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Just another bozo on the bus.

the haspel file

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I have a great deal of respect for Gina Haspel, Comrade Trump’s controversial nominee to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I respect the fact that she’s done field work — and by ‘field work’ I mean the serious, no shit, secret, risky work of actual spy tradecraft — and she’s done it in some of the most dangerous parts of the world. We don’t know exactly what she’s done, of course, but she apparently did it well enough to rise through the ranks to become a big hat in the clandestine service. That’s a tough gig, by any measure.

But now she’s being touted to run the entire CIA, and that’s a whole nother gig entirely. So it’s necessary to remember this: good operatives don’t necessarily make good administrators. Being good in the field — any field — requires more than a skill set; it requires a very different attitude toward the work. People who do dangerous work and do it well generally share a belief that they can bend or break the rules, whatever those rules are. They believe they can do stuff ordinary folks can’t or won’t — and they’re usually right. The ones who aren’t right don’t last. That’s true of spies, of soldiers, of firefighters, of just about any gig that involves taking calculated risks.

Here’s an example. In 1998 a Marine aviator was contour flying in an EA-6B Prowler out of the Aviano air base in the Italian Alps. He was flying at 550 mph at a height of around 260 feet through the mountains and valleys when his wing clipped the cable supporting an aerial tramway for tourists. The cable snapped and a gondola carrying twenty people fell. All of them died.

The pilot and copilot were both charged with involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide, and eventually the pilot served a prison sentence. But — and this is a horribly ugly truth — that pilot was displaying exactly the sort of attitude you want in a combat aviator. You want combat pilots who are confident enough and skilled enough to be  aggressive risk-takers. Well, you want pilots who are successful aggressive risk-takers. Again, the ones who aren’t successful don’t last.

That’s the thing. People who are good in the field aren’t necessarily good citizens. They’re not necessarily good people. The very qualities that make a person effective in the field generally disqualify them from running things. Gina Haspel has lasted for thirty years, most of which was in the clandestine service. That’s a testament to her skill as a spy and her willingness to do whatever she needed to do to get the job done. Every intelligence agency in the world relies on people like Gina Haspel.

And that’s exactly why she should NOT be the DCIA. She’s been the sort of agent who personifies the reasons field agents need oversight. Somebody has to be around to keep a collar on these folks, because they are all about getting results. I’m not surprised Gina Haspel ran a black site at which torture took place. I’m not surprised she destroyed video recordings of those torture sessions. I’m certainly not surprised that she claimed the torture produced actionable intelligence, or that she refused to categorically state torture was immoral. Nor am I surprised that she told Senators she wouldn’t resume the practice of ‘enhanced interrogation’.

You don’t last thirty years in the CIA without the ability to lie convincingly.

 

the one promise he’s trying to keep

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Comrade Trump basically wants to undo everything President Obama did. No, that’s not right…he doesn’t want to just undo those things; he wants to degrade them, to minimize them, to prove them worthless, to eradicate them. He wants to piss on them.

He says he wants to do something similar, but better. Obamacare? Piss on it and replace it with something better. Climate accord? Piss on it, replace it with something better. Nuclear disarmament in Iran? Piss on it, replace it with something better.

The problem — wait, I just said ‘the problem’ as if there’s only one problem. There are dozens of goddamn problems. You’d need an abacus to keep track of all the problems, starting with the twisted psychology of a man so insecure he feels compelled to piss on everything his predecessor did. But right now I’m just talking about the fundamental problem of the fact that Trump is completely focused on the pissing and not giving any actual thought to the ‘something better’.

Oh, he talks about ‘better’. He promises some vague, gilded fantasy of ‘better’. He assures everybody there’s a beautiful and magnificent Trump-branded ‘better’ that won’t cost nearly as much as expected. It’ll be ‘better’ and he’ll invoke some form of magic ‘negotiation’ spell to guarantee most of the costs will be borne by somebody else. It’ll be so much ‘better’ — we’ll work out the details later, but you won’t believe how much ‘better’ it’ll be, trust me.

You know what? Ain’t nobody who really trusts Comrade Trump. Nobody, not even those Republicans in Congress who say they do. Ain’t nobody trusts him on account of he lies and he has a really long history of cheating people who trusted him.

This smug, self-satisfied, duplicitous fuckwit isn’t to be trusted.

