Doug Thompson: Trump's "tough guy" facade crumbles

Whole world knows U.S. chief is weak, vain

We have a problem. That "we" includes Republicans, Democrats and everybody else. Immigrants and native-born are in this same boat. Christians, Muslims, those of other faiths and the non-faithful all have a stake.

The president's supporters voted for a tough guy, a fighter and a winner for president. They got a pinata. The void this leaves does not affect only them.

We all lost the last election. It matters who is commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces. If another economic crisis hits, it matters who reassures panicky investors that everything will be all right. I could go on.

Democrats, take no glee. This blowhard was all it took to beat you. Republicans, fix your primary. Donald Trump should never have corralled the most delegates in a race with a dozen better people in it.

The stick that busted this pinata open was a big one, although the paper mache was splitting already.

The most important people keeping the United States safe from terror attacks are not our military men and women, despite all they do. Nor are they in our network of diplomats and analysts. Not even our agents and signals intelligence people matter most. Our military, our system, and even our nuclear deterrent did not prevent 9/11.

The people most important to keeping all of us safe are inside our enemies' camps, warning us at great risk of their lives. Our enemies would call them traitors.

To our president, invaluable intelligence from one of these most secret, at-risk and rare sources was something to brag about to visiting Russians. The spy he risked was not even ours. An ally trusted us. Hopefully, the agent was safely brought out -- and all this debacle cost us was an invaluable source and the trust of anyone who shares information with us.

How good was the source he burned? Good enough for us to deprive many air passengers of laptops computers on his say-so.

The United States is the clearing house and coordinator of the counter-terrorism intelligence in the Western world. That status is based on two things: resources and trust. We undermined one for an ego stroke.

After this vainglorious foolishness, the president squealed that the real problem was leaks -- not his, but the ones about him. That argument boils down to this: It is OK for him to tell the Russians deeply held state secrets and betray the trust of an ally as long as the American people do not find out.

All this happened shortly after Trump fired the man in charge of investigating whether his campaign colluded with Russia, which had illegally hacked the party headquarters of his opponent. When a special counsel was appointed to take over that investigation, he pity-potted about being victim of a "witch hunt."

Argue that the establishment and the "Deep State" are taking down Trump, aided by the liberal media. Fine. Not much of a fight, is it? The pinata's sour candy innards are flying all over the room.

When taking on the Deep State, bring more than bluster. In hindsight -- and I cannot believe I am invoking that only four months into this administration -- maybe going to war against the intelligence community and the FBI while still in an open, losing war with the press was a bad idea.

Trump will not be removed soon if at all. Republicans in Congress are not protecting him. They are protecting themselves. Trump's remaining supporters are down to somewhat more than a third of all voters. But voters for GOP members of Congress are half of the voting public. Trump's one-third are all within that one-half. Nobody needs a calculator to figure out that GOP members of Congress are not going to buck more than two-thirds of their own supporters.

The blazing hypocrisy and absurd double-standard in congressional oversight this situation creates makes no difference. Picture Trump as a Democrat. That is no stretch. He was a registered Democrat from 2001 to 2009, throughout almost all of the first term and all of the second of the previous Republican president.

If Trump were a Democratic president, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and his ilk would be wearing war paint and dancing around bonfires at night, eager for scalps.

For now, we will await the new special counsel's findings while demanding an independent commission, too -- and hope against all experience the president behaves and stays out of the way.

Commentary on 05/20/2017

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