James Fallows was a novice journalist during Watergate.

So I’ve been thinking about comparisons between Watergate and the murky, fast-changing Comey-Russia-Flynn-Trump affair. As with anything involving Donald Trump, we have no idea where this will lead, what is “true,” and when the next bombshell will go off.

But based simply on what is known so far, this scandal looks worse than Watergate. Worse for and about the president. Worse for the overall national interest. Worse in what it suggests about the American democratic system’s ability to defend itself.

He goes on to give some reasons for this view.

Watergate was comparatively parochial.

And what is alleged this time? Nothing less than attacks by an authoritarian foreign government on the

Trump, absurdly, today gave a commencement address at a “university.” The fact that it’s not a real university makes it a little less absurd, but the fact that it’s a theocratic pseudo-university makes it more sinister and repellent. The Post has details:

In his first commencement address as president, Donald Trump on Saturday drew a parallel between what he faces as a political outsider in Washington and what he said the Christian graduates of Liberty University can expect to encounter in a secular world.

Aw yeah – he’s a christian martyr and so are they.

Of course being an “outsider” is one thing and being an ignorant reckless narcissistic bully is another.

“Be totally unafraid to challenge entrenched interests

Trump demands loyalty to Him from others, but heeds no corresponding obligation to others. It’s a very godlike way of viewing the world…which is to say it’s pathologically narcissistic.

After the “Access Hollywood” scandal, Mr. Trump raged at Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, for going on TV to defend him, arguing that he wanted to attack Hillary Clinton, not play defense. Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign manager until he fired him, repeatedly groused to friends that he was forced to absorb all of the criticism for the campaign’s practice of confining reporters at rallies in small pens. Mr. Trump, he told two people close to him, had ordered him to do it —

The past few hours in Trump. The Times starts with the Twitter threat at Comey.

Mr. Trump chose not to clarify when asked later in the day by Fox News if there were tapes of conversations. “That I can’t talk about. I won’t talk about it,” he said. “All I want is for Comey to be honest.”

He lies every time he opens his mouth, and he’s telling other people to be honest.

Democrats were incredulous. “For a president who baselessly accused his predecessor of illegally wiretapping him, that Mr. Trump would suggest that he, himself, may have engaged in such conduct is staggering,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Representatives

The Post on Trump’s tantrum and what followed from it.

Rosenstein threatened to resign after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation, said the person close to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Now he doesn’t have to, because Trump said it was his decision – leaving all his press people looking like liars, but whatevs.

“He wasn’t doing a good job,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “Very simple. He wasn’t doing a good job.”

But the private accounts of more than 30 officials at the

The Post explains how Trump pulled the rug out from all the people who had been saying he fired Comey because the Deputy AG sent him this overwhelming memo and he leaped up and said “Fire him right now!” It never sounded very plausible, and the part about Clinton’s emails sounded even less plausible, but they stuck to it – until Trump stuck his lips out at Lester Holt and told a completely different story.

President Trump threatened Friday morning to end White House press briefings, arguing that “it is not possible” for his staff to speak with “perfect accuracy” to the American public.

Trump’s comments come after his description of his decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey

Trump has been erupting on Twitter again. He’s still descending. Bottom not yet in sight.

The last item yesterday was this clownish exclamation:

Yesterday, on the same day- I had meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the FM of Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin.#LetsMakePeace! pic.twitter.com/SPiIrJqI6G

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2017

That guy next to him is the enforcer. He has the piss-the-bed tapes strapped to his leg.

Today is all Comey-Russia-press jabber.

Again, the story that there was collusion between the Russians & Trump campaign was fabricated by Dems as an excuse for losing the election.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

“Again,” he says, as if repetition=truth.

The Fake Media is working

So Trump invited Comey over for dinner this one time. Comey didn’t want to go but didn’t think he could say no, so he went. It was a week after the inauguration.

As they ate, the president and Mr. Comey made small talk about the election and the crowd sizes at Mr. Trump’s rallies. The president then turned the conversation to whether Mr. Comey would pledge his loyalty to him.

Sly. That wasn’t the two of them making small talk. It was Trump boring on about his Crowd Size and Comey swallowing the urge to tell him to grow up.

Then Trump made a wholly inappropriate demand for “loyalty,” as if Comey were his personal assistant.

Mr. Comey declined to

So all last weekend Donald was fuming about Comey’s “mild nausea” at the possibility that his blather about Clinton’s emails might have affected the election – yet today, always resilient, always willing to think the whole world adores him, he was planning to visit the FBI to give them a nice morale boost…until he found out that they don’t love him all that much. He’s not a quick study, is he.

The White House has abandoned the idea of President Trump visiting FBI headquarters after being told he would not be greeted warmly, administration officials told NBC News.

Amid the continuing fallout over his decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, Trump was considering an appearance at the

Today in an interview with Lester Holt of NBC News Trump called Comey a showboat.

Yes that’s right. Trump called Comey a showboat.

Trump called Comey a showboat.

He also said he asked Comey whether he was under investigation.

“Sir, sir, please sir, am I under investigation?”

He says Comey told him he wasn’t. Yeah right. He also said Obama spied on him in his jammies at Schlump Tower, so what he says happened isn’t worth a dog’s fart.

“I actually asked him” if I were under investigation, Trump said, noting that he spoke with Comey once over dinner and twice by phone.

“I said, if it’s possible would you let me know, ‘Am I under investigation?’ He said,

Yesterday the traitorous lying thief in the White House held a meeting with his Russian buddies and kept the press out. He kept the press out. He really does think he’s a dictator and can do any damn thing he wants to, and that we are his peons.

When President Trump met with top Russian officials in the Oval Office on Wednesday, White House officials barred reporters from witnessing the moment. They apparently preferred to block coverage of the awkwardly timed visit as questions swirled about whether the president had dismissed his F.B.I. director in part to squelch the investigation into possible ties between his campaign and Moscow.

They prefer lots of things that are in their interest … Read the rest

Awkward for Donald: the acting director of the FBI says Donald’s claim that the agents didn’t love Comey any more is Not True. So much of what Donald says is Not True.

McCabe is testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee right now.

Mr. McCabe rejected the White House’s assertion that Mr. Comey had lost the backing of rank-and-file F.B.I. agents, a pointed rebuke of what had been one of the president’s main defenses for the move.

“Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the F.B.I. and still does to this day,” Mr. McCabe said at the hearing.

“The vast majority of F.B.I. employees enjoyed a deep and positive connection to Director Comey,” he added.

But but but but the president said… Read the rest

The Times reports:

President Trump plans to name Kris W. Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state who has pressed for aggressive measures to crack down on undocumented immigrants, to a long-promised commission to investigate voting fraud in the United States, a White House official said Thursday.

The commission is the official follow-through on Mr. Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that several million “illegals” voted for his Democratic rival and robbed him of a victory in the national popular vote.

An unsubstantiated claim of that kind is more properly called a lie, especially when it’s made with malice by a sitting president. Trump just makes shit up, and since he’s not six years old and not talking about pixies in the … Read the rest