Friends and correspondents keep reminding me of a line I wrote once in a comic book. One character said to another something like, "You know what the trouble with you is? You've never realized that never admitting you're wrong isn't the same thing as always being right."
This whole thing with the allegation that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower is an example of how Donald Trump either doesn't get the difference or simply doesn't have the occasional moment of humility it takes to say, "I'm sorry, I was wrong." Instead, he's insisting that he has the evidence and will get around someday to disclosing it. In the meantime, he's probably pressuring those he can pressure to find something someplace (anything!) that at least justifies him making the charge.
When you're the frickin' President of the United States, you have the best access in the world to researchers and our nation's secrets. You shouldn't be relying on "Well, I read it someplace."
Some links…
- Josh Marshall writes more about what I just wrote about. He says, "It is amazing, crazy that we've actually spent two weeks discussing this as a real issue. Now, because of this enabling, we have a bona-fide, if minor, international incident with the US's closest ally, the United Kingdom because the President's press secretary actually spread the accusation that the UK somehow conspired with President Obama to do this. That's nuts." Where did the Trump administration get its info that the United Kingdom had done this? Well, they heard someone on Fox News say it.
- As Katy Waldman notes, one big reason why Trump's Muslim ban keeps getting overturned is that the law says you can't do that, so the only way they can institute a Muslim ban is to deny that it's really a Muslim ban. And the reason they can't do that is because Trump and his minions can't resist reassuring their followers that it's a Muslim ban.
- And Jeffrey Toobin has more on that topic.
- Lastly for now: Daniel Larison thinks it's nuts to throw more money at the military while slashing aid programs. So do I and so do you.
And just how much is it costing us to have Mr. Trump living in the White House but commuting to Mar-a-Lago, and Mrs. Trump living in New York? Couldn't we spend a little of that money on feeding poor people in this country? Just a little?