If a carpenter drives a nail with his shoe instead of a hammer, that is not the fault of the tool but the failure of the worker. Pundits, observers, and politicians want to create this Rube Goldberg mousetrap of complexity and it is far from necessary. The checks and balances that are assigned Constitutionally for overseeing the Executive branch are clear. The speculation on how to handle corruption and crisis is not in question, it is the recalcitrance of the Republicans in Congress who have allowed the President to create the current exhausting chaos Americans suffer.
The hearing to allow, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, a full Senate vote is underway. Much like recent hearings, the opposition party is doing its level best to root out the secreted ideas of the nominee and the party in power has abandoned advise and consent and is acting as defense attorneys. That duplicitous hypocrisy is the newest and latest iteration of partisan politics.
I was reminded of that yesterday during one of the most intriguing segments of MSNBC’s Deadline: White House to date. Nicolle Wallace, former Bush 43 aide, and Sarah Palin handler in the 2008 McCain campaign brought on former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt. I have to credit Ms. Wallace with having the courage and temerity to confront their connivance in bringing Sarah Palin to the world stage and compared their actions to the anonymous writer of the now famous NY Times op-ed.
Schmidt admitted he knew three days after Palin joined the campaign that she did not, “know anything.” I want to like Steve Schmidt, especially after his epiphany that has opened his eyes to the cruelty of the Republican party, but whenever I walk to the edge of the stream and try and cross he pokes a hole in my canoe. He railed against the cowardice and purposeful anonymity of the ‘Senior Administration’ op-ed author but couched his own complicity in enabling Sarah Palin. She was a heartbeat away from the Presidency when she rode shotgun for a three-time cancer survivor. Schmidt wants us to accept that the financial freefall, announced September 15, 2008, precluded any chance of winning so publicly exposing Palin would have been an academic exercise. This despite his thinking she was, “psychologically deteriorating…manifestly unfit to be anywhere close to the national command authority.” I am reluctant to say, as I am soon to be a member of the bald brethren, but Mr. Schmidt you sounded as if you are searching for the, best orange words.
The substance—of the latest game of hide and go seek the leaker, has been lost to the importance of the moment. We are overlooking the fact that people in the White House are so fearful of the President they are hiding paperwork; Nearly three-thousand American citizens died in Puerto Rico due to neglect, and the President does not understand the simple geopolitical reasons for troops in South Korea or how NATO works, and Trump’s terrorizing of children continues. If a foreign enemy were to attack the U.S. or one of our allies; is this President any more equipped than Sarah Palin to act?
Seriously, Vote in ’18 for Change.