Trump is about to burn brighter
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-about-to-burn-brighter/2017/12/01/a7f7efdc-d6dd-11e7-a986-d0a9770d9a3e_story.html
Trump is about to burn brighter
By Dana Milbank | Opinion writer | December 1 at 6:32 PM
I bumped into Bret Baier, the Fox News host, at a Washington cocktail party Wednesday night where it seemed everybody was chatting about the latest White House insanity: President Trumps joking about Pocahontas to Native Americans, reviving the Obama birther allegation, suggesting the Access Hollywood video was fake, retweeting anti-Muslim videos made by British white supremacists.
Most assumed Trump was just being crazy, but Baier had a theory: Whenever Trump escalates such antics, he is agitated about news that is about to break. Maybe, Baier speculated, Trump knew something about the Russia probe we didnt yet know.
Now we do. On Friday morning came former national security adviser Michael Flynns guilty plea, the most ominous development for Trump yet in the Russia investigation. Court documents show that Flynn is cooperating with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and that Flynns Russian contacts were done under direction from higher-ups and there werent too many higher than Flynn on the campaign other than Trump himself. The notion that Flynn has the goods on Trump would explain why Trump was reluctant to fire him, tried to get the FBI to stop probing Flynn and seemed unglued this week as news of Flynns cooperation was about to become public.
Though predictions are perilous in the age of Trump, this really could be the beginning of the end of the national horror his tenure has been. If Baier is correct as I believe he is that Trump gets ever more outrageous when he feels cornered, then this means the nation is entering a perilous period. We can expect Trump to grow more dangerous and desperate in his distractions as he hears Muellers footsteps. Although Trumps erratic behavior is damaging in its own right to alliances and civility, the greatest danger is that while we chase Trumps distractions, we lose sight of real calamity. ...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm going to suck all the oxygen out of the room. I know how to work the media in a way that they will never take the lights off of me."
- Trump, 2013