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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWatching the Downfall of a Presidency in Real Time - By Frank Rich
There will be no single smoking gun that will bring down this White House. It will be death by firing squad or perhaps a sequence of firing squads as the whole story inexorably pours out of the administrations smoldering ruins. This weeks bombshell has the feel of gallows humor. Trump Jr.s panicked release of the self-incriminating emails is tantamount to picking up a loaded gun and shooting himself in the head.
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For all we know, the released email chain may be only a small and relatively minor part of a much larger criminal web that stretches from Donald Trumps tax returns to his and the Kushner familys respective real-estate dealings in Russia and beyond. The authorities who matter the investigators at the special counsels office and the FBI are not telling us what they are up to. They may already know or may soon know of evidence far more incriminating than the revelations of the past 72 hours.
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Q: Republicans in Congress have been slow to respond to this story, if theyve commented at all. Is silence an effective strategy?
Rich: Its not a strategy. Its desperation. Much like their predecessors in the Nixon era, they keep hoping somehow it will all go away so they can get back to business as usual.
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After all, it was less than a month ago that David Brooks, writing in the Times, reassured them that there was little evidence of any actual collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and the Russians and that most voters dont really care anyway. Prominent Republicans continued to use this script after the release of the Trump Jr. emails, with Orrin Hatch calling the story overblown, Peter King characterizing the campaign-hierarchy meeting with the Kremlin-connected lawyer as a one-off, inadvertent mistake, and Bob Corker dismissing the whole affair as politics.
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The closer we get to the 2018 midterms, the faster Republicans in the House and some of those up for reelection in the Senate will scramble for the lifeboats. But by the time they wake up and see the looming iceberg, it may be too late to save their careers.
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For all of us, a little perspective is in order. Little Donald is not the story here any more than G. Gordon Liddy and those third-rate burglars were the story in Watergate. We are likely to reach a point when this weeks firestorm will be remembered mainly as a warm-up for conflagrations yet to come
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MORE:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/watching-the-downfall-of-a-presidency-in-real-time.html
PJMcK
(22,037 posts)Frank Rich is a brilliant writer. Although I had many disagreements with him when he was the NY Times theater critic and he disparaged my writers' shows, he's extremely smart and observant.
Here are my favorite quotes from the article.
"The level of stupidity of the conspirators is staggering: Not the least of the weeks news is that Kushner thought he could get away with omitting this Trump Tower meeting on the government questionnaire he filed to get his security clearance. (The $2.5 million that Charles Kushner donated to Harvard to gain his son admission was not money well spent.)"
"Mike Pence has clearly been boning up on Gerald Ford, and may already be brooding about the risks entailed if he should eventually be in the position to pardon the 45th president."
"If McConnell were really canny, what hed be doing right now is gaming out how his party will respond to the next looming constitutional crisis: Trumps inevitable version of the Saturday Night Massacre, in which Robert Mueller is fired, and Rod Rosenstein along with him. For all of us, a little perspective is in order. Little Donald is not the story here any more than G. Gordon Liddy and those third-rate burglars were the story in Watergate. We are likely to reach a point when this weeks firestorm will be remembered mainly as a warm-up for conflagrations yet to come."
Hekate
(90,681 posts)MiddleClass
(888 posts)This happened in 94, 06 and to a lesser extent in the midterms 10, 12, where it was more of Democrats and left leaning independents, not bothering to vote. A thumping Obama called it.
The main part of all this has yet to come out, but this is a hell of a warm-up act
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)volstork
(5,400 posts)new eyeballs. Mine are now eternally ruined.
SergeStorms
(19,201 posts)back in the late 60s, I had a shirt that looked like an American flag. I wore it to Vietnam War and other assorted protests. People.....went.....MENTAL over the "disrespect" I was showing to our "revered" flag.
My, what would they say to something like THAT!
That's one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen in my life!
Amaryllis
(9,524 posts)"the released email chain may be only a small and relatively minor part of a much larger criminal web that stretches from Donald Trumps tax returns to his and the Kushner familys respective real-estate dealings in Russia and beyond."
bora13
(860 posts)"they keep hoping somehow it will all go away so they can get back to business as usual"
I keep hoping somehow it will all go away so we can get back to business as usual
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)collusion evidence exists. And just when Republicans and Trump were proclaiming there wasn't any, BOOM! Someone is enjoying making fools of the Trump cabal, and they are doing a fine job of it.
Every time they seem to catch a little break from the noise, BOOM again.
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