do, and then when the Obama image pops up, they probably think What is this bullshit? It doesn’t belong. Who put this here? Those people probably don’t share the video. Those who share probably didn’t watch until the end, and I would suspect that the sharers, those dupes, were prominent enough that eventually Trump saw it and shared it, shared it without watching to the very end, just assuming it was more of the usual stolen-election stuff.”

Ann may be right, but it doesn’t matter. Trump posted it, and this will be raised again and again, in interviews and in mid-term campaign debates, as it gives Trump’s enemies the best evidence yet that he’s a racist, and therefore his party is racist, and thus his supporters are racist. He posted it without watching it all the way through? That’s no excuse. He’s the President of the United States. He is responsible for protecting his high office and ensuring the trust and respect of all citizens. Trump has always been arrogant, reckless, defiant and foolish in his impulsive, unprofessional social media activities. This time it blew up in his face like Wile E. Coyote opening an Acme package bomb.

Part of me wants to say, “Well good, asshole! I warned you. Now you’ve done it. I have no sympathy for you. None.”

Incidentally, Mary Milben is an Ethics Hero.

Update: HA! I KNEW this would be the ultimate strategy. Now the White House is blaming a “staffer.” Of course. I assume eventually he or she will confess, be fired, and have a guaranteed income for the life. The problem is that this time-worn explanation would be made whether a staffer really is responsible or not.