The Commentariat -- September 2, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Axios: "An 'exhaustive review' of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's professional history by the Boston Globe found that her claim to Native American ancestry was never a consideration during her hiring process for Harvard Law School or throughout her rise in the legal profession." The Globe story is firewalled, but click on the link if you're a subscriber. Mrs. McC: I'm sure Trump will quit calling Warren "Pocahontas" now.

*****

New York Times: "Senator John McCain is receiving a full-fledged Washington send-off on Saturday as former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama lead an invitation-only service at Washington National Cathedral. A motorcade carrying Mr. McCain's coffin left Capitol Hill around 8:40 a.m. and stopped along the way at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where Cindy McCain laid a wreath in honor of her husband, a naval aviator who was held for five and a half years as a prisoner of war. The memorial service at the Cathedral began shortly after 10 a.m. Meghan McCain, one of his daughters, delivered an emotional tribute to her father that included a steely rebuke to President Trump. Former Senator Joseph Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger also made remarks." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Benjamin Hart & Chas Danner of New York: "... often by simply articulating the values [John McCain] stood for, [the speakers at his memorial service] created a powerful contrast between the man they were eulogizing and the current commander-in-chief. Below, some of the notable remarks and scenes from the event[.]" ...

... Susan Glasser of the New Yorker: "This was ... a meeting of the Resistance, under vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows.... Midway through [Meghan McCain's] remarkable speech, a pool report from the White House was released. Trump, wearing a white 'Make America Great Again' hat, and having tweeted his morning complement of bile, directed at Hillary Clinton, Robert Mueller, and his own Justice Department, had departed to play golf.... In any other context, maybe it would not seem to be a stinging criticism to hear [President] Obama praise the 'rule of law.' But Trump is the inescapable context of these times in Washington. 'Perhaps above all, [President] Bush [II] said, 'John detested the abuse of power.'" ...

... Charles Pierce: "John McCain was given a national send-off in a National Cathedral and there was a great gathering of emotion that was almost frightening in its intensity because you knew that it was aimed at a solitary, angry, unbalanced man left back at the White House, at someone who nonetheless is the president* of the United States, with all the powers inherent to his office, a man who has created a situation in which he is an object of dislike and disrespect, because that is all that he's given to the world in return.... We let the customs, manners, norms and institutions weaken through neglect and now we are in open conflict with an elected president and, make no mistake about it, John McCain's funeral was a council of war.... He wanted a pageant of everything this administration* has trashed and put up for sale, and that's what he got Saturday -- a morality play shot through with Shakespearian portent and foreshadowing, a pageant of democracy's vengeance." ...

** Eric Levitz: "McCain's loved ones deserve to take pride in the sacrifices he made at the 'Hanoi Hilton.' But we, as a nation, do not. The United States asked John McCain to risk his life -- and kill other human beings -- for a war built on lies. We asked him to give some of his best years on Earth -- and the full use of his arms -- to an illegal, unwinnable war of aggression. The story of McCain's time as a prisoner of war should inspire national shame. It is a story about our government abusing the trust of one its most patriotic citizens. But it's (almost) never presented as such. Instead, in stump speeches, op-eds, and obituaries, McCain's service is typically framed as a testament to our nation's greatness, or an affirmation of its finest values." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: In his truth-telling -- and you should read Levitz' entire post -- he writes one thing that may have been true at the time McCain was in service, but at least over time it ceased to be true. Levitz: "There is no reason to doubt that McCain believed he was in Vietnam to risk his life -- and then, to endure a living hell -- in defense of our nation's highest ideals." ...

     ... But Charles Pierce, in his post linked above, writes that in 1998 he asked McCain "if there was someone he couldn't forgive, or at least talk to, about" his imprisonment. "He got all quiet and took a long time to answer. 'McNamara,' he finally said. 'That's the worst to me -- to know you've made a mistake and to do nothing to correct it while, year after year, people are dying and to do nothing to stop it, to know what your public duty is and to ignore it. I don't think any conversation we could have would be helpful now.'" ...

