Politics and Honor Among Thieves

The point about the Horowitz Inspector General report is that it didn't offer a narrative. It just discussed the various ways in which the FBI violated its rules in gussying up documentation for its FISA applications to surveil the communications of Carter Page.

One of those violations was not to mention that Carter Page was a CIA guy. That is, the CIA used him because of his Russian connections.

Really? The FBIs didn't know that Carter Page was supposed to be mixing it up with the Russkies, because CIA. Or they did know, but "forgot" to tell the FISA court? Really? Stepping on the CIA's toes? Where's professional courtesy, not to mention honor among thieves?

Here's my problem with all this munching over the details of coulda shoulda woulda. Someone, somewhere in the "intelligence community" or the Department of Justice should have said: "hey kids, let's cool our jets for a moment. Do you realize what we are doing here? We are spying on a presidential campaign. Are we really, really sure we want to do that? Hey, I know! Let's give Donald Trump a heads-up on this."

Because, you see, I'd say that the intelligence community ought to presume that any ordinary US political campaign is on the up-and-up.

Call it honor among thieves. You don't snitch on your fellow thieves.

Hey, there are all kinds of shenanigans in every political campaign, and all kinds of marginal characters that want to get involved. But if there really is some connection with a foreign power, you want the campaign managers to be warned. You want to say: "Hey, Bill, did you know that Sam has been a bit too close to the Russkies over the years?"

But the Obama Justice Department and the Obama FBI didn't do that. Really?

Now I just read a guy that said that all organizations are like a living organism:

Take a few individuals and put them together in an organization of almost any sort and an amazing thing happens. The organization effectively becomes alive. It now has a heartbeat of its very own and it, the organization, will fight to stay alive from that point forward.

So, somehow, all the folks at the DOJ and FBI knew what was expected of them. And they just went along. Whether there was an explicit order from the top, or just a nod and a wink, like the famous line about "who will rid me of this turbulent priest." Most of the time, the monarch doesn't have to issue a specific order. People just intuit what is expected of them and get on with it.

So. I don't know if President Obama personally unleashed the FBI on the Trump campaign, but certainly someone in the chain of command intuited what was expected of him. Maybe they just knew that Donald Trump was a threat to the "living organism" we call the "deep state." And certainly, people in the FBI would understand that such behavior would be rewarded by a President Clinton.

What bothers me is the utter stupidity of all this.

If the folks at the top of the food chain had half a brain, they would have been saying, well, the Dems have been in power for two terms so we are almost certainly looking at a change election, and if we start mucking about with that we will create more problems than we solve.

It's the same with Supreme Court nominations. Back in 1987 the Dems decided to "Bork" the Supreme Court nomination of conservative Robert Bork. Why? Because Bork threatened all the liberal agenda they had "legislated" through the Supreme Court. So they stopped him. Bully for them. But now every GOP Supreme Court nominee gets Borked, and Republicans have learned to resist, and now have a conscious policy to replace all retiring justices throughout the federal court system with reliable, vetted conservatives. And so Democrats have upped the ante every time, so that now we are dragging up alleged misbehavior in student parties from 30 years ago, as in the Kavanaugh nomination! Really Dems? Did you really want to go here?

Do you see what is happening, Dems? You are teaching us deplorables how to do "activism" and go mano-a-mano against you guys. Is that what you really want?

What bothers me is the utter stupidity of this.

Now we have the impeachment of President Trump on the flimsiest of pretexts. I get why we are getting this, because Hillary Clinton didn't properly concede the 2016 election, and because there has been a revival of left-wing activism partly encouraged by President Obama. I also understand that Nancy Pelosi doesn't want to lose control of the lefty activist wing of the party, so she is playing the Duchess of Plaza Toro and leading her regiment from behind.

But is this really what you Democrats want? Routine impeachments of presidents because the activists are mad about losing the last election, because you didn't have the cojones to tell them to cool their jets?

I was talking to my Greek friend this morning, and he mentioned that a few years ago some Greek priest from Buffalo wanted to change the bylaws of the US Greek Orthodox Church to make the priest the president of each local church governing council. But then some bishop intervened. No! He exclaimed. The priest is the spiritual leader in the church, and the council is the "corporation." Forget it! Golly. Imagine! Separation of powers, even in a local church.

Here's the problem. You get traditions, like the separation of powers. Like alternation in office and conceding of elections. Like only using impeachment for really egregious "high crimes and misdemeanors."

But over time people forget why. Separation of powers? But we want abortion, because justice. Concede an election? But Trump! Using the FBI to spy on an election campaign? But Trump!

The point is not that these people are evil. I could live with that. The point is that they are stupid. They are breaking up the furniture and using it for firewood and they have no clue what they are doing.

I suppose I should be grateful. I should be grateful that the boobs that have turned Supreme Court nominations into straight partisan dogfights are idiots. That Hillary Clinton is a corrupt fool. That the woke left literally knows nothing, AOC. That the global elite just talks to each other and has no idea how it is screwing up the lives of ordinary deplorables.

Because if the "deep state" had a brain they would have the whole world locked up, instead of stumbling and bumbling from one stupidity to another.

Still, the whole Trump surveillance thing puzzles me. I thought there was supposed to be honor among politicians, as among thieves.

But maybe the current generation of thieves didn't get the message from their seniors.