I wrote yesterday about Brennan’s brutally honest, yet still maturely stated, criticism of Trump and his administration, that this isn’t normal, and cannot ever become normalized, it is a national security threat.
Well, Trump must read my articles here at Zoom, or he read the original article in the Washington Post. Regardless, Trump responded. We need not say that Trump doesn’t handle criticism well, especially criticism that he must know hits the mark. Trump’s only tool to deal with conflict is to attack attack attack the person with whom he has a problem. Most people learn to respond to criticism at critical ages such as 5-12, and refine it in adolescence. Trump missed that critical phase and isn’t going to evolve into a more contemplative man. So, Trump pulled out his only tool, and then had a hatchet man do the job.
Apparently it was too much trouble for Trump to make up his own attack, so he used one from John Bongino of …the National Rifle Association (the NRA long known for their expertise in international relations and knowledge of sophisticated intelligence gathering from around the world). Trump re-tweeted Bongino’s attack: Via Rawstory:
“John Brennan, no single figure in American history has done more to discredit the intelligence community than this liar. Not only is he a liar, he’s a liar about being a liar,” Trump quoted Bongino as saying.
No single figure? Aldrich Aimes, who gave the Soviets the American Intelligence New Testament, undoubtedly killing several agents, falls under Brennan now? Apparently.
But, let’s look at the word “liar” here, because that’s extra special, given that even Republicans acknowledge that the president has trouble with “the truth” at times. In fact, lying was central to Brennan’s critique, re-quoted here from my original article:
President Trump “has shown highly abnormal behavior by lying routinely to the American people without compunction, intentionally fueling divisions in our country and actively working to degrade the imperfect but critical institutions that serve us.”
Do I even need to say that if Brennan was anything of the sort that Bongino describes, Brennan would not have served faithfully under four presidents, two Democrats and two Republicans?
Trump is lucky. Brennan still has integrity. Brennan knows one hell of a lot more than he’s saying on the record. Brennan knows Trump’s relationships with Russians. The intel-community has been watching Trump deal with Putin’s pals at least as far back as 2007. Brennan could truly unload on Trump. But, Brennan has principles. He is speaking up, and being savagely attacked for it, but he still knows the rules, the boundaries. Brennan knows that the person charged with bringing out the sordid details is Robert Mueller, and Brennan will be proven right in the long run. This is the sort of “tool” on has to deal with conflict that Brennan likely learned right around age nine, and it is serving him well today.
We are lucky to still have patriots like Brennan, and should do what we can to show our support. Feel free to share this article far and wide.