So yesterday Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement with Iran. In his announcement, he said this (and I swear, I am NOT making this up):

“Today’s action sends a critical message: The United States no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises, I keep them.”

Okay, yeah, you have to agree yesterday’s action sent a critical message. But not the message Trump thinks it sent. The message is this: The United States can no longer be trusted to abide by its agreements. As of now, any threat made by the U.S. is potentially empty. Any promise made by the government of the United States is only valid until the next election. And any promise made by this president is hollow. When Comrade Trump makes a promise, it’s necessary to understand he doesn’t actually know what a promise is, he fails to understand the purpose of a promise, and he hasn’t a clue how a promise works.

In his announcement, Trump also said this:

“Iran’s leaders will naturally say that they refuse to negotiate a new deal; they refuse. And that’s fine. I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.”

The fact is, Iran had a deal. Trump backed out of it. And by backing out, Trump assured Iran that any new deal they might strike with the U.S. would be just as worthless as the last one. There’s absolutely no reason, no incentive for Iran to bother negotiating a deal with the United States. And hey, guess what: there’s no reason for any other nation to consider making a deal with the U.S. about anything. Because Comrade Trump isn’t to be trusted, which means right now the U.S. isn’t to be trusted.

Wait…I was wrong. I said Comrade Trump doesn’t understand the concept of a promise; I said he isn’t to be trusted. That’s not exactly true. He promised to piss on everything Obama did, and he can be trusted to do everything in his power to keep that promise.

rules for ghosts

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I do a fair bit of manuscript doctoring; it’s one of the things I do to put beans and tortillas on the table. What the hell is manuscript doctoring? It’s like this: sometimes a writer finishes a novel manuscript (or almost finishes it) but feels it’s not quite working. Or maybe the manuscript has already been rejected by an agent or a publisher because it didn’t quite work. The writer sends me the manuscript, and for a reasonable chunk of money, I read it carefully, try to figure out why it doesn’t quite work, then offer a few suggestions for ways to ‘heal’ it. It’s a weird gig, but I enjoy it and I’m pretty good at it.

Over the last few years I’ve been seeing a number of supernatural manuscripts. They’re a pretty marketable genre — supernatural private detectives, supernatural love stories, supernatural thrillers, supernatural cozy mysteries. It’s not my favorite genre, but the concept offers a writer a LOT of flexibility in terms of plot and character development. I totally understand why it’s popular for readers and for writers.

But as a manuscript doctor, the thing that makes these stories interesting is also the thing that makes a lot of writers stumble: magic (or magick — and yes, for folks who work in this genre, there’s a difference; magic is grounded in illusion, magick is based on the physical manifestation of the supernatural or the occult). The most common problem I see in these stories is that the magick is used as a lazy way to solve problems in plot and character instead of as an existing supernatural system.

Here’s the thing: a novel is a cosmological event. By that I mean the writer is creating an entire world. Since most of those worlds are based on the one we actually live in, it’s fairly easy to keep the world internally consistent. Once a writer decides to stretch the parameters of the world, things get a lot more complex.

I mention this because I had a parting of the ways with a writer who has written a very good story. Her characters (both living and not-living) are interesting and well-defined, her dialog is bright and witty, the story is structured in a logical and supportive way, her writing is accessible without being pedestrian, and while her plot isn’t entirely original it has to be admitted that very few plots are. I won’t go into detail about the story itself but I can say this: it revolves around a murder victim whose ghost/spirit is trying to help the detective who is assigned to investigate her murder. As I said, it’s not an original idea, but it’s very well written and told in a charming narrative voice. It could be a very marketable manuscript.

So why have we parted ways? Because we fundamentally disagree on one thing: rules for ghosts. I say she needs a coherent and internally consistent set of rules for ghost behavior. What are the limits of what a ghost can do? She says rules and limits would stifle her creativity. I say rules and limits will actually force her to be more creative.

It doesn’t necessarily matter what the rules are; it only matters that they’re clear to the writer. They needn’t necessarily be spelled out to the reader (and in fact that would almost certainly be bad writing). They needn’t even be clear to the ghost (I mean, it’s probably the first time the ghost is ghosting, and it may take some time for her to learn how to ghost). But the writer has to know what the ghost can and cannot do.

