Trump's enablers are misreading the stars - By Joe Scarborough

By Joe Scarborough February 1 at 7:50 PM

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,” Cassius counseled his friend and fellow republican Marcus Brutus. In Shakespeare’s telling of the tragedy of Julius Caesar, the triumphant general returns to Rome and is feared to be plotting to become an emperor capable of laying waste to the Roman republic. But Brutus takes to heart Cassius’s reminder that loyalties flow first to the republic and not to political friends. He acts on the warning, helps to kill Caesar and then dies a miserable death. Alas, no one lives happily ever after.

This week’s story line out of Washington is less grim but still of great concern. Despite daily reminders that President Trump holds democratic traditions in deep contempt, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and his Republican caucus are allowing themselves to become co-conspirators in the president’s push to compromise U.S. constitutional norms. While no one expects the GOP to take grisly cues from Shakespeare, is it too much to ask that Ryan place grave national security concerns from the Justice Department ahead of his political peonage to Trump?

Has Ryan noticed that the president is executing an erratic but effective plot to undermine the independence of America’s law enforcement agencies? Do Capitol Hill Republicans even care that Trump has taken on the nasty habit of demanding loyalty oaths from FBI agents and Justice Department officials who happen to be investigating his White House?

Is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) even slightly concerned that former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, like former director James B. Comey before him, was driven from his job after being administered — and apparently failing — a loyalty test?

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-enablers-are-misreading-the-stars/2018/02/01/d890977a-0798-11e8-b48c-b07fea957bd5_story.html