This is regarding the Editor’s Blog piece “He burst their bubble”. JM, you refer to yourself as “naive.” I also think of myself that way, I really AM shocked… shocked at times when someone, especially in public life, behaves dishonestly. This approach to the world involves leading with a measured somewhat credulous attitude. I’m not a fool.; I’m at the same time a skeptic- different from being a cynic. I hope that it makes me someone who exercises fairness, and as you say, it keeps me from making premature conclusions about others. This a somewhat idealized version of myself, I hope that I live up to it. There’s a default trust in others operating, but not blindly. JM, your reporting is fair, reasonably skeptical, and that’s why i tend to trust it.
Speaking of trust. There’s an interesting piece in Mother Jones “The Trump Files: Why Donald called his 4 year old son a ‘Loser’.” Basically it’s about Senior telling Junior “Don’t. Trust. Anyone. Ever.” “I mean it’s not something you tell a four-year-old, right? But it really means something to him.” It’s another piece of DT’s strange process, and this worldview explains a lot about how the executive branch has been so erratic and inept. How do you run such an enterprise without turning over trust? The palace intrigue and mutual undercutting is another manifestation.
I don’t associate for long with folks who operate without a modicum of trust. I think that it’s why so many people continue to be astonished at the way he conducts himself. After more than a year of it it might seem that even folks who operate out of good faith in the world might become inured to it. But people continue to shake their heads at his spectacle after so long because, I think that there’s such a fundamental dysfunction between DT’s process and that or ordinary (dare I say it) decent people. At least Nixon could fake it.
Sorry, Last sentence “>>>there’s such a fundamental DYSJUNCTION between DT’s process…”
I suspect that Reince Priebus like Cuck Kushner has lied on his security clearance forms as well. The Republican National Committee was deeply involved and actively collaborating with Russian intelligence in the 2016 attack on America.
The Spiro Agnew Gambit:
Trump mistrusts the GOP.
He fires Pence.
He hires Clinton for VP.
He resigns.
He testify in secret.
He is pardoned.
People go to jail.
The country heals.
QED (grin)
@macbruce except the Republican party festered and thus the country never did heal.
The illustrated sample of the SF86 form accompanying this article is from the wrong section - what’s depicted is for disclosure of services provided to foreign entities or governments, not contacts with foreign entities or agents (which is in section 20.6).
I was once listed as a reference for a friend seeking a higher level of security clearance. I kid you not, the ONLY thing the interviewer was interested in were my friend’s foreign contacts. These contacts were not numerous and they were not “high level” or government related, and I was a little surprised at the rank suspicion they engendered. My friend had rented his basement apartment to a Russian student who was waiting tables at a local restaurant. She wasn’t even from Russia, but one of the former soviet republics. He did not get the level of clearance (they don’t deny they just never respond and most people know better than to ask). Kushner obviously travels in elevated circles and so might be expected to have had some contacts, but that just begs the question – why was he hiding these contacts? Did he really think it wouldn’t come out? I keep ping ponging between nefarious and naive, and maybe he is both depending on the matter.
