The layer-upon-layer set of issues encapsulated by the memo points up a principle that must be reiterated often in our age: two things can be true at once

As I make the rounds of the various outlets of perspective this morning, I find myself not at all surprised that the level-headed and principled David French at NRO would have the most useful take I'm coming across:

From the beginning of the Russia investigation, it has always been the case that two things could be true at once: FBI agents could have engaged in misconduct (including misconduct motivated by political bias) and the Russia investigation could be legitimate, necessary, and based on information obtained not through Democratic opposition research but through legitimate intelligence-gathering methods.

Ironically enough, the memo in fact confirms the necessity of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller insulated the investigation from the problematic elements of the FBI, disciplined a biased agent (Strzok), and is conducting an investigation that now includes copious amounts of alarming evidence gained independently of the memo — including the evidence that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort met with Russians in what was described in an email as a Russian plan to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

It's worthwhile to back up a bit and note that French's main point is that George Papadopolous's loose lips while tying one on in the upscale London bar and chatting up an Australian diplomat, an event that occurred in May 2016 looks to have been at least as important a factor in launching the investigation as the Steele dossier. Steele didn't even start writing his dossier until July 19.

As I said yesterday, it's way too early for tribalist crowing, if that's your bag.

Me, I have no emotional stake in any of this. If you step back far enough from the Gordian knot, what you see is a whole lot of ambitious people clamoring for some kind of brass ring, and demonstrating the capacity for the most vicious hardball in the attempt to grab it. Some claim to be populists, some claim to be progressives. What you don't see are any people forthrightly identifying themselves as three-pillared conservatives, whose motivation is to keep principles front and center.

Lots of people are using some form of the phrase "when all the facts come out." Who knows how long that will take? Furthermore, how do we want to define "all the facts"?

While all this is consuming the oxygen in the room, the basic matters on our national plate remain what they are:

• The effects of moving in the direction of economic liberty (deregulation and tax cuts) are proving to result in increased general prosperity.
• North Korea remains an existential threat.
• The culture's rot continues apace.

In an age when distraction is the default setting for the nation's cognitive field, it's a daunting task to get anyone's attention rerouted to these matters.

But maybe scandal fatigue will set in enough that people will begin to consider that certain things are more important than others.