Deeds of Darkness

And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and the people loved the darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.  For all who do evil hate the light and do not come into the light, so that their deeds might not be exposed.  But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.

-Jesus of Nazareth, (The Gospel According to John 3: 19-21)

I don't have it in me to write yet another jeremiad about the latest shooting tragedy, and it's not because the victims in this case were powerful congressmen who were supposed to be protected by lots of "good guys with guns."  It's because I think we have made our choice to have a society where this sort of thing is possible, and so we're just going to have to deal with the toxic stew of mental instability and deadly weapons.  If Sandy Hook didn't stop our madness... if we will not be moved to protect children at school... why would this one be any different? Nobody is safe, and nobody will be safe until we come to our senses.

I am beginning to wonder if we have any senses left to come to.  Over the last week, I have watched two very powerful men give testimony to the Senate investigative committee looking into "the Russia thing." I saw James Comey last week, and Jeffrey Sessions yesterday, and I have come to the conclusion that someone is hiding something.  I don't pretend to know what.  I have my doubts that Donald Trump is a Russian puppet, I think Trump has pretty much proved that whatever else he might be, he is nobody's puppet.  His own handlers can't even keep him from generating legal problems for himself and their agenda via his Twitter feed.  But Comey, in his testimony, was brutally honest, even when confronting realities that did not make him look good.  This man, accustomed to power and politics admitted openly and without emotion that he was not as brave and forthright in his interaction with the Donald as he probably should have been.  He admitted that, following some very shrewd, if not exactly admirable, political instincts, he made sure that his side of the story got out.  After watching Comey testify, it struck me that, if he didn't have the stink of this affair all over him, he might be a rather imposing candidate for something.

Sessions, on the other hand, looked like a squirrel caught in a leg trap.  He dodged, he dissembled, even the "friendly" questions from his own side were not simply opportunities to set the record straight, but further enforced the notion that someone is hiding something.  All parents know about those moments when you catch your kids up to no good.  You know the look, you know the denial.  Sometimes you're even listening around the corner when you hear one of them tell their accomplice, "Don't tell Dad."

It would appear that we are in the denial stage of one of those incidents.  The Family Circus had a mysterious character that lived in the house named "Not me." Bart Simpson had the famous one word response: "Ididn'tdoit." This is not a cartoon, despite appearances and coloration of some of the characters. Comey said that there is no doubt that the Russian government acted to interfere in our election, that is not in question. "There's no fuzz on that," saith a man who would know better than anyone.

If I'm giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, which I'm getting a little thin on these days, but okay. I would say that the Russians wanted Trump elected because they saw in him someone that would be much more favorable to their interests than Hillary Clinton.  The Russians didn't love Obama because he didn't play their games, and he was hard to draw out into the open.  After eight years of a frustrating diplomat who did nothing but elevate the status of our country in the eyes of the world, they wanted America in the hands of the ultimate wheeler-dealer rather than in the hands of another inveterate politician who would have also been the first woman president, and who had a sense of the importance of that role. Clinton would have been even less favorable to the Russian state as it exists now than Obama. The possibility of another eight years of stodgy Democratic politics as usual probably gave Putin indigestion. A bombastic cult of personality would be much more fun. Putin knows how to deal with Trump, you pump his ego, you let him claim some superficial victories, and never let him see you laughing behind his back.

The Russian interference did not need any direct encouragement or guidance from Trump or his campaign, they had their own reasons and those reasons are manifestly clear.  The question is now, why the Nixonian cover-up? (If Nixon had been a stooge AND a crook.)  Is it Trump's ego (very possible scenario) that will not allow him to admit to himself that maybe he didn't win this election fair and square?  That would be the most likely and while it might be damaging, it would not be fatal, unless the obstruction and obfuscation continue to step over lines of legality.  Or is it that someone in their ranks actually did collude with the Russians, which would be dangerously close to if not actual treason.

Do not forget that, in our two most recent Presidential scandals: Clinton and Nixon, it was not the actual crime or indiscretion that was most crucial, it was lying about it that triggered the wheels of justice.  Whatever the truth at the core of this mess turns out to be, a lot of people are walking around with really guilty looks on their faces.