Imagine, if you will, that George W. Bush had started acting like Donald Trump partway into his second term. I won’t even discuss the stuff that’s disputed, like dropping high-level intel into a conversation with a rival power, or asking the FBI director to stop investigating a former aide, in the casual manner that a shady small-city mayor might attempt to fix a friend’s traffic ticket.
No, let’s just look at the things we know our president has done recently, such as summarily firing the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by sending a note over to FBI headquarters while the director was out of town. Sending his staff to make claims about the firing that he then idly rebutted on national television, while simultaneously opening himself up to charges of obstructing justice. Getting on Twitter to try to blackmail that FBI director into keeping mum about it all, and in the process inviting congressional subpoenas of the possibly mythical tapes he mentioned in that tweet. Blaming his staff for failing to put out the dumpster fire he started. Saying at a U.S. Coast Guard Academy commencement that no politician in history has been treated as unfairly as him. Going back to Twitter to complain about the appointment of a special counsel to investigate his administration, in the process misspelling “counsel” and proclaiming that “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” (Scott Walker probably begs to differ.)
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