Ah, the good old days, when there was at least bipartisan cooperation in investigating intrigue:: President Ronald Reagan receives the Tower Commission Report on his administration’s Iran-Contra scandal from two of the commission’s members — Republi… — Ah, the good old days, when there was at least bipartisan cooperation in investigating intrigue:: President Ronald Reagan receives the Tower Commission Report on his administration’s Iran-Contra scandal from two of the commission’s members — Republican Sen. John Tower (left) and Democratic Sen. Edmund Muskie (far right). Courtesy the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute.

Impermanent interests: Trump's own Iran contra scandal

September 21, 2019

What did Iran have to do with Nicaragua? Nothing except that the Reagan Administration used the sale of embargoed arms to Iran — yes the very Iran that we now hate — to fund the Contras in their opposition to the communist Nicaraguan government, all behind Congress’ back.

What does Saudi Arabia have to do with Ukraine? Nothing except that the Trump Administration is apparently sending troops to Saudi Arabia to distract from a whistleblower complaint that President Donald J. Trump allegedly withheld aid to Ukraine as he pressured the struggling democracy to investigate rival Joe Biden’s efforts to help son Hunter’s business dealings there. Needless to say, any administration efforts to cooperate with the inevitable congressional hearings won’t be happening.

The wind, the rain and The Donald

September 8, 2017

Scooch over, Harvey and join Sandy, Katrina, Andrew and (here insert your personal past hurricane nemesis) on the long couch.

As the Repubs learned yesterday, there’s no political storm quite like Hurricane Donald. (Here we cue a fabulously appropriate folk song that figures in my novel “Water Music” – “The Wind and Rain” – beautifully realized by the band Crooked Still.)

He blew through Washington D.C., cutting a three-month deal to raise the debt ceiling with Dems Nancy Pelosi and “Chuck Chop” Schumer, the Minority Leaders of their respective Congressional Houses, leaving the repudiated Repubs to wonder in the manner of hurricane survivors, “What the hell just happened?” ...

The permanent interests of the House of Trump

July 12, 2017

With all due respect to Wilde, I think dear Oscar got it backward: Each man doesn’t kill the thing he loves. Each man is killed by it.

For the House of Trump – which is not quite the House of Atreus, Aeschylus not being an American strong suit – the love of all things Slavic has proved a fateful attraction and distraction. There is nothing wrong with admiration for foreign cultures. There is much, however that is wrong with accepting aid from a foreign government, particularly an adversarial one, particularly when you are running for president of the United States. ...

Trump and Romney: A marriage made in…well, wherever

December 1, 2016

It was my favorite British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, who said that “there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests.”

And that brings us to Donald Trump’s date with Mitt Romney at Jean-Georges, chaperoned by Reince Priebus.

Mittens is up for secretary of state, and the smart money says that Trumpet’s just toying with him as payback for Mittens calling him a fraud and a phony in a scathingly eloquent address during the campaign. ...