Mediocrity

Authoritarian government is readily defined, not only by the pronounced lack of quality its executers display in making the trains run on time, but also in their careers prior to being tapped as “public servants.” Far from the sparkling resumes that should be part and parcel of those at the levers of public power, repressive regimes most always make expendable sycophancy the paramount concern when filling out government positions.

This isn’t to say that political patronage is not an enduring feature of representative government, it is. However, slots in pluralist government trees always demand much more career gravitas from applicants if for no other reason than the assumption transperancy will surely shine an unfavorable light on toadie imposters and create a political problem that didn’t need to exist. Tyrants are unconcerned with such optics.

Joachim von Ribbentrop became Hitler’s Foreign Minister on the basis of nothing more than a cogent knowledge of international affairs, absent among the other Nazis in Hitler’s inner cabal… oh, and his willingness to let them use his house for meetings. While it can be said he did excel in mathematics as a young student, Leventriy Beria owed his entire rise toward the pinnacle of the Soviet security state to Stalin’s satisfaction with his loyalty. Rulers are ruled by paranoia; it has always been thus.

World Patent Marketing, established in 2014, was a fraudulent company shuttered by the Federal Trade Commission. It convinced inventors to invest money with a promise to get their inventions patented and fully licensed, but then simply pocketed their contributions and deceived them about its efforts on their behalf. Cut and dried, $26 million scammed from hopeful creators, abject fraud. Matthew Whitaker, our new acting US Attorney General, now fully in charge of the Mueller Investigation’s well being, served on World Patent Marketing’s board of directors,  an ignominious bullet point on a resume sorely wanting in the career achievement category.

Like many of the Administration’s higher ups, Whitaker’s career path shows considerably more failure than success, more mediocrity than excellence. While listed as a “politician,” Whitaker actually sought elected office only twice. In 2002 red Iowa voters decidedly rejected him for State Treasurer, awarding his campaign only 43% of the vote, his incumbent opponent never breaking a bead of sweat. In 2014 he entered a crowded GOP Senate primary field and obtained less than 8% of the vote despite his best efforts; as the Daily Racing Form often asserts in the racing lines of well beaten thoroughbreds, he was “never a factor.”

Like many during Obama’s Presidency, Whitaker sought income and relevance within the non-profit cottage industries dedicated to all things conspiracy. In October, 2014 Whitaker became the executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), an organization dedicated to, aside from soliciting donations from gullible right wing true believers, getting to the bottom of Hillary Clinton’s private email server shenanigans.

Whitaker came to Trump’s attention after penning a column for CNN lambasting the Mueller Investigation for becoming a fishing expedition. Specifically, Whitaker labeled Trump finances a “clear red line” Mueller could not cross. A month later, Whittaker was in the Justice Department, heading toward a the top spot in Attorney General Sessions’ Office. Now he is in charge of everything, owing it all to a patron with a single reason for promoting him to a position  his past mediocrity never allowed him to even dream about. Calling Whitaker a Trump loyalist is like saying Johnny Carson enjoyed a day off. There is no mystery where this is going. The only two words Whitaker has for our POTUS are “how high.”

More than 40 years ago Attorney General Elliot Richardson told Richard Nixon to shove it rather than  fire Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox. His deputy,  William Ruckelshaus, followed suit, leaving the task to a then unknown Solicitor General and Nixon lackey Robert Bork, which clarified corruption, sparking a leadership crisis that led to the first resignation by an American President. At the time, next to the likes of Richardson and Ruckelshaus, Bork rightly appeared a featherweight yes man, eager to perform dirty work in the service of ambition. But here’s the thing, next to Matthew Whitaker, Bork is a titan of government, a rock of achievement and service. In Whitaker, Trump has exactly the expendable patsy he needs to carry out monumental obstruction of justice capable of providing the harshest stress test yet of this ugly Administration.

When Bork did carry out Nixon’s wishes, the bipartisan response on Capital Hill was swift and decisive. For months now, GOP leaders have been all but declaring their willingness to get past any repeat massacre at the Department of Justice. Expect muted GOP voices when Whitaker does his worst.

We’re  left to hope that Mueller is indeed the savvy insider our imaginations have created and bobs and weaves effectively enough to get the job done and serve justice. Democratic control of Congress assures Mueller a platform, and he has been hard at work.

Yet and still, it is certain the breadth of Trumpian malfeasance is wide and evolving; he and his remain in it up to their eyeballs. Crippling Mueller’s team can’t hurt in his eyes, and we know he couldn’t care less about blowing out envelopes concerning presidential propriety. The damage being permitted to do that free from swift and enduring consequences is just one more chapter of our ruinous civic failure. It’s all uncharted now, and regardless the caliber of public servant, from the pinnacle embodied by Mueller’s steadfast group, to the dregs reflected by the man now aiming to shut them down, where it leads may soon be out of anybody’s control.  When dominoes begin to fall, they often don’t stop…. and they crush things. BC