Gall In The White House

       And now, further adventures with Kaptain Klump and the Klepto Kids,  also known as the president of the United States and his top appointees.
     Today's episodes include a return appearance by that old presidential retainer Michael Flynn, who keeps showing up like a black-sheep cousin at Thanksgiving. Booted earlier for making eyes at the Russians and lying about it, Flynn was a busier boy than most of us knew even yet. Before and after the election of his patron, he was also pocketing a cool half million in boodle to run errands on American soil for the Turkish government. In this he was required by law to register as an agent of a foreign power -- but, well, he just didn't get around to that part of it until now.
     The Klump presidential transition team knew about Flynn's deal with the Turks.  They did not however, reveal it. They didn't even tell the Kap. Perhaps they didn't want the voters worrying their pretty little heads about whether they were actually voting for the Kap, Vladimir Putin or Recep Erdogan.  Perhaps they also reasoned that the Kap was busy figuring out how to use federal law to enforce religious prohibitions and enhance the privilege of white people.
     The Kap does have an especially full plate these days.  Federal civil servants have annoyed him by continuing to fulfill their sworn obligations under law. He has responded by firing them in wholesale lots.  This leaves him with a very great deal of hiring to do. His challenge is compounded by his very particular job requirements. He must find candidates untroubled by the premise that government workers can be loyal to him or to the American public but not necessarily both.
     Meanwhile, the Kap's sons are busy as well. Although they lack official status, they are a kind of junior varsity Klepto Kid.  The junior KK's (no, no; only two K's; only two) have been jetting around with tax-paid protection to run their Dad's business empire.  The Kap and his folks think it churlish of others to worry about conflicts between the public interest and the family's mercantile imperatives. After all, the Kap has demonstrated that he does respect the altruistic principles of public service. In moving from his New York tower to the White House, he has selflessly accepted smaller quarters in a poorer neighborhood.
     Truth to tell, the Kap has stumbled a bit with this presidential thing. Now, he's giving it another big try. He's wading in with support of the proposed new health care law. Republicans like it for being consistent with their philosophy of channeling wealth toward people who already have some and are therefore experienced in handling it. Republicans are big on Capitol Hill. Sometimes it seems the Congress has more Republicans than members.  If he's been reading his poll numbers, the Kap might reasonably feel that he needs to round up a lot more friends.
     And the work never ends. The Kap is busy. The junior Kleptos are busy. Supplicants of the government are lined up over here. Customers of the empire are lined up over there -- except when the supplicants and the customers are the same people.  Witness the current example of the candy industry, which is lobbying the government to change its policies on sugar subsidies. Industry leaders gathered last week for their national conference -- at one of the Kap's resorts. They have two more meetings scheduled, both in one of his hotels.
     Perhaps the Kap and boys would represent this overlap as a kind of efficiency. This would be consistent with the administration's wholesale redefinition of words and ideas. Mendacity is alternative honesty. The greed of the few is good for the many.  That sort of thing.
     To this pattern there is, however, one sure exception.  The Kap and his team would never argue that black is white.

Trump: Strongman or Stumblebum?

     A government of laws, not of men.
                                                    John Adams
     In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.
                                                    Adlai E. Stevenson II



      The phrase does not roll trippingly off the tongue: President Trump.  It feels rather like saying crackerbox palace.  Some images are just ungainly.
      However, The Donald is in the White House for now, and pundits are hip-deep in fodder. Assessing this administration so far amounts to assessing a soccer riot, but the word merchants are game. They do apply standards adjusted for the realities of the Trump era. His Tuesday speech to Congress is receiving good marks on grounds that he did not make a fool of himself. And the fact-checkers -- a new specialty in punditry -- are ever busy reviewing his assertions for untruth.
      Thus one of the evergreen questions about Trump.  Does he really believe the wild nonsense his administration peddles, or does he not?  Only he can truly know, of course, but all the possible answers are dismal. In any case, the blizzard of lies may blow itself out with time. The whoppers may be too preposterous to sustain. They already have have subjected aides to howling ridicule. Even a man of Trump's coarse sensibilities must realize that ridicule is dangerous to his presidency.
     Also dangerous is the issue of Russian dalliance with his campaign team. Hitherto die-hard allies in Congress are declining to ignore this one.  If it is shown that Trump's team courted an under-the-table deal with a hostile foreign government, his best available response would be that he didn't know. But ignorance would not serve him as a defense. It would go down as a confession. Hence, perhaps, his conspicuous eagerness for the issue to be dropped.
     Were it settled today, the hallmark of the Trump administration would not be autocracy but incompetence. He has signed a major immigration order he didn't understand; offered Cabinet nominees with checkered pasts; hired advisers whose performance ranged from corrupt to absurd; undercut his vice president and two Cabinet secretaries; angered or frightened allies; raised speculation of a trade war with Mexico; left hundreds of vacancies in the top operating ranks of government agencies, and engendered an atmosphere of chaos in Washington.
     Meanwhile, across the nation, his signature political tactic is failing him.  While fear-mongering has made vulnerable people afraid of his administration, he has not been able to make Americans afraid of each other. Rather, he has provoked an upsurge of solidarity in resistance across cultural, religious and demographic lines. He also has stiffened attitudes of resistance in multiple levels of government.
     Trump won nomination by exciting a fervid minority within a Republican Party whose majority failed to vote at all. He lost the general election popular vote by millions. He entered the White House without a coherent mandate.  He cannot create one with vulgar personal outbursts of hubris, falsehood and zany paranoia. Nor can he erase that record by making a single speech in which he did not appear to be unhinged.
     Congress will watch and calibrate Trump's squandering of his limited political capital. If Democrats sense that he has crippled himself, they will go for the throat. Republicans will use him opportunistically when he is willing to lean their way on pet issues. But they won't go so far as to risk their skins for a man who may be no more than a headstrong stumblebum -- and they are already feeling heat at home.
     The record so far: In just a few weeks, comprehensive opposition has been energized against the visible particulars of Trump's bad ideas,  and the would-be strongman has made a dog's breakfast of the role.  No one who respects the meaning of words would call this a hopeful start, but it could be a lesser evil.