...me or your lying eyes?" is a well-worn line from stand-up routines usually about a cheating spouse caught in the act. The problem for President Trump is that even his supporters have accepted that he lies constantly and shrug it off as no big deal since it is probably harder to admit they were wrong to support him than to accept the ugly reality. The more serious problem is that if you eliminate the truth, there is no end to the alternatives. I am referring to the latest scandal about the Russians paying the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill American GIs. In a now well-established pattern he first went with denial of knowledge of the intelligence. This was followed by the claim that the intelligence was flawed. Finally there was the descent into a morass of conflicting statements from an assortment of officials to give the boss cover. It may be decades before the truth about this and other scandals of the Trump presidency see the light. Let's go with what we do know. There is little doubt the intelligence has existed for months if not a year. Why would such explosive information, even if unconfirmed, remain under wraps for so long? Could it be because the president publicly discredited our intelligence agencies and expressed a preference for Putin's line early in his term (remember the meeting with Putin in Helsinki)? How about the president's aversion to intelligence briefings? Or may be it was the fear of displeasing him by telling the truth. The idea that speaking truth to power was the patriotic thing to do appears to have been abandoned, replaced by fear of getting fired, witness the turnover among top officials. My point is, no matter the reason, we have the untenable situation where a matter of such importance can be mishandled in this way. Talk about incompetence and being unfit for the job! And still Republican senators and congressmen continue to defend and enable him. And the few who don't want to do so, avoid saying anything for fear of being "primaried". What will it take for this to end? We all know the answer to that question.
- drrama7