TPM - Josh Marshall - long, but worthwhile- "Extremely Dangerous Ground"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dangerous-ground

By JOSH MARSHALL Published FEBRUARY 16, 2017, 11:36 AM EDT

I want to take a moment to discuss two articles which have been published in recent days which focus on the idea that Michael Flynn was run out of office by a cabal of enemies in the intelligence and law enforcement establishment which actually has as its goal driving President Trump from office.

The first is by Eli Lake, an erstwhile friend who received the unique plaudit of being called out by President Trump himself in a tweet for his piece. It seems Trump likely saw it discussed on TV rather than read it. But same difference. Eli's piece "The Political Assassination of Michael Flynn" argues that whatever we may think of Donald Trump, we would normally and rightly be aghast to see the national security and intelligence establishment using its unique access to and awesome power of the surveillance state to target elected leaders and the people they appoint to high positions in government. It is only people's opposition to Trump, Eli argues, that is blinding them to this fact. He further argues that the issue with Flynn isn't his norm-busting conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. It's that Flynn is a "reformer" in the intelligence world who "was working to reform the intelligence-industrial complex, something that threatened the bureaucratic prerogatives of his rivals."

Next is John Podhoretz's piece in Commentary. Podhoretz argues that political elites and particularly liberal political elites' inability to accept or even comprehend the fact that Trump is President is leading them to indulge fantasies of an end to the Trump presidency - probably through impeachment but possibly through resignation - only 26 days into his first term. Podhoretz seems open-minded or ambivalent about whether this might or should happen. But he seems to fear or predict what amounts to a 'stab in the back' myth about a 'coup d'etat' against Trump. He even says there's a serious chance of civil violence between Trump supporters and opponents. The key part of his argument is that possible impeachment is "an incredibly dangerous thing for people to be speculating about openly."

I wanted to discuss these two articles because even though I mainly disagree with both, they both point to an issue I think is incredibly important and I've been concerned about for weeks. The prospect of the country's intelligence apparatus working against rather than for an elected President is an incredibly dangerous one. We even have a report from the Wall Street Journal from last night which says that the Intelligence Community is withholding some information from the President and his top aides for fear it might be leaked to hostile powers. It's important to note some of the conversation around this article which notes that the bright line of sharing and not sharing isn't necessarily that bright. Some level of detail about sources and methods may necessarily be cleaved aside simply with the request that something like the President's Daily Brief be limited to a single page with no more than 9 bullet points. But, the point here is clear: at least according to this article, people at high levels of the intelligence community suspect the President might be compromised, either knowingly or not, by agents of a hostile foreign power. That belief is dangerous whether the underlying fact is true or not, just dangerous in different ways. Acting on that belief, true or not, edges us close to a constitutional crisis, albeit one that may lurk in the background.

snip - keep reading this well written article.

My initial take (I just scanned this) - we are not in ordinary times, and if there is a chance that the election outcome is not legitimate due to Russian meddling (which I believe), we need to go forward thinking quite differently about things - including what he wrote above. We can't apply the usual thinking to what is happening.

[Lisa0825]

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