Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

The diaries of Trump’s Russian handler (III): To the Mar-a-Lago station

Had some enforced downtime after eating at Mar-a-Lago, so while recuperating decided to review the bidding.

Mar-a-Lago_estate_gate_in_Palm_Beach,_Forida_(14606506904)
Mar-a-Lago_estate_gate_in_Palm_Beach,_Forida_(14606506904)

My Dearest Diary,

Had some enforced downtime after eating at Mar-a-Lago, so while recuperating decided to review the bidding:

— White House. Kushnerites vs. Bannonites. All one-party movements have bitter factions. Can live with.

— Media. He doesn’t hate reporters, he simply despises them. As Comrade Bannon says, media is petty bourgeois mice clinging to sinking raft of Constitutional protections. What cares a Lenin or Trump for Bill of Rights? Big Orange is all about Bill of Wrongs — as in, You are all wrong to doubt me!

— Congress. Even worse. Like the Duma of 1917, trying to ride a tiger that within its entrails carries plan to eat them up. Like Ermolenko they puke and mewl. Useful idiots at best. At worst, more enemies of the People — which fortunately Big Orange gets to define.

— Hooligans. They prosper piratically in such times.

— Me. What to do? Mulling next move, I am. In 1930s, NKVD officials fled Stalin’s madness and went to ground most quietly in places like Cleveland, living off stolen Spanish government gold. But to where flee now?

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1
Tag: Russia

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