... The Little Man Who Wasn't There. David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump ... found himself more isolated than ever Saturday, airing his latest grievances and retreating to his private golf course in Virginia as his peers gathered to pay homage to the late senator John McCain.... Trump issued threats to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement and promoting a false conspiracy theory alleging government misconduct in its surveillance of one of his former campaign aides [Carter Page]. 'I love Canada, but they've taken advantage of our Country for many years!' Trump wrote in one tweet.... 'If we don't make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out,' Trump wrote. 'Congress should not interfere w/ these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off.' The sharp dichotomy of Trump's pugilistic posts and the dignified memorial service, broadcast live by cable news stations and online, underscored the president's unwillingness to embrace the traditional duties of office and his scorn of Washington's protocols and conventions, which he has delighted in undermining." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is, of course, exactly the kind of behavior that cost Trump an invitation to a service where a "normal" sitting president -- especially one of the same political party -- would be an honored guest, but that's something Trump either can't or won't comprehend. ...

... Lorraine Woellert of Politico: "... Donald Trump's allies went on the counterattack Saturday after tributes to the late Sen. John McCain took pointed aim at the president.... And they privately chastised Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner ... for attending the senator's memorial service. '@realDonaldTrump ran for @POTUS ONE time and WON,' tweeted Katrina Pierson, an adviser to Trump's campaign. 'Some people will never recover from that.'" Mrs. McC: Extremely classy, Mizz Pierson.

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

All the President's Crooks. Larry Buchanan & Karen Yourish of the New York Times: Since President Trump's inauguration, numerous campaign and administration officials have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes. Others were found to have violated federal ethics rules, or were forced to resign over security clearance issues. The criminal charges were all connected to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III." The reporters compile a nice list, with notes & diagrams. Criminal Convictions: Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn. Cabinet Officials Who Misspent Taxpayer Dollars or Violated Ethics Rules (or Both!): Scott Pruitt, Ben Carson, David Shulkin, Wilbur Ross, Tom Price, Brenda Fitzgerald, Nikki Haley. White House Staff with Security or Ethics Issues (or Both!): Rob Porter, Dan Scavino, Kellyanne Conway, John McEntee.  And counting.

Ken Vogel & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "Between 2014 and 2016, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to turn [Russian oligarch Oleg] Deripaska into an informant. They ... were hoping for information on Russian organized crime and, later, on possible Russian aid to President Trump's 2016 campaign, according to current and former officials and associates of Mr. Deripaska. In one dramatic encounter, F.B.I. agents appeared unannounced and uninvited at a home Mr. Deripaska maintains in New York and pressed him on whether Paul Manafort, a former business partner of his..., had served as a link between the campaign and the Kremlin.... Two of the players in the effort [to flip Derispaska & other oligarchs] were Bruce G. Ohr, the Justice Department official who has recently become a target of attacks by Mr. Trump, and Christopher Steele.... The systematic effort to win the cooperation of the oligarchs, which has not previously been revealed, does not appear to have scored any successes.... Mr. Deripaska ... told the American investigators that he disagreed with their theories about Russian organized crime and Kremlin collusion in the campaign...; Mr. Deripaska even notified the Kremlin about the American efforts to cultivate him." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As nearly as I can tell, this story is a leak in response to leaks. House Republicans who interviewed Ohr last week have been leaking, as they are wont to do, "selected tidbits" of info about the many meetings between Ohr & Steele -- the Deep State Duo. In response, somebody has leaked this story to explain why Ohr & Steele had so many meetings.

