Why LITD doesn't do more palace-intrigue coverage

Part of it may be the fact that it's being done to death elsewhere. Stories of a palace-intrigue nature generally dominate the upper half of the Drudge Report front page. Other Internet aggregate sites are similarly preoccupied with it. (Today the big headline is about how Michael Wolff's credibility is proving to be pretty shaky.) Cable news - certainly the commentary-focused shows that prevail after 7 PM - is ate up with this kind of stuff. (I can't tell you about old-school network news. It's been ages since I watched a news broadcast of CBS, NBC or ABC.)

There are some constitutional questions involved in some of it, but for those, I'm inclined to defer to the likes of Andrew McCarthy. There are issues involving eroding public trust in supposedly impartial governmental bodies, particularly the Justice Department and the FBI. Those entities clearly let the entire array of Clinton scandals, (the foundation, the Uranium One deal, and the private server) slip away.

Still, my excitement level regarding the latest revelation about some spring 2016 Donald Trump Jr. meeting, or Bannon leaks, or request for criminal investigation of the "dossier" author just doesn't rise too far.

The basic lay of the land is so clear at this point that it's not subject to abrupt daily changes. We know what kind of person Donald Trump (Sr., the one who was elected president) is. While there are undoubtedly some falsehoods in Wolff's book, and while he obviously has an agenda, there's not much to dispute in his broad portrayal of DJT. The obsession with how CNN and the New York Times are covering him. His pettiness and vindictiveness. The fact that he doesn't read much. The thorny nature of having his kids and their spouses so gathered into the inner circle. It's pretty apparent that the good policy-level moves that have happened over the past year have fortuitously squeaked through despite the daily atmosphere of chaos at the White House.

Then there are the camps arrayed on the battlefield, formed on the basis of where they stand on Trump. The #Resistance types who basically have nothing to say on the subject beyond "I hate him," save for some flimsy accusations of bigotry. The slavish devotees - Hannity, Ingraham, Jim Hoft, an increasing number of American Thinker contributors - whose steady drumbeat is the "long knives" of the "fake news" media. The converts: those who talked a good principled-conservatism game up until the election was a done deal, and now are nearly as enthusiastic about the person of Trump as the slavish devotees. The Acela corridor media, which do as much as they possibly can to confirm the worst accusations of the slavish devotees.

And, of course, those of us who are gratified at the decisive rightward policy turn, but still have deep concerns about the impact of Trump's loose-cannon nature on the major issues of the moment.

And what are those major issues?

They're not infrastructure. They're not a southern-border wall. They're not the renegotiation of global-trade deals.

These are the front-burner issues:

North Korea's nuclear program, brought to fruition due to decades of US appeasement, now poses an existential threat to the entire North American landmass.

Post-American culture is so thoroughly rotten that major societal institutions have embraced the infantile fantasy that there are more than two genders. Christians are being persecuted for conducting business in accordance with their faith. Influential figures in not only the entertainment field, but intellectual circles and even government, are being exposed, in huge numbers, as rank sexual predators. Only 26 percent of the population can name all three branches of the federal government. 37 percent can't name a single First Amendment right. 

Heroin and other opioids are as cheap and available as weed, and as a result, unprecedented numbers of post-Americans are overdosing on them.

Blatant falsehoods such as rampant police brutality against black Americans, or the global climate being in some kind of trouble, are perpetuated in our schools, corporations and even churches.

Institutions that once fostered our civic bonds - Rotary Club, Boy Scouts, Knights of Columbus, Masons, bowling leagues - are dwindling (and buying into the falsehoods enumerated above).


That's the front-burner stuff.

And a narcissistic, bombastic, petty man in the Oval Office, and a disproportionally vocal base of drool-besotted supporters, are in no position to help with amelioration. In fact, they are inclined to make society more brittle with the rigid nature of their zeal.

So until something in all the palace intrigue truly rises to the status of a bombshell, LITD will continue to focus on the results of this nation - and the West generally - having turned away from its Creator and His plan for a truly happy, dignified and prosperous people.