Charles Krauthammer: A Political Ax Murder

I rarely agree with much of anything that Charles Krauthammer has to say on almost any topic. Indeed, he has his head up his ass about 99% of the time, especially when it comes to supporting reactionary policies and individuals.  But he does get it at least partially right in a column in the Washington Post when he looks at Trump's implausible  - and now denied - reasons for firing James Comey and his huge miscalculation.  Here are column excerpts:

 It was implausible that FBI Director James Comey was fired in May 2017 for actions committed in July 2016 — the rationale contained in the memo by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

It was implausible that Comey was fired by President Trump for having been too tough on Hillary Clinton, as when, at a July news conference, Comey publicly recited her various email misdeeds despite recommending against prosecution.

It was implausible that Trump fired Comey for, among other things, reopening the Clinton investigation 11 days before the election, something that at the time Trump praised as a sign of Comey’s “guts” that had “brought back his reputation.”

It was implausible that Trump, a man notorious for being swayed by close and loyal personal advisers, fired Comey on the recommendation of a sub-Cabinet official whom Trump hardly knew and who’d been on the job all of two weeks.

It was implausible that Trump found Rosenstein’s arguments so urgently persuasive that he acted immediately — so precipitously, in fact, that Comey learned of his own firing from TVs that happened to be playing behind him.

These implausibilities were obvious within seconds of Comey’s firing and the administration’s immediate attempt to pin it all on the Rosenstein memo. That was pure spin. So why in reality did Trump fire Comey?

Instead we got this — a political ax murder, brutal even by Washington standards. (Or even Roman standards. Where was the vein-opening knife and the warm bath?) No final meeting, no letter of resignation, no presidential thanks, no cordial parting. Instead, a blindsided Comey ends up in a live-streamed O.J. Bronco ride, bolting from Los Angeles to be flown, defrocked, back to Washington.

Why? Trump had become increasingly agitated with the Russia-election investigation and Comey’s very public part in it. If Trump thought this would kill the inquiry and the story, or perhaps even just derail it somewhat, he’s made the blunder of the decade. Whacking Comey has brought more critical attention to the Russia story than anything imaginable. It won’t stop the FBI investigation. And the confirmation hearings for a successor will become a nationally televised forum for collusion allegations, which up till now have remained a scandal in search of a crime. 

So why did he do it? Now we know: The king asked whether no one would rid him of this troublesome priest, and got so impatient he did it himself.

Frighteningly, Trump does see himself as a king - or perhaps another Vladimir Putin.  He must be stopped and removed from office.  The sooner the better.  

Charles Krauthammer: Nationalize Gay Marriage Now

I generally do not agree with much of anything that columnist Charles Krauthammer has to say on almost any topic.  The man drinks far, far too much of the far right Kool-Aid to be considered a rational conservative.  Hence why it is so stunning that I agree with his column today in the Washington Post which advocates for nationalizing gay marriage now.  Truth be told, taking gay marriage off the table for debate would be a huge boon for the Republican Party notwithstanding the sheets of flying spittle and abject batshitery that would erupt from the Christofascist ranks of the GOP.  Here  are highlights from his column:

[I]n the DOMA decision, the court added a second rationale: equal protection. In states with same-sex marriage, Washington must give the same federal benefits to gay couples as to straight couples because to do otherwise is to discriminate against the gay couples. After all, they are equally married in their states. For Washington to discriminate against them is to deny them equal protection of the laws. Such discrimination is nothing more than irrational animus — and therefore constitutionally inadmissible.

[B]ut if the argument is equal protection, one question is left hanging. Why should equal protection apply only in states that recognize gay marriage? Why doesn’t it apply equally — indeed, even perhaps more forcefully — to gays who want to marry in states that refuse to marry them? 

If discriminating (regarding federal benefits) between a gay couple and a straight couple is prohibited in New York where gay marriage is legal, by what logic is discrimination permitted in Texas, where a gay couple is prevented from marrying in the first place?Which is exactly where the majority’s second rationale leads — nationalizing gay marriage, the way Roe nationalized abortion. This is certainly why David Boies, the lead attorney in the companion Proposition 8 case, was so jubilant when he came out onto the courthouse steps after the ruling. He [David Boies]understood immediately that once the court finds it unconstitutional to discriminate between gay and straight couples, nationalizing gay marriage is just one step away.

So why didn’t Justice Anthony Kennedy, the traditional swing vote who wrote the majority opinion on DOMA with the court’s four liberals, take that step? Why did he avoid doing the full Roe — nationalizing the procedure in question and declaring the subject now closed? I suspect he thought it would be a bridge too far. At least for today.

But he knows that the double rationale underlying his DOMA opinion has planted the seed for going Roe next time. It was prudence, not logic, that stayed his hand. “The only thing that will ‘confine’ the Court’s holding,” wrote dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia with a bit less delicacy, “is its sense of what it can get away with.” Next case — Kennedy & Co. go all the way.

Krauthammer is correct.  Given the Court's finding of anti-gay animus as the only real motivation behind DOMA and that it does actively harm same sex couples and their families, one does have to ask why the Supreme Court did not do the right thing and make gay marriage national.  By not doing so, it is guaranteed that (i) there will be much further litigation and (ii) same sex couples in states like Virginia will experience real harm and a deprivation of equal rights.