The whistleblower also said that within minutes of Trump’s inauguration ceremony, Flynn communicated directly with business associates about plans to begin building nuclear reactors in the Middle East—a joint project with Russia, according to the letter.
Longtime Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller says this isn’t about foreign policy interests. “If you could identify a single U.S. national interest that is served and that outweighs the downsides; or that’s part of a strategy (dare I even use the word), [that would be] okay,” he says. However, he adds, he “can’t come up with one.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/12/06/on-jerusalem-context-is-everything/
You can talk about gradations of harm—what Franken is accused of still pales next to child predation—but even that is a trap. The point is, as Jennifer Rubin notes Tuesday, that “one party has adopted a zero-tolerance position (with Sen. Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, set to go before the ethics committee) and another party opens its arms to people it believes are miscreants.” Rubin feels confident that becoming the party of alleged sexual abusers will harm the GOP in upcoming elections (did she live through last November?). My own larger concern is that becoming the party of high morality will allow Democrats to live with themselves but that the party is also self-neutering in the face of unprecedented threats, in part to do the right thing and in part to take ammunition away from the right—a maneuver that never seems to work out these days. When Al Franken, who has been a champion for women’s rights in his tenure in the Senate, leaves, what rushes in to fill the space may well be a true feminist. But it may also be another Roy Moore. And there is something deeply naïve, in a game of asymmetrical warfare, and in a moment of unparalleled public misogyny, in assuming that the feminist gets the seat before it happens.
Unilateral disarmament is tantamount to arming the other side. That may be a trade worth making in some cases. But it’s worth at least acknowledging that this is the current calculus. It’s no longer that when they go low, we get to go high. They are permanently living underground. How long can we afford to keep living in the clouds?
