The past week in Washington offered what appeared to be a startling contrast: on the one hand, tales of a President unhinged, issuing garbled, contradictory commands to appalled aides who were conspiring against him; on the other, a thoughtful Supreme Court nominee, calmly parrying the futile assaults of a frustrated senatorial minority. Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh looked and sounded very different, but those appearances deceived. Both men were pulling the country in the same direction, toward more inequality, more pollution, and, to put the matter bluntly, women once more dying from botched abortions.
Regarding the President, the week featured twin elaborations of the obvious—that he is dangerously unfit for office. Bob Woodward's new book, “Fear,” which began circulating on Tuesday, portrays Trump as ill-informed, incurious, impetuous, and mendacious. In one already oft-quoted passage, Woodward asserts that John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, said of Trump, “He's an idiot. It's pointless to try to convince him of anything. He's gone off the rails. We're in crazytown.” (In one of many artfully crafted denials from Trump insiders that wafted through Washington last week, Kelly said he did not call the President an “idiot.”)
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