Spencer Hsu & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post (via the Portland [Maine] Press Herald): "A Maine native and longtime Washington political consultant who advised a Ukrainian political party and worked with a co-defendant of Paul Manafort pleaded guilty Friday to failing to register as a foreign lobbyist while working on behalf of a Ukrainian political party. W. Samuel Patten, 47, was charged with one count of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act for failing to register with the Justice Department when he represented the Ukrainian opposition bloc from 2014 to 2018." Thanks to MAG for the link. Mrs. McC: A lovely bio of a lovely man, I'm sure. Except for that Ukrainian stuff & accidentally forgetting to register as a foreign agent & buying those inaugural tickets for a Kremlin fave & lying to Congress & what-not. This is a guy, BTW, who had all the advantages, la creme de la crum. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Rob Tibbetts, in a Des Moines Register op-ed: "Ten days ago, we learned that Mollie would not be coming home.... At the outset, politicians and pundits used Mollie's death to promote various political agendas. We appealed to them and they graciously stopped.... Sadly, others have ... chosen to callously distort and corrupt Mollie's tragic death to advance a cause she vehemently opposed.... But do not appropriate Mollie's soul in advancing views she believed were profoundly racist. The act grievously extends the crime that stole Mollie from our family and is, to quote Donald Trump Jr., 'heartless' and 'despicable.'... The person who is accused of taking Mollie's life is no more a reflection of the Hispanic community as white supremacists are of all white people." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Rob Tibbetts is being facetious about Junior. What Junior actually wrote in an op-ed for the Register (published August 31) was, "The reaction from some Democrats and others on the left to the murder of Mollie Tibbetts is as despicable as it is revealing. The mask is off and the true radical face of the Democrats has been exposed. They are seemingly more concerned with protecting their radical open-borders agenda than the lives of innocent Americans." And off he goes. Junior is, to borrow from Rob Tibbetts now, "extending the crime." Here's hoping the next publication by Donnie Junior is titled "Letter from Ossining Jail." P.S. to prosecutors: Junior is a flight risk. He has places to stay all over the world. At his arraignment, ask the judge to lock him up.

** What John Roberts & His Buddies Did. Mark Niesse, et al., of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "When a passionate crowd rallied to save polling places in rural Randolph County, it won a high-profile battle for voting access. But voters trying to preserve their local precincts are losing the war as voting locations are vanishing across Georgia. County election officials have closed 214 precincts across the state since 2012, according to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That figure means nearly 8 percent of the state's polling places.... These precincts have been eliminated without federal government oversight. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2013 removed requirements under the Voting Rights Act for some local governments to obtain federal clearance before making changes to voting practices, such as closing precincts. The requirement was created specifically to prevent discrimination in mostly Southern communities.... The state doesn't monitor the closure of polling places either.... Across the South, hundreds of polling places have closed since the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act five years ago. At least 868 polling places in seven Southern states have closed since the decision, according to a Leadership Conference Education Fund study in 2016 of some areas previously covered by the Voting Rights Act."

Gubernatorial Race. Kansas. Ha Ha Ha. Peter Hancock of the Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World: "Douglas County (Kansas) will have to summon a citizen-initiated grand jury to investigate allegations that Secretary of State Kris Kobach's office mishandled voter registration information during the 2016 election, the Kansas Supreme Court said Friday. In a one-page order signed by Chief Justice Lawton Nuss, the court denied Kobach's request to review a Kansas Court of Appeals decision in June that said Lawrence resident Steven Davis had met the legal requirement for circulating petitions to summon a grand jury.... Davis, a Lawrence resident who ran unsuccessfully for the Kansas House in the 2016 and 2018 Democratic primaries, circulated petitions following the 2016 elections, calling for a grand jury to investigate whether Kobach or others in his office had engaged in 'destroying, obstructing, or failing to deliver online voter registration.'... While the case was pending at the Court of Appeals, Attorney General Derek Schmidt's office withdrew the state as a party to the case.... Kobach himself, who is now the Republican nominee for governor, has dismissed the allegations as politically motivated.... Kansas is one of only six states that allow citizen-initiated grand juries."

