I made the point that even if Donald Trump was 100 percent right in claiming he was wiretapped by President Obama (he wasn’t), it would still be foolish to say what he did in those tweets. Put aside that Trump based his accusation on some flimsy news articles he had read. Let’s imagine he had a credible source with real evidence to back up the claim. The correct response would be to call in the heads of the NSA, CIA, DOJ, and FBI and get to the bottom of it. Then, after you’ve completed a behind-the-scenes investigation, press charges against those responsible.
Trump went a different way, and a month of his first 100 days has been eaten up by the furor. I added that, politically, this whole thing was a huge waste and distraction, including the response by my friend Devin Nunes. He, as the House Intelligence Committee chairman, may indeed have some important revelations to make. But the whole thing could have been handled better.
I say with all humility: I was 100 percent right.
The response, however, from Trump’s amen corner was the usual outrage and ridiculous claims: “Trump was vindicated! He’s playing four-dimensional chess! Shut up! Etc.”
.. Obama really believed that he was a post-ideological president who only cared about “what works.” This progressive understanding of pragmatism is a kind of exquisite confirmation bias. We’re not ideological, we just want to do the smartest, best thing (which just happens to line up with our undisclosed and unacknowledged ideological biases).
.. During the election, lots of people told me that a businessman would cut through all the politics by running the government like a business. Jared Kushner is apparently heading up the latest version of this incredibly hackneyed and ancient idea. The simple problem is that government isn’t a business (never mind that Donald Trump is not a typical businessman). The incentive structure of politics is entirely different than the incentive structure for a businessman. A CEO can walk into a meeting and explain to his employees that if they don’t hit their widget sales quota, no one will get their bonus. Politics doesn’t work like that.
.. If you don’t think politics matters, keep in mind that the incentives for GOP congressmen to cooperate with Trump drops in tandem with his approval ratings.
.. The people who think that the way to help conservatism is to support everything Trump says and does simply have it wrong. If he tweets “2+2=5,” you don’t help him (or the cause or the country) by saying “He’s right!” or “This is a brilliant ploy to deconstruct the ‘alt-left’ mathematical establishment!” The best thing you can do is say “Trump is wrong and he should spend his time doing what he was elected to do.”
.. Trump’s one truly great success so far was the nomination of Neil Gorsuch. Why was that a success? Because he outsourced the task to Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society and Mitch McConnell — two guys who relied on a tried-and-true playbook.
.. The essence of conservatism is to respect practices, customs, norms, and values that have survived the brutal acid of trial and error. “What is conservatism?” Lincoln asked. “Is it not the adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?”
.. Acolytes of Trump’s cult of personality don’t want to hear it, but the worst thing they can do is keep shouting “Let Trump be Trump!” If he’s going to succeed, Trump needs to start acting like a normal president who deals with the reality of politics.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spends his first weeks isolated from an anxious bureaucracy
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes a private elevator to his palatial office on the seventh floor of the State Department building, where sightings of him are rare on the floors below.
On many days, he blocks out several hours on his schedule as “reading time,” when he is cloistered in his office poring over the memos he prefers ahead of in-person meetings.
Most of his interactions are with an insular circle of political aides who are new to the State Department. Many career diplomats say they still have not met him, and some have been instructed not to speak to him directly — or even make eye contact.
.. “When you put it all together, it certainly seems they’re trying to downsize the State Department and make it irrelevant.
.. Why would Tillerson take the job if he was not going to defend his agency?”
.. As an oil executive, Tillerson traveled the world negotiating deals behind closed doors, with just one or two aides accompanying him.
.. with assistant secretary of state positions occupied only by “acting” deputies, they have no one of authority to contact. Tillerson remains the only Senate-confirmed official selected by Trump anywhere inside the State Department building.
.. the White House embarrassed Tillerson by rejecting the seasoned foreign policy hand he had selected for a deputy
.. “We’re rowing against the current, and the current has a Twitter account,”
.. Tillerson’s corporate insistence on efficient time management did not serve him well
.. a sense among career diplomats that they are considered an obstacle to change
.. he will travel less than previous secretaries did and will take a smaller, faster plane that is more like the corporate jets of his former life.
.. No official note-taker accompanied him on a recent trip, so senior aides did the job to have a record of his talks with foreign ministers
Ted Lieu is out-tweeting Trump, and it’s making him a political star
Since the inauguration of Donald Trump, Lieu has become a tweeting demon, famous as the man, as the Los Angeles Times put it, “trolling the Tweeter in Chief.”
.. “He’s a very serious man. Very polite, very cordial. He doesn’t say any bad words,” says Betty Lieu, his wife of 15 years. “He was raised to be an obedient, dutiful Chinese immigrant son. He does what he’s supposed to do. He is very clean-cut with the perfect record, the perfect résumé. When he’s angry, he’s usually controlled. But Ted said there was no better way to say this.”
.. Lieu’s official website includes a “Cloud of Illegitimacy Clock,” tracking how long he believes Trump has been in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits government officials from accepting payments from foreign governments.
A 140-Character Flaw
It’s hard for a new administration to avoid controversy, but must Trump create it out of thin air?
.. What makes the furor over President Trump’s wiretapping claims so remarkable is how unnecessary it is. The flap didn’t arise from events outside of the administration’s control, nor was it a clever trap sprung by its adversaries. The president went out of his way to initiate it. He picked up his phone and tweeted allegations that he had no idea were true or not, either to distract from what he thought was a bad news cycle, or to vent, or both.
.. at the very least has diverted him and his team from much more important work on Capitol Hill, where his agenda will rise or fall. In an alternative and more conventional universe, the White House would be crowing over Judge Gorsuch’s testimony before Congress.
.. Since the wiretapping allegations, Spicer’s days have been spent in the semantics, air quotes, and epistemological gymnastics necessary to support Trump’s claims.
.. All he has to say is that he accepts his FBI director’s statement and that he doesn’t want to talk about it any more.
.. It’s hard to see why the Russians would have had to involve Trump associates in what should have been a simple two-step process: 1) hack Democratic accounts; 2) give the resulting information to WikiLeaks. But Comey’s acknowledgement of the investigation will stoke the darkest suspicions of the Left.