* House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., created quite the stir by going to the White House and the media before addressing his committee colleagues on that transition-period, “incidental surveillance” revelation involving President Trump and associates. For the record, Nunes’ committee is investigating allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections. It’s also looking into suspected links between Trump aides and the Kremlin.
So, Nunes apologized to his fellow committee members for having briefed Trump and the media first. For running interference for Trump, instead of just running his committee impartially.
In effect, Nunes, a former Trump-campaign insider, was adhering to a maxim that transcends partisan politics. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
* For those still rationalizing the upside of having a “businessman” in the White House, this just in. Running a private family brand, starring in a TV reality show, ignoring ethics, negotiating from leverage that includes employing bankruptcy laws and never being accountable to shareholders is hardly the prototype.
* For obvious reasons, an otherwise incongruous Donald Trump-Richard Nixon comparison is now part of our political palaver. While it’s hardly precise, it’s still worth noting.
Trump’s first two months have been an exercise in controversy, ineptitude, embarrassment and existential concern. From health care, trade agreements and treaty obligations to intimations of more shoes dropping from that Russian centipede. Some observers, typically partisans but not exclusively so, are wondering if a Trump administration can make it literally through a whole 4-year term. Others scoff at such impeachment or “Seven Days in May” scenarios.
Nixon, of course, had his epically historic, Watergate-fueled resignation. But that was then–and this is decidedly not on numerous levels.
But there is this. Nixon was eminently qualified, even if dark and conspiratorial, for the office of president. He was smart, well-informed, politically pragmatic and experienced on matters both domestic and international. He was a prominent player–from Congress to the vice presidency to a presidential re-election–for a generation. He was savvy and calculated and surrounded himself with talented, if tainted, aides who were no mere sycophants. And, yet, he was forced out of office.
Trump, however, is unconscionably uninformed, temperamentally unhinged and surrounded by toadies, family and a scary deconstructionist. If past is any kind of prologue, I’d be checking Nate Silver to see what the over/under is on Trump’s staying power.