Loose Canon

Laurie Goodstein & Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "A week ago, Archbishop [Carlo Maria] Viganò released an explosive letter saying that [Pope] Benedict had ordered Cardinal [Theodore] McCarrick to retire to a life of prayer and penance and had barred him from celebrating Mass in public, traveling for church business, giving lectures and participating in public meetings.... However..., during the years he was supposedly restricted under Benedict ... he visited seminaries and ordained new priests, officiated at Masses and traveled the world representing the church.... After Francis became pope, in 2013, he lifted the sanctions and made the cardinal a trusted adviser, the letter claimed.... One explanation given by church analysts is that he had been under sanctions, but that they were not taken seriously because the accusations against him were of sexual misconduct with adults, not children.... Both popes could clear up the confusion created by the letter. Neither one has." ...

... Jason Horowitz: Carlo Maria Viganò "has escalated his offensive with new, detailed accusations that put increasing pressure on a pontiff who the archbishop and his supporters say has misled the faithful and should resign.... In a new letter published late Friday by the conservative website LifeSiteNews, the archbishop gave his version of events leading up to the pope’s controversial September 2015 meeting with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses. His description contradicted the Vatican's own account of that private meeting, maintaining that Francis' lieutenants lied to the public about the encounter, which threatened to eclipse the pope's entire trip to the United States that month.... A Chilean abuse survivor, Juan Carlos Cruz..., said Francis had told him that Archbishop Viganò sneaked Ms. Davis into the Vatican Embassy in Washington for a private meeting in 2015 and that the pope did not know who she was or why she was controversial.... Archbishop Viganò writes in the new letter: 'One of them is lying: either Cruz or the pope? What is certain is that the pope knew very well who Davis was, and he and his close collaborators had approved the private audience.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie's Sunday Advice: if an institution is going to get all hung up on its members' sex lives, to the point it tells its lieutenants that they can't have sexual relations at all, and that many of the rank & file can't have relations with their preferred partners, expect problems. Terrible problems.

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

Yeah, but...

John McCain my have come to know the Vietnam War was a great mistake, and he had every right to blame McNamara for persisting in the deadly foolishness which brought McCain himself five years of personal pain and death to nearly 3.5 million others , but McCain learned too little and too late from his own experience and second thoughts.

He was all for Bush II's mad and vindictive Iraq invasion, and only (once again) figured out that adventure was a wrong 'un too.

Undoubtedly a brave man who loved his country, but too many admirals in his forebears for McCain to think clearly about foreign policy, methinks.

[Marie Burns]

@Ken W. I couldn't agree with you more. I thought McCain was wrong 90 percent of the time. Worse than that, his vaunted talent for "admitting mistakes" was a frequent & convenient cop-out: he'd do something knowing full-well it was awful, then months or years later admit it was awful, whereupon everyone would pat him on the back for redeeming himself. This pattern of behavior is different from repeatedly making honest mistakes, then fessing up when you realize what you did was wrong. He knew at the time a thing was wrong -- like excusing the Confederate flag in South Carolina -- but he did it anyway, knowing he could show some nobility when it was more convenient to do so.

But the ground hasn't settled over his body, so I'm not much in a mood for knocking McCain, something I did daily during the 2008 presidential campaign & many a time after that.

As to your original point about Our Excellent Adventures Abroad, I know McCain was a Navy man & a pilot -- not a soldier -- but I long ago decided that the most useful meaning for the saying "Old soldiers never die" is "Old soldiers never learn."

[MAG]

@BeaMcCrab: ...so basically you're saying as to taking a political stance, John McCain (see also Lindsay Graham et al) was Susan Collins before Susan Collins was Susan Collins?

[PD Pepe]

@Ken: Yes, those of us who had our problems with McCain will probably agree with your assessment and yesterday's homages by Obama, Bush and Lieberman all attested to the conflicts they had with him although never went as far as saying he might have been wrong about foreign policy, but they didn't have to.

Bret Stephen's in his NYT's column today cites McCain's 1999 memoir, "Faith of my Fathers" and uses this quote to use as his theme:

"I knew that my release [before the others] would add to the suffering of men who were already straining to keep faith with their country."

