It’s like when we were kids and if you slipped off the couch pillows that were distributed around on the living room floor, you’d step in lava. Now the lava is here literally (in Hawaii at least) and figuratively everywhere else. And the couch pillows are getting smaller and more slippery by the day.
Russiagate investigator Robert S. Mueller III must feel that way too. So far he has been remarkably sure-footed, but every stone he turns over reveals another steam vent. And where there’s steam, there’s usually more lava. And the closer he gets to President Trump, the closer Trump comes to erupting. The president has already vented poison gases over the legitimacy of the investigation, and today he has bubbled up a new charge that Mueller is “MEDDLING” in the midterm elections this year.
It doesn’t matter what this charge means, exactly. Likely nothing. It is simply more heat and fumes spewed into the political atmosphere. When the facts aren’t on your side, argue the law; when the law’s not on your side either, erupt like a volcano and threaten to bury everybody in molten rock. Worth a try.
And speaking of molten rock, Trump and Kim Jong Un continue their ungainly pas de deux to see if they will contain fire and fury or unleash it. And as Trump tries to negotiate one deal, the heat keeps rising from the one he repudiated, with Iran. From one slippery cushion to the next. But rest assured he has steadied himself with with people such as national security adviser John Bolton. Yes, John Bolton, Mr. Fire and Fury himself, who has to varying degrees supported preemptive strikes on both North Korea AND Iran. Similar to what he did on Iraq. And lest we be tempted to forget the lessons on Iraq and its immeasurable costs, at least Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has left us with some parting thoughts of regret on that enterprise.
So yes, it will be a hot summer, and go ahead and toss climate change onto the pyre. We look around for an honest man, like Diogenes, but all we have for illumination right now is a lava lamp.