CSotD: A rustling of leaves in Birnam Wood?
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Joe Heller ties in a pair of stories neatly, though Sean Spicer is more along the lines of Kato Kaelin, a bit of comic relief in an otherwise gruesome tale.
I'll admit to little patience with people who fail to extricate themselves from miserable situations, and Spicer never seemed to enjoy his work or be particularly well-suited for the necessary badinage that comes with the job.
I suppose, in an administration that expected their press secretary to extrude the news and the press to dutifully report it verbatim, the idea of someone who simply makes statements to be copied down seemed like an easy slot to fill, but there remains a lot of "What on earth were you thinking?" to go around.
In any case, there's some good spin to put on this, in that Spicer may be an early indicator of more turmoil in the White House, though he's certainly not placed well enough to be John Dean in this comic opera, nor, I suspect, does he know anything interesting enough to be Alexander Butterfield.
Maybe Anthony Ulasewicz, remembered mostly for his bus conductor's changemaker that he used to make calls from payphones in the course of contacting people who needed to be reached off the record. Though even that ridiculous testimony was necessary and meaningful, as his NYTimes obit notes:
But the humor that defined Mr. Ulasewicz's moment in the limelight was dimmed by Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr., Republican of Connecticut, who read a list of people, powerful and humble, who were in deep trouble because of Watergate.
''What we see here is not a joke, but a very great tragedy,'' the Senator told a suddenly somber hearing room.
Ann Telnaes offers this grimly optimistic evaluation, assuming this is only the first rat to lose his grip.
And, as noted here before, we need to wait not for a Sean Spicer to drop off the bunch but rather an Alexander Butterfield who can actually provide the answer to "What did the President know and when did he know it?"
Meanwhile, the reign of folly continues, as Chip Bok notes, and if Sessions were consistent in his desire to return to the days of confiscating money, cars and other materials from those who are assumed to be innocent until proven guilty, well, you better hurry because there's often a line of people waiting to confiscate Trump properties.
Though Sessions may be the next rat to lose his grip and, again, he doesn't seem likely to hold the key pieces to this puzzle, while others in the Trump circle may be more like Oliver North, the loyal tool of Reagan's Iran-Contra deal who was lionized and enriched by the rightwing for that loyalty.
And the wagons certainly are being circled, with Trump, as Mike Luckovich points out, objecting to any investigation that goes beyond finding out if any Russians actually marked ballots and put them into boxes.
What Luckovich does right here is to show the leg sticking out rather than the cop having opened the trunk of the car. "Law & Order" devotees know how often Lenny Briscoe had evidence thrown out because he poked around to find it rather than stumbling across it in the course of a legitimate investigation.
The notion that Trump's finances are off-limits smells like a hint as to what might be in there, but, even if finding out who gave him money for what is relevant, you still have to collect it legally.
And stay out of service elevators.
Though, as Darrin Bell suggests, Trump's outrageous inability to STFU may provide some openings that don't require an Alexander Butterfield. Neither he nor I are lawyers, but, again, I've watching enough "Law & Order" to know that "spontaneous utterances" can be used as evidence, and god knows Trump's utterances are nothing if not spontaneous.
I also watched a man's denial of sex with a consenting adult not his wife become the charge in an impeachment trial, but it's up to the voters to choose the jury in 2018, because this one wouldn't convict their boy if, as he said, he shot someone on Fifth Avenue.
We must also remember, as Lee Judge reminds us, that there is still the work of running the country to be done, and a GOP willing to tackle the next item on the agenda.
And if the voters view a White House steeped in omerta positively, they may yet go to the polls wondering where those tax cuts went.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
A moving sight indeed.
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