People keep writing about similarities between Nixon's Watergate scandal and Trump's Russia scandal. The parallels only go so far but one is the slow drip-drip-drip where each day, you turn on the news and there's another puff of smoke to add to the sense that there may be a fire.
With Nixon, the constant revelations contributed to the sense that there was no end to the wrongdoing; that there had to be something highly illegal that was leaking out, piece by piece. Nixon kept explaining his version of what happened but each explanation would soon be undermined by further revelations.
I somehow can't imagine Trump even attempting a "come clean" explanation like Nixon offered. Nixon had to admit that something illegal had been done in his service, then argue that it was not at his orders and that no impeachable offense had been committed. Trump clings to the "never admit anything" position. Flynn didn't do anything wrong. Kushner didn't do anything wrong. No one who came in with him did anything wrong. If it gets to the point where he has to blame one of those guys and plead he made a mistake in picking them, that's when we'll know he's really in trouble. He may be even without that.
Hey, what do you say we check out some links?
- The Washington Post and the New York Times have both uncovered similar but not identical revelations about Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn meeting with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to discuss setting up a secret communication channel between Trump's team and Moscow. Matthew Yglesias explains the scoops and how they do and do not fit together.
- And Kevin Drum has some thoughts about the two reports. He seems to think more has to be known before either or both will make sense.
- Candidate Trump was very critical of the deal that Barack Obama made with Iran…so it's not surprising that President Trump is doing almost everything Obama did and claiming it's a reversal of some sort. Daniel Larison notes this and also that the Iran "hawks" who were outraged at the deal seem to be constantly outraged at any deal with anyone. To them, anything short of total surrender by the other side is "appeasement."
- Eric Levitz tries to make some sense of reports that James Comey knew that certain evidence against Hillary Clinton on the e-mail issue was fake but decided to proceed as if it was real. So far, the sense is elusive. Comey's got a lot of 'splainin' to do.
The F.C.C. cleared Stephen Colbert after complaints about him referring to Trump as Putin's "cock-holster." And recently, CBS chairman and CEO Les Moonves gloated about Colbert's ratings and asked, "Who would have predicted Stephen Colbert would be No.1 in late night and Bill O'Reilly would be doing a podcast in his underwear?" Now, there's a podcast you don't want to have be in video.