David Ignatius asks:

What was so threatening about the former CIA chief? Beyond Brennan’s sheer cussedness, I’d guess that Trump was frightened — and remains so to this day — about just how much Brennan knows about his secrets. And by that, I don’t just mean his dealings with Russian oligarchs and presidents but the way he moved through a world of fixers, flatterers and money launderers.

Hmm, yes, Brennan probably does know a lot about Trump’s secrets. So…it wasn’t particularly clever to piss him off further, was it.

Brennan, like Comey, was there at the beginning of this investigation. Trump must have asked himself: What does Brennan know? What did he learn from the CIA’s deep assets in Moscow, and from liaison partners such as Britain, Israel, Germany and the Netherlands? Does Trump think Brennan will be a less credible witness without a security clearance?

Well, he’s dumb enough. He’s dumb enough to think that removing the security clearance actually removed the knowledge from Brennan’s brain.

The retired admiral who oversaw the raid that killed bin Laden tells Trump to take away his security clearance too.

Dear Mr. President:

Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known. Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him.

Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency.

He says he had hoped when Trump was elected he would rise to the occasion and become a great leader.

A good leader tries to embody the best qualities of his or her organization. A good leader sets the example for others to follow. A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself.

Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities. Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.

If you think for a moment that your McCarthy-era tactics will suppress the voices of criticism, you are sadly mistaken. The criticism will continue until you become the leader we prayed you would be.

Which will be never. He couldn’t if he wanted to – he doesn’t have the faintest idea how, or the qualities that would enable him to learn how. He’s bad quality all the way down.

Trump has always called women dogs, so lighten up already. Gail Collins is one of those women:

Hey, it was long ago, but it still comes up. Particularly now that we’re making lists of all the women our president has ever compared to a canine. Back when I worked for New York Newsday, he sent me a copy of a column I’d written, scrawled with objections, along with an announcement that I was “a dog and a liar” and that my picture was “the face of a pig.” At the time, he was only a flailing real estate developer trying to make a deal with the city, yet it still seemed so weird that at first I wondered if it might be a joke, or some enemy of Trump’s trying to embarrass him. But no, it was a missive from the man himself.

She thought it couldn’t be at first because normal adults don’t act like that. Period. An adult who sends personal abuse to a total stranger is badly broken somewhere. Trump has always been badly broken.

This week, of course, Trump referred to his ex-friend Omarosa in a tweet as “that dog.” I am going to go out on a limb and say that when the president of the United States insults a woman that way in a public statement, it’s a little bit more of an issue.

One that will never go away. As the temperatures rise and the forests burn and the crops fail, it will still be the case that the US once had a hateful bully as a president.

One of the worst things about this moment in our national lives is the fear that if Trump gets into trouble for doing something dumb and obnoxious, he’ll respond by doing something huge and maybe dangerous. Have you heard that Stormy Daniels is going to be on the British version of “Celebrity Big Brother”? What happens if she tells that story about a hotel room spanking session to a house full of smirking Europeans? He could declare a war.

Or not even declare a war but just do a Pearl Harbor and drop a few nukes on someone.

During the campaign Trump continually pointed out that he went to the Wharton School of Business. (“It’s like super genius stuff.”) That gave many people the impression he’d gotten the high-prestige Wharton M.B.A., but he was really just a transfer student into the undergraduate program. Skeptics suggested he only edged his way in because of family connections. He graduated without any honors or distinction, and went on to publish a best-selling memoir that was written by somebody else.

I’m betting there were no dogs in it.

Trump is triggered. His people have been telling him to ignore Omarosa and her book, which tells us that they’ve confused him with someone else.

Now advisers fear his rage at Manigault Newman is fueling irrational outbursts that bolster the claim in her book that Trump said the “n-word” during an Apprenticeouttake.

Irrational outbursts? Trump?? Surely not. It’s people like Brennan and Comey who go in for that kind of thing; Trump says so himself.

In recent days, Trump has called Manigault Newman “crazed,” a “lowlife,” and a “dog” on Twitter. His campaign filed an arbitration suit against her seeking “millions.” And Trump told advisers that he wants Attorney General Jeff Sessions to have Manigault Newman arrested, according to one Republican briefed on the conversations. (It’s unclear what law Trump believes she broke.)

No it isn’t! It’s perfectly clear: it’s the law against saying a single harsh word about Trump.

Another Republican recounted how over the weekend Trump derailed a midterm-election strategy session to rant about Manigault Newman’s betrayal.

Look. Election strategy is about other people as well as Trump. Manigault Newman’s “betrayal” is solely about Trump. Which one do you think he’s going to rant about? Let’s stay on our toes here.

One Trump person said it’s a death spiral. That would be good.

Vox gives us Sarah Sanders’s disgusting performance “explaining” Trump’s attack on Brennan.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, reading a statement from the president during the daily press briefing on Wednesday, cited Trump’s “constitutional responsibility to protect the nation’s classified information” as justification for his decision to revoke Brennan’s clearance.

“Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations — wild outbursts on the internet and television — about this administration,” Sanders said, reading the president’s statement.

“I’m not a reckless lunatic, you’re a reckless lunatic!” Trump is the guy who goes in for wild outbursts on Twitter and at his “rallies” and on the global stage; Brennan talks soberly and seriously about the danger Trump is to all of us.

Fmr. Deputy National Security Adviser to President Obama, Ben Rhodes tells @AliVelshi that what John Brennan says on his Twitter account "should have absolutely no bearing on his fitness to maintain his security clearance." pic.twitter.com/vG0i2IFyON

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 15, 2018

Trump has been on a Twitter binge. (Does he ever do any actual work?) One in particular got my attention.

“The action (the Strzok firing) was a decisive step in the right direction in correcting the wrongs committed by what has been described as Comey’s skinny inner circle.” Chris Swecker, former FBI Assistant Director.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2018

What what what? That sounds as if the FBI has been doing Trump’s bidding. Who is this Swecker and where did Don get that weird assertion? So I googled Swecker’s name and got a Think Progress piece from a couple of hours ago:

As he’s in the habit of doing, on Wednesday morning President Trump tweeted out a quote from a friendly conservative commentator — his goal this time being to justify the controversial firing of FBI agent Peter Strzok.

Trump shared a quote from former FBI official Chris Swecker, who wrote in a Fox News column that the Strzok firing “was a deci[sive] step in the right direction in correcting the wrongs committed by what has been described as Comey’s skinny inner circle.”

The Fox column, as you can see, is dated yesterday. Think Progress continues:

But there’s a big problem with Swecker’s column that Trump seemingly missed — to make his case, he cited tweets posted by fake Peter Strzok Twitter accounts.

Oh good grief. I was fooled by that account for a couple of minutes right after Strzok was fired, and then I looked more closely and saw the @notpeterstrzok part. Apparently Swecker didn’t get that far.

“Strzok is now engaged in an unhinged Twitter rant of vitriol towards President Trump that matches the hatred he expressed for Trump in his texts with Page. He has even revealed new and possibly classified or confidential investigative detail – or simply told lies – on Twitter,” Swecker wrote, paraphrasing fake Strzok tweets.

As this is published, the real Strzok has only posted two tweets, and neither of them attack[s] the president.

Trump promoted a column featuring fake Strzok quotes just minutes after he posted a tweet that employed circular reasoning to make a case that the FBI is infected with anti-Trump bias.

Lies piled on lies, obstruction piled on obstruction.