How does haunting work? That’s pretty basic ghost stuff. Traditionally, ghosts haunt a place. That’s where the term haunt comes from, after all — from the Old French term hanter, which meant “to frequent, visit regularly.” Writers aren’t bound by tradition, of course, but the question still needs to be answered: where can the ghost appear? Is the ghost limited to the scene where the murder took place? Can the ghost shift between locations that were important to the living person? Or can the ghost just go anywhere it wants? If the ghost can go anywhere, how does spirit travel happen? Does it take place immediately? Or is there a time element involved? Does the ghost wink out of existence in, say, the apartment where it lived and immediately appear across town in the architecture firm where it was employed? Can the ghost decide to travel to another continent? Can the ghost travel to the moon? 

Another important question: can the ghost interact with physical objects? Can it move a chess piece? Can it move a kitchen table? Can it lift a car? Does the relationship between the ghost and the physical object matter? Can it more easily move things it valued in life? And how does that relate to ghost movement? If, for example, the ghost can ‘lift’ a wedding ring, can it move that ring from one room to another? If the ghost can de-materialize and move between locations, what happens to the wedding ring? Does it move as well? Or does it drop to the floor when the ghost leaves the room? Can the ghost use a typewriter or a computer’s mouse?

Does/can the ghost have an actual physical manifestation? If the ghost sits in a bathtub, does the water level rise? Who can see the ghost? Is the ghost visible to everybody, or just a select few, or just one person? Does the ghost have any control over its visibility? Can it choose to be visible to some people and not to others? Can it be visible when it chooses and invisible otherwise? Does the ghost have a physical appearance? If so, how does it manifest itself? Is it transparent? Is it dressed? If so, in what? If the ghost was murdered while scuba diving, does it appear in fins and a mask and a bikini? Can the ghost change its appearance? If so, can it change at will, or does its appearance depend on the person being haunted or the ghost’s present location?

Can the ghost communicate with people? If so, how? A ghostly whisper only the haunted person can hear? A disembodied voice that anybody nearby can hear? Is the ghost actually speaking or somehow communicating psychically? If the communication is vocal, is the voice identifiable? If the ghost wasn’t known to the investigator, how does the investigator know it’s the victim’s voice? If the ghost is actually speaking, can the hearer smell its breath? If the communication is psychic, can those unbidden thoughts be ignored? Can anti-psychotic medication mute the ghost’s psychic voice?

Those are the sorts of the questions I asked my client. Again, it doesn’t necessarily matter what the rules are. It doesn’t matter if the rules violate the laws of Newtonian physics or quantum physics; maybe that stuff doesn’t apply to ghosts. All that matters is that rules and limits exist, that they’re consistent, and that the writer is aware of them.

Why? Because readers aren’t stupid. Nor are agents and publishers. Readers will wonder why your ghost in Chapter 3 is able to locate your detective in the evidence room at the precinct and travel there, but in Chapter 9 is unable to locate and travel to the detective when he’s been kidnapped and tied up in the back of a Volkswagen van. Readers will question why your ghost in Chapter 8 is able to psychically suggest your detective ask a question he hadn’t thought of himself, but in Chapter 17 is unable to psychically inform the detective that the guy he’s talking to has the murder weapon on him.

If a writer is only using the supernatural as a convenient way to move the story forward, that writer is not respecting the reader. As far as that goes, the writer isn’t respecting the craft of writing. As goofy as it sounds, ghosts (and the readers of supernatural stories) are better served when the ghosts have rules. It’s really that simple. And by the way, that’s also true for witches, and necromancers, and kitchen boys who inherit magic rings, and vampire librarians, and half-demon private detectives, and travel journalists who find a djinn in an antique bottle, and and and.

Again, all fiction is a cosmological event. All believable universes operate within rules. And from now on, when I get asked to evaluate a supernatural novel manuscript, I’ll send the writer a link to this post — just to save time and grief.

endop, you guys!

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You guys! Did you know today, May 3rd, is the National Day of Prayer? Me neither! I’d no idea the U.S. even had an official National Day of Prayer, let alone that it was today. But it is.

We’ve apparently had an official National Day of Prayer since 1952. According to the National Day of Prayer Task Force (you guys! we have a National Day of Prayer Task Force!), the National Day of Prayer created “by a joint resolution of the United States Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman.” That’s good old ‘Give ’em Hell, Harry’ Truman, you guys. He knew the value of prayer. He even had a favorite prayer:

Help me to be, to think, to act what is right, because it is right; make me truthful, honest and honorable in all things; make me intellectually honest for the sake of right and honor and without thought of reward to me. Give me the ability to be charitable, forgiving and patient with my fellowmen – help me to understand their motives and their shortcomings — even as Thou understandest mine!

