Crazy

Bob Woodward couldn't have picked a better time to release a book about Donald Trump's White House as the midterm elections get underway.  His new book "Fear: Trump In the White House" depicts a President that acts on impulse, needs adult supervision, and constantly has to be saved from himself when he tries to undermine trade deals and mutual defense pacts or tries to do things like assassinate Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.  Many of this orders have gone ignored, hidden from his  view, or kept from his attention to prevent a third world war involving Third World countries.

But Republicans are obviously too busy shepherding Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court to care. 

While this is going on, a White House aide has written an anonymous piece in the op-ed section of the New York Times saying that, while he or she is committed to helping Trump acheive the goals of deregulation, a stronger military, and lower taxes, he/she and others have thwarted Trump in his efforts to have friendlier relations with dictators and undermine trade agreements with like-minded allies.

"We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous," this anonymous writer says of himself/herself and like-minded Trump staffers.  "But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic . . .. The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making."

Gutsy, yes, but hardly a profile in courage when you remember that this person doesn't want to be identified and has indicated no interest in taking responsibility for helping to instigate what he/she calls a "two-track Presidency."   As former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta  said this week, staffers should be more forthcoming in trying to maintain the ship of state, he said, and staffers aren't supposed to run the country - the President is.

"When you have a President in the United States elected by the people, and at the same time have a staff who believe that this President, for whatever reason, is not exercising the right kind of judgment, that situation cannot exist," Panetta told PBS. "That is an issue that, very frankly, I believe the leadership in the Congress has a responsibility to look at and determine what is happening, because we cannot allow that situation to continue. It puts the country at risk."

This makes Trump look all the worse as the midterm campaigns get underway.  The White House has been turned into what one staff member calls "Crazytown," and unless House Speaker Paul Ryan - who is retiring in January - and House Republican leader Mitch McConnell intervene, the GOP will lose the House and possibly lose the Senate as election campaigns tighten up.  The midterms are two months away.  Right now, though, I wonder if the country can hold out that long.

Brett Kavanaugh will likely be around longer.