Ace in the hole

New York Post article titled "Why it's time for Trump to play his ace in the hole."

And I find that rather funny on three counts.

* Michael Goodwin is using a playing cards metaphor and avoided using the obvious "trump card."

* It's yet another of countless articles presuming to suggest what Trump must do.

* If Michael Goodwin thinks his sense of timing is better than Trump's sense of timing, well, there's just no curing that kind of presumption.

Goodwin gets to the point after mentioning he's been on vacation and had a few logistic issues. The pain of returning sharpens by realizing Jeff Sessions is still attorney general of the United States and that Rod Rosenstein is effective boss of DOJ and FBI who continues to get away with the biggest partisan heist of modern times, and who is guilty of three main sins.

We're waiting for the ace in the hole.

Can you guess it?

Come on. Be a sport. Guess. What is Trump's ace in the hole?

Goodwin's vacation return pain abatement therapy is to make us wait while he enumerates Rosenstein's main sins.

1) His spawn, Robert Mueller has carte blanche to target anybody who's ever worked for President Trump's campaign or administration. Goodwin illustrates with examples all the damage that's doing.

2) Rosensteins' arrogant stiff-arming Congress' duty at oversight. Goodwin views it a national disgrace that the public is kept in the dark about the most basic things including whether the FBI had any credible allegations about collusion or whether it relied exclusively on Hillary Clinton financed Russian Dossier, to get a surveillance warrant against Trump associate Carter Page. Goodwin lists other basic things we don't know. Why the agency continued to use Christopher Steele even after they said he was cut off. How much money they paid him. Why the FBI sent one or more spies into the Trump campaign. Goodwin mentions the "tsunami" of leaks from law enforcement and intelligence agencies clearly designed to defeat Trump and to undermine him.

3) Rosenstein's complete lack of interest in the suspect handling of the Clinton email investigation where numerous incidents of misconduct and deviations from rules detailed in the I.G.'s report came and went as if they never happened.

All that suggesting it is the position of Justice Department that despite all the agent bias and misconduct and unanswered questions, the decision not to prosecute Clinton is final and will not be reopened or seriously reviewed.

Are we there yet?

Be quiet back there. Don't make Goodwin pull over, he's on a roll.

Goodwin writes the FBI has lost credibility. He cites polls.

[skip]

Maybe these polls interest you. They support Goodwin's screed. The thing is, we never see the questions people were asked, how the crucial questions are nested with other questions. We don't know who was asked, where they were asked, what the conditions were when they were queried, nor how many, nor who these people are. The polls themselves leave more unanswered questions than they answer. Is the nation's pulse taken with two fingers on the nation's wrist, on the nation's neck, or in the nation's shoe, with a stethoscope, by a doctor or a trainee, after the nation just woke up, on a full stomach or starving, or while the nation was jogging, or just after the nation drank coffee or smoked a joint?

Pfft.

Polls show some percentage of people don't trust the FBI. So what.

Yay! The card. Here it is.

The president has unlimited powers to declassify any document within the executive branch. It is a mystery why Trump has hesitated to use that power, especially because he rails so frequently about the unfairness of both probes.  

That's a pretty good card. My guess was he can fire anybody he wishes. Including Sessions, including Rosenstein. This could have been a lot shorter.

He could, in an instant, strike a blow for accountability and transparency by ordering the Justice Department to give Congress everything it wants, subject to very limited restrictions. 

Embarrassment does not qualify as a reason for withholding information. 

Almost certainly, the bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton would be glaring if the document troves were exposed to the disinfectant of sunshine. That would make the move a political bonus for Trump. 

Even more important, it would set a dramatic precedent for a more open government, something Trump promised to deliver. Secrecy is an important part of the deep state’s permanent power and, when invoked to extremes by law enforcement, veers toward a police state. Trump should make sure he is its last victim. 

Do you think Trump doesn't know this? The mystery for Goodwin is intrigue for Trump observers.  You don't have to be a supporter to be fascinated. We've seen yuge things happen and with startling head-spinning alacrity, tectonic shifts in the geopolitical landscape in compressed time. FLASHBACK

Oooooh, that was a good one.

I just now re-lived age ten living overseas I fantasized about earthquakes back then, visualizing them as drawn in comic books. I see the comics panels. I feel again myself thinking in comics panels. I really liked the whole world being shaken like that. But we only ever had little ones. I didn't understand damage, and I didn't care about property. In the vision, the earth cracks open underfoot and splits rapidly to a gigantic crevice with dirt from both sides tumbling into the abyss opening between my legs underfoot, with loose tufts of grass on the top of both sides,  and trees tipping to both sided and bushes falling into the widening crack, cars dropping into it, and me being forced to quick action of deciding which side of the crack to throw my weight onto. It's a fantasy about a life-or-death immediate decision. Either side would save my life but I'd have to act immediately, no fussing about, no, "Oh are we having an earthquake? Is this a big one? Should I just stand here and freeze in place? Should I jump?"  None of that. Jump! I visualized this all the time.

I was totally ready for the earth to split open.

Wide open.

Trump is waiting for maximum effect. He's rather good at drawing interrelated activities to climax, at creating eddies and channeling them.  It's not an isolated thing as Goodwin describes it. Thorough as Goodwin is.  He's waiting more patiently than Goodwin to achieve maximum benefit in all related areas, media shakedown, government shakeup, elections chaos.