Intellectually honest! Truthful, patient, charitable, forgiving! Now, that’s a prayer, right there.

Yes, of course, I’ll pray for your recovery…but intellectual honesty requires me to acknowledge that prayer won’t do much to heal your broken bones. Would you like a pinch of snuff?

If you’re anything like me (and, okay, you’re probably not, but IF you are) then you’re probably asking yourself why we have an official National Day of Prayer (okay, I’m just going to call it NDoP because it takes too long to write ‘National Day of Prayer’ over and over, and besides if you pronounce NDoP as ‘endop’ it’s more fun). The NDoPTF (TF for Task Force, obv.) says the NDoP is  all about 

[I]nviting people of all faiths to pray for the nation.

Okay. Thanks, NDoP, for the invitation! We appreciate it. And, if it’s not too much to ask, what’s the purpose of the NDoPTF?

NDoPTF “exists to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, to create appropriate materials, and to mobilize the Christian community to intercede for America’s leaders and its families. The Task Force represents a Judeo-Christian expression of the national observance, based on our understanding that this country was birthed in prayer and in reverence for the God of the Bible.”

Okay, then. But what about folks who aren’t, you know, Christian? Wait, what am I saying? This is probably just an oversight, right? Maybe sloppy copy editing. I mean, the ‘en’ of ‘endop’ is for ‘national’, right?

And yay, the NDoPTF comes through with an explanation! You guys, NDoPTF assures us that the NDoP “belongs to all Americans. It is a day that transcends differences, bringing together citizens from all backgrounds.” ALL Americans, you guys! And guess what the theme for the 2018 NDoP is! It’s UNITY!

In 2018, our theme will be Pray for America – UNITY, based upon Ephesians 4:3 which challenges us to mobilize unified public prayer for America.

Unity, you guys! Unity based upon a Bible verse to mobilize prayer for…wait, what?  A Bible verse? That mentions America? Uh, NDoPTF, are you sure you’re doing this right? I mean, I’m no historian, but I’m fairly confident that Paul, who was locked in a Roman jail writing to a Greek city in what’s now Turkey, didn’t know dick about America. Maybe if I looked a the actual verse in Ephesians?

With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

Uh, NDoPTF, I’m beginning to see a problem here. I mean, I’m totally down with the ‘forbearing one another in love’ business, but I feel the need to point out that there are a lot of us here in These United States that don’t fall into that ‘one lord, one faith, one baptism” bit.

But c’mon, you guys! Let’s not nitpick, right! Probably the actual official 2018 National Prayer (we have an actual official national prayer for 2018!) written by the President (no, not that president, c’mon) of the NDoPTF will be more inclusive, right? Probably? I mean, the NDoPTF itself said the NDoP was about inviting ‘all faiths’ to pray, right?

So lets just take a quick look at the actual P of the NDoP and see if it will be more…well, gosh darn it.

Our Dear Heavenly Father, while we come to You in complete humility, we also come to You with boldness in the authoritative name of Your One and Only Son, Jesus Christ, who is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In Jesus’ name, fill us now with Your Holy Spirit and lead us as we pray in Jesus’ name for America.

I dunno. Seems like there’s an awful lot of Jeebus in the first of the ten paragraphs of the NDoP’s P. But hey, you guys, there’s still this: the White House has announced that President Comrade Trump is going to introduce the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative this afternoon. It’s “intended to signal to religious groups that they have a voice in the government.”

Religious groups, you guys! It just says ‘groups’! So probably this afternoon groups of Wiccans and Buddhists and Jews and Hindus and Druids and Muslims will be included. Probably. Right?

Please, Jeebus, bless my lawyer so that he may be smarter than her lawyer.

Also today? President Comrade Trump said, okay, maybe he did sorta kinda know that his lawyer paid US$130 thou “to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by” an adult entertainment actor that she got horizontal with Trump while his third wife (with whom he’d cheated on his second wife, with whom he’d cheated on his first wife) was sitting home in their luxury apartment with a new-born baby — BUT “money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.” No roll. Praise Jeebus and pass the spell-checker.

