Bad leadership is a national-security threat
Most politics is day by day, and certainly we consume it that way. But the thought that presses on my mind has distant horizons. The criminal trial of Donald Trump, de facto Republican presidential nominee, commenced Monday in Manhattan Criminal Court.
The case revolves around charges that he directed hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the adult-film performer, to stop her from speaking publicly of what she alleges was their sexual relationship. Witness lists not yet released are expected to include David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer said to have been involved in a “catch and kill" scheme to bury Ms. Daniels’s claims in 2016, and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model.
Days before the 2016 election this newspaper reported Ms. McDougal had told friends of an affair with Mr Trump, and also received money and blandishments from the Enquirer. In the first days of the trial the judge refused to recuse himself and refused to allow into evidence the famous “Access Hollywood" videotape, in which the defendant claimed his fame was such that he could grab women by the genitals because “when you’re a star, they let you do it." Mr.
Trump was admonished for seeming to mutter menacingly toward a prospective juror, and the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman reported that he fell asleep at the defendant’s table: “His head keeps dropping down and his mouth goes slack." CNN’s Jim Acosta joked Mr. Trump might call such reports “fake snooze." All of this is part of the fabulous freak show that is American politics, but we’re getting too used to scandal, aren’t we? We’ve become blasé. The quality of our leaders is deteriorating, and we’re so used to it it’s not alarming us anymore.
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