Whoever said that a week in politics can be a lifetime was living so far in the past, they probably have a drawer full of sock garters. Today, in the Land of Trump, that time frame has been compressed to an hour.
And considering the stormy week we just survived, every one of us ought to have grey hair, be eligible to collect three or four Social Security checks and have all our earthly possessions catalogued in a living will.
Instead of luxuriating in the rave reviews following his speech to Congress that the 45th President recited in his newly discovered indoor voice, the administration immediately began reeling from rolling disclosures that various members of his staff met with Russians during the campaign, the transition and in their dreams.
The revelations accentuating the perception of collusion between members of Trump’s inner circle and our Cold War opponents gained a potency that exceeded peppered vodka spiked with Siberian methamphetamine, and started spilling out like pods of Russian nesting dolls turned upside down.
The U.S. attorney general, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (meaning there were two other guys named Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, which is frightening enough), recused himself from all investigations, because Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III investigating Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III would look weird and be way too confusing.
Turns out when he said under oath in his confirmation hearing that “I didn’t have any meetings with the Russians,” what the former Alabama Senator meant to say was he didn’t have any meetings with the Russians except a couple, that we really don’t need to know about, and should keep our noses out of his personal business, dammit. Which is personal. His business, that is.
Then a couple more Trumpian underlings remembered they might have, perhaps, met some folks, nice people, who could have been foreigners, and seemed vaguely Russianish, maybe in Cleveland or one of those other rusting Midwestern cities. Or was it Miami?
The big question now is how high do the Russian connections go? In other words what did Trump know and when did he know he knew it? To put it another way, what didn’t he know and who knows that he knew he didn’t know and why? Or does he even know that what he didn’t know he knew was unknowable at the time, which is now? And most importantly, who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. The Shadow knows.
Especially curious is the fact that Trump insults everybody: the media, the judiciary, the intelligence community, Meryl Streep, Nordstrom, people who prefer vinegar-based coleslaw, but never Vladimir Putin. Which is as suspicious as an AK-47 with a smoking barrel in your crisper bin.
Trump still refuses to admit it was the Russians that hacked the Democratic National Committee. “Maybe it was a 400-pound fat guy on a couch.” Hate to see Chris Christie get thrown under the bus like that. Can’t be too good for the bus either. Sad.
In order to deflect attention from his Russian connection, Donald J. Trump then shocked the world by alleging he had just been told that Barack Obama had bugged Trump Tower. Or perhaps we misunderstood. After all, Donald Trump is a child of the ’60s. Maybe what he meant to say was “Don’t you get it man? I don’t dig that black cat. Barack Obama is heavy-duty bugging me, man.”
Will Durst is an award-winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comedian and former short haul truck diver of plaster molds.
