that went live at the Washington Post website at 7:42 this morning. Titled John Brennan: I will speak out until integrity returns to the White House, it is written from the perspective of someone who was a career intelligence official, who was in the Oval Office multiple times in the presidencies of Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama, and who views himself as not at all a partisan.
After starting with his first experience of visiting the Oval as a 35 year old CIA officer in 1990, and explaining his respect for the office of the Presidency, Brennan offers this paragraph:
Over the next quarter-century, I returned to the Oval Office several hundred times during the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The jitters that accompanied my first Oval Office visit dissipated over time, but the respect, awe and admiration I held for the office of the presidency and the incumbents never waned. The presidents I directly served were not perfect, and I didn’t agree with all of their policy choices. But I never doubted that each treated their solemn responsibility to lead our nation with anything less than the seriousness, intellectual rigor and principles that it deserved. Many times, I heard them dismiss the political concerns of their advisers, saying, “I don’t care about my politics, it’s the right thing to do.”
That sets the context for what we read in the very next paragraph:
The esteem with which I held the presidency was dealt a serious blow when Donald Trump took office. Almost immediately, I began to see a startling aberration from the remarkable, though human, presidents I had served. Mr. Trump’s lifelong preoccupation with aggrandizing himself seemed to intensify in office, and he quickly leveraged his 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. address and his Twitter handle to burnish his brand and misrepresent reality.
burnish his brand it is worth noting that Trump has not really been a developer on a large scale for quite some time, although there are examples such as turning the Old Post Office Pavilion in DC into the Trump International Hotel. But even that has depended upon the marketability of his name, his “brand,” which increasingly around the world has become toxic.
Brennan covers a lot of ground in his analysis and criticism of Trump, and I wish I could go through it all. I cannot — I am off from school (and hence able to post at this time) for a doctor’s appointment and then to head for a college reunion, and I am too squeezed for time.
But there is another paragraph in this piece that I absolutely must call to your attention, in it represents Brennan applying what he learned studying leaders abroad during his time in the CIA and what it means for us:
For more than three decades, I observed and analyzed the traits and tactics of corrupt, incompetent and narcissistic foreign officials who did whatever they thought was necessary to retain power. Exploiting the fears and concerns of their citizenry, these demagogues routinely relied on lies, deceit and suppression of political opposition to cast themselves as populist heroes and to mask self-serving priorities. By gaining control of intelligence and security services, stifling the independence of the judiciary and discrediting a free press, these authoritarian rulers followed a time-tested recipe for how to inhibit democracy’s development, retard individual freedoms and liberties, and reserve the spoils of corrupt governance for themselves and their ilk. It never dawned on me that we could face such a development in the United States.
Yes we do. We have a deliberate attempt to undermine any institution or person that might hold Trump accountable. Yesterday’s brouhaha over pardons, actual and potential, is merely the latest illustration thereof.
There is much more in this hard-hitting piece. For example:
At a time when deep-seated fears of socioeconomic and cultural change need to be addressed honestly and without prejudice, Mr. Trump grandstands like a snake-oil salesman, squandering his formidable charisma and communication skills in favor of ego, selfishness and false promises.
Or perhaps this:
I speak out for the simple reason that Mr. Trump is failing to live up to the standards that we should all expect of a president.
Which leads to Brennan’s short concluding paragraph:
As someone who had the rare privilege of directly serving four presidents, I will continue to speak out loudly and critically until integrity, decency, wisdom — and maybe even some humility — return to the White House.
Note what Brennan indicates is missing
integrity
decency
wisdom
humility
I cannot think of a previous occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue who lacked all four of those. Even Richard Nixon had some modicum of wisdom, no matter how vile and corrupt he may have been.
Trump has already gone after Brennan on Twitter. I expect he will again do so, especially after someone summarizes Brennan’s op ed for him (because we know Trump lacks the patience to read it for himself).
Read the entire piece.
Pass it on.
Peace?