The focus on personal spending, sex, and pay-offs may be fine with the Trump adminstration

That's a long title for a post here.  The point is that a focus on Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels, Tom Price, the Billy Bush interview, George Papadapolous, Michael Flynn, the firing of Comey, and multiple crude, uninformed, and callous comments by Donald Trump is playing into the hands of the Trump administration agenda.  Robert Mercer could not have written a better script.  The many important and dangerous things going on are in danger of being overshadowed, and a public not accustomed to drinking out of a fire hose to get their news could be fed up with it all.

The more important stories should be about the decimation of talent within various areas of government.  There has been some attention to the empty senior positions in the State Department around the world, and Michael Lewis had done reporting on the Energy Department and the Agriculture Department that is alarming but not unexpected.  Whether multiple positions are empty broadly within the government and inexperienced political hacks with more concern about lunch than policy are now rife is unfortunately likely.

U.S. foreign policy is now chaotic.  Trump apologists suggest that this is intentional, part of Trump's "art of the deal" intuition.  It should go unsaid that too much is at stake for this approach to be defensible.  We wait, watch, and try to focus on what's important.  Being diverted by unpleasant personal trivia may be newsworthy in the sense that it reliably attracts some segments of viewers and readers, but it underestimates the need for intelligent reporting that is required now.  One would like to think it underestimates the American people.

Enough bully pulpit, as if this blog has one.