Sen. Tom Cotton's wishbone could get pulled.
One end is his patriotism. Cotton did not just sign up for the U.S. Army in 2005. He demanded combat roles. Even I am not cynical enough to think he was just starting a political resume.
The other end of this wishbone is Cotton's ambition. He clearly aspires to be president. For now, he is a trusted and valuable ally to this president. He is a loyal Republican soldier.
Cotton serves on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee is investigating President Donald Trump's ties to Russia. That includes the ties with the president's staff, advisers and business associates. Until this week, the panel was the only responsible, bipartisan body of elected officials doing its duty on this matter. At least I assume the duty is being done. The committee's sessions are closed.
Trump does not like people looking into his doings with Russians. Neither do his supporters. It dawned on me this week how odd this is.
Trump is politically indestructible. He does and says things repeatedly that would ruin any other political career. For instance, during his campaign he did not just shrug at the idea Russia hacked the Democratic National Headquarters. He publicly asked the Russians to try harder.
The odds are long that anything in his business ties, his tax returns or his contact with foreigners could hurt this man. He should have made a clean breast of this last year. Certainly after the election was safely won, he could have aired out this issue. This man could strangle puppies while stomping kittens in the White House Rose Garden. His core voters and House Republicans would still back him.
Yet so far, the president prefers to keep his secrets and rail about "fake news." So far, this "fake news" has led directly to real and serious results. The president's first national security adviser resigned. Now his U.S. attorney general has recused from overseeing the investigation into the Russian contacts.
My guess is the biggest "scandal" here from Trump's point of view is this: He is not as rich as he pretends to be. He does not have the Midas management touch, either. Revealing that would hurt his vanity. He would be ashamed of that. That might be the only thing he can be ashamed of. Being seen a rich world-beater matters to him. Being exposed as being in enormous debt to foreign oligarchs, if that were the case, would be humiliating.
The president clearly wants a closed committee to bury this issue. Yet I am not ready to believe Cotton will put party and personal ambition above country if they find something serious. Being a patriot could cost Cotton his standing with the president. It would not endear him to his party's strongest partisans, either. On the other hand, if Cotton and the committee agrees there is a problem, all but the most devoted partisans might believe it. I hope so. I wish I was more confident of that.
Meanwhile, recent events jarred the two House committees that should care -- Intelligence and Oversight -- into bestirring themselves. The chairmen of the Intelligence Committee was still angrily denying there was anything worth looking in to as late as Monday.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions -- head of agency conducting the investigation into the Russian hacking of the election -- met with the Russian ambassador twice during Trump's campaign. Sessions was an early supporter of and adviser to Trump. After that revelation by the press, Sessions recused from the investigation. Only as these events took place did those two congressional committees announce plans to look into this situation.
Consider this tardy concern in light of the torches such committees carried while waving pitchforks at Hillary Clinton for years. Let us pause and picture the reaction of Republicans in the House of Representatives if Sessions was the attorney general for President Clinton -- either the one who won his election or the one who lost hers -- or President Obama in such circumstances.
"You wasted millions on Benghazi. Why not waste a little on Russia?" as somebody shouted at our congressman in West Fork last week.
Russia is one scandal, which may or may not pan out. I think it is serious, as I have said before. But if fully investigated and the results revealed, it might turn out to only be embarrassing. The House's reaction to the Russia situation, however, has become an issue of its own. The double standard on display here is glaring.
Commentary on 03/04/2017