Dickerson noted that the nasty guy has been waging a campaign to discredit our national intelligence services. Though when there were attacks on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz (get out your atlas!) the nasty guy says he has info from these same intelligence services that proves the attacks were from Iran.
Dickerson wrote:
So when an administration preparing the nation for possible war tells us we should trust the expertise and authority of institutions it has systematically devalued and disparaged, what are we to make of it? Was the White House lying then, or is it lying now?
Are we to be skeptical of those who work for the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security when the president's reputation is at stake, but surrender that skepticism when our children's lives are in play?
Or, to frame it a little differently: Would it be worse if the public were stampeded into war by a president willing to exaggerate Iran's threat merely to rally his base and distract attention from his political liabilities at home? Or would it be worse if a steady diet of disinformation and paranoia prompted a majority of Americans to disregard legitimate threats that demand a robust military response?
It is impossible to predict which scenario would be more fraught with danger. What's obvious is Trump's relentless campaign to discredit the institutions that Americans of disparate cultures and political creeds historically have coalesced around has left the president at a serious disadvantage in the face of any real emergency.
Like him or despise him, the American public can't afford to fall into the trap the president has set for himself. It's time for voters and elected leaders outside the White House to start having serious conversations about what's at stake in far-away places like the Strait of Hormuz, and how much blood and treasure a divided country should or can spend to maintain order there.
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