Life under the White House big top

Life can be at once exciting and exhausting, but too much of either is numbing.

Certainly, that’s the case with our national politics. Ah, for the days of Lyndon Johnson coming on TV to address his “fellow Americans with a ‘heavy heart’” or Ronald Reagan demanding Mikhail Gorbachev “tear down this wall” or even George W. Bush declaring, “It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.”

Now ... now we have Mr. Bigly, a man who has mocked the disabled, accused Mexican border jumpers of being rapists, demeaned — and bragged about — groping women, made patently false wiretapping, voter fraud and even crowd size claims and dismissed as fake any news account that fails to support his position, and, and, and, and ...

It’s been an exhausting four-month traipse through a parallel universe where facts are alternate, history is ignored (or worse, manipulated), personal loyalty trumps public integrity and blame is passed.

This past week we had the specter of a U.S. president (who had spent much of his campaign maligning the nation’s intelligence community) passing sensitive intelligence information to a known Russian spymaster.

When the news leaked out, the White House immediately dispatched National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster to briefly deny The Washington Post story was true (“at no time, were intelligence sources or methods discussed”) then, overnight, the president tweeted: “As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do ....”

In the game of spy vs. spy, sensitive information sometimes is selectively and purposely leaked, sometimes among allies and sometimes in a carefully coordinated disinformation effort targeting adversaries.

Trump leaked the secret intel when he, as he often does, went off script. He wanted to brag about what intel he knows (and how he is legally free to blab all he wants: “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day.”)

Not that he’s the first bragger to occupy the White House and share what until then was highly classified information. In a 1964 press conference, Lyndon Johnson disclosed some of the secret capacities of the just-developed SR-71 spy plane. No doubt that was a pucker moment for the CIA.

This guy, however, takes haughtiness to new heights. Consider the mixed stories of the firing of the FBI director James Comey. First, it was the Justice Department’s idea, then it wasn’t, then the president said he had long planned to can Comey, and then he mixed that thought with his claim that the whole Russian-Trump campaign investigation is fake news and/or a witch-hunt cooked up by Democrats upset about losing the White House.

Within hours, the president tweeted what amounts to a threat aimed at Comey implying there might be tapes of their private White House dinner during which Comey claims the president wanted a pledge of loyalty but received only a pledge of truthfulness.

The day after the firing, the Russians (a Russian news crew in tow but with U.S. media excluded) showed up in the Oval Office during which the president bragged about his intel, then offered a tasty morsel to prove it.

Exhausting, huh?

It wasn’t over. The next day came a New York Times report that Comey had extensive notes about the Trump dinner and two phone calls they had.

There are notes, too, in which Comey claims the president asked him — but did not order him — to drop the probe of fired national security adviser Michael T. Flynn and his ties to Russia. That request came in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting. “I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

Comey had shared the notes with associates immediately after they were written as an if-questions-arise insurance policy should his integrity be impugned, say, for political reasons.

Every day it’s something. The drip, drip, drip is wearing. Like Watergate four decades ago, much of the nation’s attention and energy is being sapped as this Greek tragedy plays out. Unlike Watergate, which went on for about two years, the current torture of the body politic is playing out in tweet-storms and the 24-hour news cycle. There is no letup.

Watergate ended when a group of Republican leaders went to the White House and told Richard Nixon it was over.

It remains to be seen if the critical mass of right-minded Republicans can put a choke chain on this president to control his behavior or, failing that, make clear that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the people’s house and not a mansion surrounded by a moat.

— Contact Eric Grunder, former opinion page editor of The Record, at elgrunder@msn.com. Follow him at oncruisecontrolafter65.blogspot.com and on Twitter @elgrunder.
#White House #ethics #intel #CIA #NSA #specialcounsel #Trump #Russians #FBI #Comey