It's these last lines–-"straining to keep faith with their country" Bret takes and flushes out OUR current straining to keep that faith.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/opinion/mccain-america.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion-columnists

For some, politics is essentially a matter of character. Politicians do bad things because they are bad people. The idea that good people can do terrible things (even for good reasons) and bad people good things, does not enter into these particular moral universes. And if I recall Marie saying something similar and adding that few understand this.

Which brings me back to the Church yesterday where the honoring of McCain was beautifully wrought. Meagan's words, much too long, I thought, were so emotional and touching that I went through three tissues and was surprised that the audience that was visible wasn't sniffling. I couldn't help wondering what was going through Jared and Ivanka's heads (hers, by the way, was bowed whenever the camera caught her), it was crystal clear that throughout the service Trump was being vilified. The absent one––the president* of the U.S.––not invited––and in stark contrast to the ones who were.

On Friday in another church an homage was taking place for Aretha. Another example of stark contrasts––this time in the emotional display, in the many musicians singing their praises, tears, cries, shouts and wonder at the stunning hats worn by the beautiful women. But I must confess when Ariana Grande showed up in a skimpy, very short outfit, to sing "I feel like a Natural woman" right in front Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and other males, my "coolness" reverted to "Not appropriate" for a funeral service. Turns out I wasn't as "out of the loop" as I thought. Bishop Ellis is being criticized for sneaking up a little too high when hugging Ariana (hand touching her breast) and some saying that didn't Ariana know the dress code in black churches–-"skirts BELOW knees.'

I feel better now.

[Patrick]

Here is an interesting article in today's WaPo, about how people tend to vote according to who they are rather than what they want. I.e. identity is stronger than ideology.

This concept is not new to RC readers, so there's no news here. But it is fairly well written, and as I have quoted before, Enrico Fermi: "Never underestimate the joy people derive from hearing something they already know."

There is other evidence, not cited here, that "who people are" can be strongly influenced by physiognomy, which in turn can be influenced by epigenetics and genetics (roughly, nurture and nature). So a certain percentage of a population (say, 34%) may be predisposed towards conservative authoritarianism because that's the way they're wired and programmed.

In today's political culture, those people probably will identify Republican, as long as R means "fear-based authoritarian." Education and experience will not change many of them.

So ... to avoid the pernicious effects we have seen to result from empowering those "34", we would do better to raise the active political participation of the other "66" ... but at the same time seek to assuage the fears of the 34.

The D party would be wise to identify the top-ten (arbitrary #) policies it will pursue, but frame them to account for the fear-reaction that will ALWAYS come from the 34. How to do that will be the key to getting out of the societal spiral we've entered.

[Patrick]

PD, thanks for the Stephens article on McCain. The key line from McCain's memoir is

“I knew that my release would add to the suffering of men who were already straining to keep faith with their country.”

Stephens elevates that faith struggle to a different level than McCain probably intended.

After the Korean War, all the armed services pursued intensive internal propaganda on Code of Conduct responsibilities of uniformed service members. The effort resulted from sad experience of U.S. POWs, deserters and malingerers in Korea, our first "WTF?" war.

In addition to repetitive mandatory classes, there were film clips before feature movies at base cinemas; posters exhorting COC obligations at the barber shop, where you had to read them as you waited and as you got shorn; ditto for mess hall walls and corridors (you stand in line before you enter; you read what's on the wall). The chaplains' book of standardized sermons had several the theme of which was "duty, keeping faith". The posters were in the HQ front office and the wardroom.

So, enlisted and officers, and particularly officers who had been service brats, were totally steeped in that ethos McCain cited in that sentence. It was not necessarily "faith" that one's country was worth one's confidence; it was certain knowledge that violating the Code was the wrong thing to do no matter the provocation, and that officers need to set the example.

The difference between our perception of Viet Nam POWS and Korean POWs is stark, in part because of the success of the inculcation campaign. But also because the public tends to forget things it doesn't like. You almost never hear about Korea POWs, in major part because there are so many stories that don't sound good.

McCain's sacrifice was real, but he certainly felt he had no choice but to make it.