Also too, this: you can get your NDoP merch here.

my ongoing relationship with phytoncide

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It’s pre-morel mushroom season in my part of the world. Pre-morel season is that brief period before the brief period of actual morel season; it’s that interval when common sense, experience, and science all agree that it’s still too damned early for morels to appear, but you go hunting for them all the same because hey, you never know and why the hell not. Actual morel season probably won’t start until — who knows? Later this week? Ten days? It’s a damned mystery.

But let’s face it, for a lot of us, there’s no meaningful difference between pre-morel season and morel season. We find the same amount of mushrooms in both. In other words, none at all.

I’m okay with that. Finding morels is the other reason for hunting morels. The primary reason, for me at any rate, is to get out into the woods. Deep into the woods. As deep into the woods as possible, because the deeper into the woods you get, the more the world becomes slow and quiet. Not silent — just quiet. Between wind and wildlife, the woods are rarely silent. It’s just that the sounds of the woods are subtle and usually indirect.

If you spot one morel, there are usually others nearby.

Subtle and indirect — that’s how you find morels in the woods. You walk slowly, scanning the ground for small disruptions in the pattern of the dead leaves. You walk for a couple of minutes, you stop and search for a couple of minutes. It doesn’t necessarily matter where you walk. There are dozens of tips suggesting the best conditions for finding morels — near dead/dying elm trees, old creek bottoms, south-facing slopes, areas of mottled sun, areas of bright occasional sun, shady areas — but the difference between spotting a morel and missing one is often just a matter of a few feet in one direction or another. So you sort of meander semi-aimlessly through the woods, guided by 1) the wisdom of your morel-hunting ancestors, 2) the terrain itself, 3) maybe a deer track, and 4) a sizable dose of bullshit folklore.

dead elm in an old creek bottom during actual morel season

Hunting morels is weirdly meditative. That’s why folks who talk about hunting morels sometimes sound like students of Zen. Be aware without concentrating, be focused without any objective point of focus. Morels can be masters of camouflage; you can carefully study a few square feet of woodland for a couple of minutes, suddenly realize there are two or three morels right there in plain sight, look away to tell your friends, and then struggle to find those same morels five seconds later.

But here’s a true thing about hunting morels: you can find them just about anyplace. Abandoned lots in town, roadside ditches, suburban yards, in sand, in mud, along farm fields and pastures. Another true thing: a morel you gather from a rural roadside is just as tasty as a morel you gather from the deep woods. One more true thing: there’s always delight in finding a morel anywhere at all.

Actually on a south-facing slope

Still, most of us hunt them in the woods. The tick-infested, thorn-ridden, spiderwebbed, bramble-thick woods. That’s partly because the odds of finding a morel are somewhat better in the woods. Not a lot better, but better — just like the odds of winning the lottery are only slightly improved by buying a ticket. Still, I think most of us hunt them in the woods because getting deep into the woods is…well, it’s nice, isn’t it. It’s pleasant. It’s deeply relaxing. It’s…I’m going to say it…therapeutic.

I’ve seen lots of online references to ‘forest bathing’ lately. That’s a notion developed in Japan (where it’s called shinrin-yoku) back in the 1980s. Forest bathing sounds silly, but it’s become a rather trendy form of therapy. I recently read that it can increase a person’s “capacity to communicate with the land and its species.” I’ve no idea what that means, but it doesn’t sound any less absurd that some of the medical claims in support of forest bathing. For example, this:

[M]any trees give off organic compounds that support our “NK” (natural killer) cells that are part of our immune system’s way of fighting cancer.

Completely ridiculous, right? Well, actually, no. It turns out trees and plants actually do emit compounds called phytoncides. Surprisingly, this has nothing to do with the violent death of phytons. Phytoncides help prevent trees and plants from rotting or being eaten by some insects and animals. And hey, when you go into the woods, you breathe that shit in. And guess what? It turns out, it’s actually good for you.

This what pre-morel season looks like — nothing but you, some ticks, and an invisible cloud of phytoncides.

Seriously. A few years ago the New York Times acknowledged studies demonstrating that walking in the woods for a couple of hours can actually increase a person’s white corpuscles (those ‘NK’ cells mentioned earlier) for up to a week. There have been a number of highly respected medical researchers writing in highly respected medical journals all highly agreeing that despite its absurd name, forest bathing (and therefore morel hunting) is good for you.

