Steve Bannon.

[hollodero]

(04-09-2017, 11:52 AM)Dill Wrote: Remember that the US is a democracy

I'm aware of the concept.

(04-09-2017, 11:52 AM)Dill Wrote: and votes, not intelligence or degrees or whatever are the final arbiter of who gets into office. We have many politicians even at the national level who may know some things (e.g., be good businessmen), but still don't have much statecraft. Bush knew how to leverage taxpayer money into a baseball stadium which enabled him to sell his team at great profit. Then he broke Iraq with no intention to "nation build." If you followed Trey Gowdy and the Benghazi witch hunt, you know that rational, non-partisan behavior is a risk for many Congressmen.

Sure. There's one thing that unites the left, right and center: The agreement that politicians are stupid. In fact, most are not. They at least have some idea about publicity, about persuasion, do have social skills, can adapt, I guess most are highly intelligent people. Some probably are not. But seldom does one jeopardize his own reputation for a cause where there's nothing to gain in the long run.

The political gain you described really only works with the core of Trump supporters, and they wouldn't have needed a Nunes stunt in the first place. It won't stop the Russia investigation though, it won't persuade "independents" that Trump was right, things don't go away anytime soon, that's why I see it as a break and nothing more. That is not an unreasonable assessment, and Nunes should have reached a similar cnoclusion. But even if he didn't and if he felt brownnosing Trump was the way to go. The way that stunt was carried out is a career-ender - as if Nunes wouldn't know that questions about what he saw and where he got the info from, why it can't be shared, why the committee is on hold etc. would arise. He manoeuvred himself into a hole without escape, and it's not a surprise things turned out that way. As a politician and someone who knows how media and public perception works, he must have known, or he's indeed one of the dumbest politicians ever. Not "dumb", dumb.

(04-09-2017, 11:52 AM)Dill Wrote: I continue to present this all as hypothesis. It will be somewhat confirmed if this time next week, we will are all talking about utterly new unforced errors and baffling diplomatic moves with unforeseeable consequences, which no one can quite believe.

Yeah, this won't get better.