Charles Pierce: How Much More Absurdity Can You Handle?

[babylonsister]

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a56258/donald-trump-jr-email/

How Much More Absurdity Can You Handle?

The United States government is a shambles.
By Charles P. Pierce
Jul 11, 2017


snip//

"We are now beyond obstruction of justice," the Virginia Democrat told CNN Tuesday. "This is moving into perjury, false statements and even potentially treason."


But by far the most interesting reaction came from Choirboy Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States. His office put out a statement that was conspicuous in its tap-dancing. Pence, of course, has been all over television for a year denying that the Trump campaign knew anything about Russian ratfcking. He has decided on the modified limited blow-off route for the moment, via The Hill:


"The Vice President is working every day to advance the president's agenda, which is what the American people sent us here to do," press secretary Marc Lotter said in a statement. "The Vice President was not aware of the meeting. He is not focused on stories about the campaign, particularly stories about the time before he joined the ticket."


At this point, you have to have a mind of bread dough to give either Pence or his nominal boss the benefit of any doubt. (Thanks to Junior's efforts, Philip Bump had a precise timeline on which to hang this video of the president* delivering a suspiciously clairvoyant victory speech. Wonder how he knew what was coming?) All over the Intertoobz, Trump Kremlinologists—and, hell, actual Kremlinologists—were parsing the events to a fine pulp to try and discover the through line in what now appears to be a writhing ball of snakes pretending to be a government.

Almost all of the recent Times exclusives were sourced to what appeared to be people within the White House or, at least, to people close enough to it to know the details of a very closely held meeting. Is Team Jared out for blood? Is there some sort of weird Oedipal thing playing out with Junior? Is Tiffany behind it all, bred from birth for vengeance like Mordred to Marla Maples' Morgan Le Fay? The boggled mind further boggles.

The government of the United States is a shambles. An incompetent administration headed by an unqualified buffoon is now descending into criminal comedy and maladroit backstabbing. It is an administration that not only self-destructs, but glories in the process. There seems to be no end to it, and no desire to end it by the people who actually have the power to do so. That, in itself, seems curious, and it probably should remind us all that Paul Ryan's Super PAC was hip-deep in the borscht itself. Ryan, who really is the person best situated to close the circus down, seems to be afflicted with one of his periodic bouts of invisibility, poor lad.

There's a great unfolding treason now—not just the precise constitutionally defined treason, but a general betrayal of reason, of self-government, of honesty and of high office. They are now committing treason against themselves, grim betrayal winding around itself in coils ever tightening until there is nothing but the foul exhaling of the final breath of things that once belonged to better people than them.

[Me.]

1. KR

[dalton99a]

2. "a writhing ball of snakes pretending to be a government"

That's what the GOP nominated

[babylonsister]

3. aka the swamp, and it's worse than any of us could have

ever imagined.