– Certainly seems to be in its Wednesday edition.
– Never a fan of Donald Trump, its newest stratagem seems to be the old “damn with faint praise” ploy.
– To begin with, the inevitable columnist, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. charges that despite Mr. Trump’s “many deficiencies”, the “president’s enemies promoted one of the biggest lies in American history”.
– If you are reading thus far, stay around for the last paragraph in this story…It may contain a hint of Jenkins” preference for the next president
Careful not to let Donald Trump appear to be a deserving winner in the whole “Russia, Russia” thing, “Junior” Jenkins observes that, “Now much of America thinks his media and partisan enemies are every bit as sleazy as Mr. Trump was said to be”.
Although Mr. Jenkins claims that it is not his intention, with several comments, “to demean the president”, he goes ahead and does just that.
While noting that Trump is not the “sketchiest” person to occupy the Oval Office (notes that Lyndon Johnson, for one, was in the running), Jenkins helpfully advises readers that the president “is simply the sketchiest that voters ever knowingly (and) deliberately…elected”. (Jenkins seems to leave us wondering what category Barack Obama would be in.)
The column continues suggesting that Trump was right in fighting back against his accusers, knowing that the charges were fabricated with the worst of motives.
Nearly Jenkins’ entire column goes on with the back and forth between the corruption in our intelligence sector and Trump’s righteous impulses in counterattacking the Mueller, Comey, Brennan factions and reminding us that nevertheless, Trump is a pretty disgusting sort.
But, then, he gets to the finale. Readers can make what they will of this keen observation:
“I say the following without prejudice to the real Pete Buttigieg, whom I haven’t studied and who might turn out to be just another unappetizing politician. If I were a screenwriter, a gay mayor from South Bend, indiana is exactly the character I’d invent to step over the wreckage created by Mr. Trump and his enemies and restore sanity to the American experiment.”
(Guess we’ll have to wait to see if Mr. Jenkins determines whether “Mayor Pete” is another “unappetizing politician”. I’m on pins and needles awaiting his verdict.) DLH
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Meet America’s Siloviki by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Among the many interesting words in the 448-page Mueller report were those quoting an email from Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s closest aide, in response to associates who arranged Carter Page’s speaking invitation in St. Petersburg in July 2016.
Mr. Peskov wrote, “I have read about [Page]. Specialists say that he is far from being the main one. So I better not initiate a meeting in the Kremlin.”
So much (again) for the idea that the insubstantial Mr. Page was collusion’s Mr. Big. Washington’s intelligence and law-enforcement bureaucracy knows a great deal more about things that have been central bones of contention in our national political life than the American people have been allowed to know. In what I hope will be the first of many, a New York Times story last weekend finally described—two years late—the FBI’s suspicion that the Steele Dossier was influenced by Kremlin disinformation.
Likewise a few hundred officials with security clearances know the truth behind FBI Director James Comey’s serial interventions in the Hillary Clinton email case—interventions that began, we learned only belatedly from press leaks, with some kind of intercepted Russian intelligence that someone placed in Mr. Comey’s hands.
The questions raised by these episodes are monumental and will outlast the war over whether Mr. Trump is a nice man or not. Did Mr. Comey and his colleagues turn us into Russia, where the siloviki(veterans of the intelligence services) secretly and incompetently pull the strings of domestic politics?
Not satisfied to pick at his many deficiencies or oppose him in normal fashion, Mr. Trump’s enemies promoted one of the biggest lies in U.S. history. Two years later, we are back to square one with a difference: Now much of America rightly thinks his media and partisan enemies are every bit as sleazy as Mr. Trump was said to be. In regard to personal ethics, his biggest vulnerability, millions now see even less of a difference between Mr. Trump and his opponents than they did in 2016.
When these Americans hear certain Democrats chanting “Impeach Trump now,” they hear the mumbled corollary “before the American people can re-elect him.”
He came to the presidency the best known and most perfectly understood candidate in history. Fifteen years before he tossed his hat in the ring, “The Simpsons” could deliver a two-word joke that needed no setup: “President Trump.”
I mention this not to demean the president. The idea that his arrival somehow sullied the culture of Washington not only is absurdly overstated, it licensed the mood of conspiracy against him. He is not even the sketchiest person to hold the office in my lifetime. “There was no trusting anything he said or did on a given day,” writes the historian Robert Dallek—in his book about Lyndon Johnson.
Mr. Trump is simply the sketchiest that voters ever knowingly, deliberately, with clear eyes-full hearts, elected.
He could help himself even now by conducting his presidency differently. If his approval rating were even 50%, many fewer Democrats would find it in their electoral interest to endorse unsubstantiated slanders against him.
Still, a couple of things are true. People who are innocent tend to protest their innocence. A president who sees law enforcement itself peddling fabricated evidence can be forgiven for wondering if the law has been corrupted.
As Mr. Trump’s lawyer told Bob Mueller and Mr. Mueller reportedly accepted in good spirit, a president is obliged to fight back against politically motivated attacks. And for all his warts, Mr. Trump fought back more transparently than any past president would have or would have been able to, mostly on Twitter , in his own voice, taking ownership of each claim made in his defense.
The truth is, Mr. Trump is hardly capable of lying with the consistency of purpose that John Brennan and James Clapper have lied and likely will continue to lie. His White House was destined to be chaotic but how many presidents would not be thrown off balance by former high-ranking intelligence officials going on cable TV and calling them traitors?
If Mr. Trump’s historically assigned task was to expose Washington’s media and leadership class, with Robert Mueller’s help he has succeeded. Nobody (including me) would have guessed how much our intelligence sector had come to regard itself as the guardian of a particular class’s right to rule, or see its job as punishing voters when they vote wrong.
I say the following without prejudice to the real Pete Buttigieg, whom I haven’t studied and who may turn out to be just another unappetizing politician. If I were a screenwriter, a gay mayor from South Bend, Ind., is exactly the character I’d invent to step over the wreckage created by Mr. Trump and his enemies and restore sanity to the American experiment.
Appeared in the April 24, 2019, print edition.