This video is from a couple of years ago, during actual morel season. It may look like a lazy stroll down a deer track. But no! In fact, this is me madly forest bathing and soaking up phytoncides like a damned sponge.

I’m always a tad alarmed to discover that something I enjoy is good for me. I suspect I’ll now be accused of hunting morels for my health, which would take a great deal of the fun out of it. Well, it would — except that, as I said, finding morels is the other reason for hunting them. Sometimes the point of morel hunting is coming home with a sack (mesh, naturally, so the spores can be spread) full of morels. I don’t mind doing something healthy if it delivers the occasional mushroom.

So for the next few weeks — once pre-morel season morphs into morel season — I’ll be out there as often as I can, forest bathing like motherfucker. I don’t care if it’s good for me or not. I’ll be looking for shrooms; my white corpuscles can look out for themselves.

the dignity of the office

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President Obama appears in a BuzzFeed video promoting the Affordable Care Act.

FOXNews: “I yearn for my president looking presidential and serious right now.”

George Will: “Some people think this diminishes the presidency.”

President Obama in a radio interview with Marc Maron speaking about racism: “It’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say the word ‘nigger’ in public.”

FOXNews: “It’s outrageous, David. I think he has absolutely lowered the standard in terms of being president of the United States.”

“I’ll tell you this, [people are] probably wondering why Barack Obama still has a job.”

President Obama appears on Funny or Die and other web/YouTube channels.

Washington Times: “Mr. Obama is the Rodney Dangerfield of presidents, showing the office no respect.”

Rush Limbaugh: “You talk about beneath the dignity of the office, maybe setting a new low. President Obama with YouTube interviews.”

President Obama orders a hamburger with Dijon mustard.

Sean Hannity: “As you know President Obama is a real man of the people and yesterday he dropped by a popular Virginia restaurant to grab a burger with his pal Joe. Now the Gateway Pundit blog pointed out that plain old ketchup, well it didn’t quite cut it for the president. Now take a look at him ordering his burger with a very special condiment.”

Laura Ingraham: “What kind of man orders a cheeseburger without ketchup but Dijon mustard?”

President Obama criticizes FOXNews in a speech.

FOXNews: ” It’d be nice if Obama respected the office. When he does things like this, it diminishes not just him but the office itself.”

President Obama mocks climate change deniers.

Freedom Foundation: “Barack Obama demeaned the dignity of the presidency by ridiculing tens of thousands of scientists for simply disagreeing with his lay opinions on global warming.”

President Obama wore casual clothing into the Oval Office on a weekend.

Andrew Card (in a right-wing radio interview): “I’m disappointed to see the casual, laissez faire, short sleeves, no shirt and tie, no jacket, kind of locker room experience that seems to be taking place in this White House and the Oval Office.”

President Obama mentions the death of Osama bin Laden in a campaign speech.

Pat Buchanan: “And the great asset the President has is the Oval Office, the presidency of the United States. He is diminishing that by using events which are national events as partisan events.”

President Obama is photographed with his feet on his desk in the Oval Office.

FOXNews: “Obama is disrespecting the Oval Office.”

President Obama talks about birth control.

Andrea Tantaros / FOXNews: “Don’t you think it diminishes the office of the president, talking about condoms?”

President Obama states Congressional Republicans are deliberately blocking his agenda.

John Boehner: “[His] flippant dismissal of the Constitution is utterly beneath the dignity of the office,”

Obama criticizes Republicans while campaigning for Harry Reid.

Dana Perino (FOXNews / former Bush press secretary): “The divisive rhetoric that he’s used seems to me beneath the office.”

Marco Rubio: “I think he unnecessarily demonizes his opponents. It’s not that there’s a disagreement on policies. He actually wants to convince people that you are a bad person. He has not conducted himself with the dignity that is worthy of that office.”

President Obama criticizes FOXNews.

Karl Rove: “The president of United States should not be afraid of coming on Fox News, nor should the president of the United States diminish his office by seeming to engage in a petty fight with the — with the — with a network himself.”

I miss the days when conservatives cared so deeply about the dignity of the office of President of These United States.

Editorial Note: Conservatives did NOT actually claim ordering a cheeseburger with Dijon mustard diminished the office of the president; they merely implied ordering a cheeseburger with any mustard other than yellow mustard was unAmerican. And probably gay. Possibly a wink at ISIS.

petty, cruel, selfish

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In the world of espionage, there are spies — and then there are spies. The majority of spies operate under an official cover. They may actually be agents of an intelligence service — the CIA, for example — but they’re usually placed in legitimate positions in an ordinary government department or agency. A CIA agent might be placed as an admin clerk in an embassy in Turkey, or a courier in a consular station in Poland.