[Ken Winkes]

This week's Sunday sermon (in 300 or fewer words) fortuitously appeared today in the local paper. Pleasing enough to the author, tho' he wishes he could get his letters past the editor without using the Pretender's other name.

"What happens when a chiseler is given an entire nation to gouge?

No longer limited to building hotels and golf courses with borrowed money often not repaid or conning thousands with a plagiarized “university” curriculum, we’ve handed the chiseler-in-chief the keys to the national treasury—and he’s doing exactly what could be expected of a conman.

Some of the Trump heist is hard to miss. We know the Great Tax Giveaway mostly benefitted corporations and the very wealthy and will increase the national debt by trillions. Even Republican office seekers who voted for it avoid talk of the Great Giveaway on the campaign trail.

Instead they point to low unemployment and a stock market that continues to set records. Last week, taking all credit for the market’s rise to himself, Mr. Trump said if he were impeached the market would crash and we “would all be very poor” (cnbc.com).

Maybe he was referring to himself, for the rising market has done little for the average American, and low unemployment has mostly meant more low-wage jobs. When wage boosts do occur, they don’t keep up with creeping inflation (usatoday.com).

Republicans, who during the last administration stood foursquare against debt, have now discovered the secret sauce of short-term economic expansion. Formerly fiscally conservative Republicans can’t encourage enough borrowing and spending. Today’s household debt is the highest in history (kreditkarma.com). Student debt also increased in 2017 (studentloanhero.com), and any Federal Reserve hints of rising interest rates invite a Trump tweet attack.

Republican borrowing from our clean air and water bank is similarly spendthrift. Consider the example of expanding coal use, whereby Republicans gleefully send the immense costs of today’s intemperance to tomorrow’s innocent citizens, C. O. D..

As Trump touts his economic genius, he and his entire administration are living high on someone else’s hog."

[safari]

If the extremely conservative Bush family and other mainstream republicans are now considered part of the "resistance", then the liberal wing that's actually been yelling in the streets and actively working to thwart the current GOP's extreme agenda is, well, fucked.

The "Resistance" isn't solely a battle against Trump, it's against the entire extremist GOP agenda, so right-wing today it's about to fall off a cliff. To reduce it to a Us vs Trump battle is to do a monumental disservice to us and the future of the country.

If elite journalists and MSM publications are already diluting these two major differences, then all the fight true liberals/progressives have fought for will end in a "victory" of a temporarily blander conservatism, until they rev up the extreme machine once convenient again. The current band of thieves now calling themselves the Republican party will be rid of Trump, but not learn a damn thing about aiding and abetting the trashing of our country.

[Marie Burns]

@MAG: I don't think so. Collins hems & haws & hems & haws -- who knows how much is an act & how much is sincere -- then usually votes the party line. (She's voted for judges nominated by Republican presidents almost 99% of the time.) By my recollection (and this is not necessarily accurate), when Collins is the deciding vote, it's deciding to go along with Republicans. On the rare occasions she votes with Democrats, she usually has some liberalish Republican buddies voting along with her, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter, Lisa Murkowski, & famously of course John McCain.

McCain, on the other hand, does brash stuff right out front, then atones some time later (McCain-Feingold of the 1990s was atonement for his part in the Keating Five, for instance). Of course McCain never apologized for his biggest mistake: Sarah Palin. It's not clear if her exclusion from the memorial services was his idea or his family's. If it was his, I suppose you could take that as an apology, but he has defended selecting her many times. It was only in the last year he said he wished he had picked Joe Lieberman. Big improvement. He did have bad judgment.

So I think Collins' & McCain's MOs are different, but the result is usually about the same: they voted for some pretty bad Republican stuff.

[Marvin Schwalb]

So the NYT list 16 Trump criminals and unethical scum. My guess is that is about half the number about a year from now.

[Ken Winkes]

Closely connected to today's Sunday sermon, I would think.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/opinion/the-next-financial-crisis-lurks-underground.html?