Agents with an official cover may engage in covert work, their espionage activity may be dangerous, but they’re protected. They have diplomatic immunity. If they’re caught engaging in espionage, the agent may get roughed up during interrogation, but the most severe punishment will likely be expulsion from the host nation.

There are also agents operating under non-official cover. These are NOC agents. They have no official association with any government agency — and, in fact, are trained to deny any connection in the event they’re caught. They’re not protected by diplomatic immunity. If they get caught, they’re fucked. Deeply fucked. The nation they work for isn’t going to come to their aid, and they know that. They’re subject to long periods of incarceration, possibly torture, possibly execution. Hell, if their cover is blown, they may even be assassinated on the street.

NOC agents are serious spies.

I’m nattering on about this because it’s being reported that Comrade Trump is planning to pardon Scooter Libby.

Cheney and Libby

You may be asking yourself, “Who the hell is Scooter Libby?” It’s a good question. He was a disciple of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who served in the Bush 2 administration. President George W. Bush was, by almost all accounts, looking for a reason to invade Iraq. He and his staff settled on the claim that Iraq illegally possessed weapons of mass destruction, and was attempting to obtain more such weapons. As part of that claim, the Bush administration accused Iraq of attempting to buy a form of processed uranium from the country of Niger.

Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador to Gabon who had served in diplomatic posts in five different African nations and was very familiar with African intrigue, was sent to Niger to investigate the issue. He found there was absolutely no merit to the Bush administration’s claim.

Shortly thereafter, a conservative columnist with the Washington Post wrote an editorial casting doubt on Wilson’s findings. In that editorial, he stated that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame — an energy analyst for Brewster Jennings & Associates — was actually a CIA operative. That was accurate, but incomplete. Plame was, in fact, a covert NOC agent working on issues of nuclear proliferation. Not only that, Brewster Jennings was a front company created for, and operated by, the CIA. By divulging Plame’s CIA affiliation, her life was put in jeopardy, as were the lives of everybody working for Brewster Jennings (most of whom were unaware it was a CIA front). Every covert espionage operation being conducted by agents at Brewster Jennings had to be scrapped.

NOC operative Valerie Plame testifying

Who told that columnist that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative? Nobody was ever charged with that crime, but it was accepted knowledge that Scooter Libby leaked the information. Why? As political payback for Joseph Wilson’s undermining of the weapons of mass destruction claim.

Libby was charged, tried, and convicted of four felony counts related to the crime. He was sentenced to thirty months in prison. President Bush commuted that sentence, so Libby escaped most of his punishment. Bush, however, refused to pardon Libby for the crime.

Comrade Trump is now, apparently, planning to do what Bush didn’t. Why? Who the hell knows for sure why Trump does anything? But it’s probably no coincidence that one of Libby’s most vocal supporters was John Bolton, who Trump has just nominated as his national security adviser.

Oh, and there’s this: guess who made the decision to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Valerie Plame case? James Comey.

Would anybody be at all surprised that Trump, purely as political payback, would pardon a man who, also purely as political payback, outed a NOC CIA operative and destroyed an entire CIA front company as well as an untold number of covert operations? Nope.

That’s classic Trump. Petty, cruel, selfish, and willing to place his own wants above the needs and safety of the nation.

okay, we still have to do something about syria, again

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“We HAVE to do something about Syria!”
“Okay. Why?”
“Because the Syrian government used chemical weapons against their own people!”
“Okay. But hasn’t the Syrian government been killing their own people for…wait. Wait a minute. Wait just one goddamn minute. Didn’t we already have this conversation? This exact conversation? Five years ago, didn’t we have this same conversation?”
“Yes. But this time I’m serious!”
“Okay. Has anything changed in the last five years?”
“Yes! We have a new president!”
“Okay. And is he better equipped to handle delicate, highly nuanced, incredibly volatile international situations?”
“Are you fucking crazy? It’s Donald Trump!”
“Okay. So we’re still fucked, then?”
“Yes, that’s correct! Massively fucked! Fucked all around!”
“Okay. And knowing all that, your position is…?”
“We HAVE to do something about Syria!”