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Brennan loses by trying to play Trump’s game
The New York Post ^ | August 20, 2018 | Rich Lowry

Posted on 08/21/2018 6:14:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

John Brennan may not know it, but he’s acting in a drama scripted and produced by Donald J. Trump.

As Eli Lake perceptively observed, President Trump isn’t trying to silence Brennan by revoking his security clearance, as the former CIA director’s defenders insist, but elevate him as a foil.

Trump couldn’t hope for a better poster boy for the so-called “deep state” than a former CIA chief who immediately began to sound like a commentator for MSNBC upon leaving government — and, indeed, signed up as a commentator for MSNBC.

It has been the usual practice of former top intelligence professionals to keep their political opinions, and especially their wild-eyed rants, to themselves. They understand that, having been entrusted with some of the most sensitive powers of the US government, they should show forbearance and restraint lest they undermine the reputations of their institutions.

Brennan has had no such compunction. Granted, he’s acted under provocation. Trump has goaded him on Twitter and launched extraordinary broadsides against the work of US intelligence agencies.

Trump often sounds like the guy popping off down at the end of the bar; he’s transformed Brennan, who is supposed to be the consummate career intelligence official, into the guy down at the other end of the bar.

Advantage: Trump. The president always benefits from the fact that his brand depends on violating norms, whereas if his opponents are baited into violating norms in return, they diminish themselves and their cause.

So it is that a former CIA director is combating a president who maintains the top echelons of the intelligence establishment hated him by demonstrating his hatred for him. Once Brennan made the decision to begin letting loose, he inevitably got sucked into the vortex of the #Resistance....

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Conspiracy; Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: brennan; clearance; intelligence; trump
What say you?
1 posted on 08/21/2018 6:14:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Trump Curse.

Difficult for the spawn of Satan to beat.


2 posted on 08/21/2018 6:16:10 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“baited into violating norms” = baited into revealing their motives and beliefs, against their better judgment. Trump’s take on “violating norms” always seems to take the side of the American people. Anti-Trumpers’: not so much.


3 posted on 08/21/2018 6:19:49 PM PDT by rightwingcrazy
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Money Quote:

"Brennan’s conceit is that there aren’t enough people already saying stupid and inflammatory things on Twitter and TV — the nation needs his voice, too."

4 posted on 08/21/2018 6:30:11 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The comparison to Trump being “some guy popping off at a bar” is not exactly correct.

Trump does NOT run his mouth. He simply ignores many bizarre, strange, and unjust things in USA and in government and says nothing, or nothing extraordinary. Trump’s trolling and twitter-baiting all have a very specific, strategic purpose.


5 posted on 08/21/2018 6:51:24 PM PDT by PGR88
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

By saying that Trump baited Brennan the author implies that Trump started it when it was Brennan who began breaking precedent with his attacks on Trump after the Putin meeting. Trump was merely fighting back as usual. Just like with
Lemon and LeBron etc. Thank God he’s not another milktoast like Bush. By the time he left office the Left had made him into a dunce.


6 posted on 08/21/2018 7:07:47 PM PDT by vigilence (Vigilence)
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To: vigilence

So...is Trump just an idiot billionaire who got lucky and became president by fluke, or is he a scheming genius, playing the opposition like a stradivarius?

Seems like the opposition claims both...

DK


7 posted on 08/21/2018 7:58:45 PM PDT by Dark Knight
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To: Dark Knight

Yup. Just as the left did with Reagan, portraying him as an “amiable dunce” or an evil strategist, whichever suited their purposes that day.


8 posted on 08/21/2018 8:09:24 PM PDT by JennysCool
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I just think John Brennan’s IQ lays a sliver left of middle on the bell curve. He’s been given way too much credit in his lifetime.


9 posted on 08/21/2018 8:24:56 PM PDT by GreatRoad
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

President Trump has an incredible talent for getting people to show who they really are, whatever jersey they are wearing.


10 posted on 08/21/2018 8:45:07 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here of Citizen Parents__Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

If Brennan cannot restrain himself after having his chain yanked by President Trump (whom the MSM & Liberal ‘pundits’ consider an ignorant buffoon) imagine what foreign intelligence agencies managed to do to him?

Or did that great Capitalist principle of “Willing Buyer, Willing Seller” prevail?


11 posted on 08/21/2018 9:29:50 PM PDT by BwanaNdege
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To: rightwingcrazy

More like ‘baited him into revealing his true, unstable self”.


12 posted on 08/21/2018 11:53:27 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I say Rich Lowery is a pc poster bitch

He means nothing

And when the shooting starts all these talking heads will mean a lot less except ....well....I can’t say that here can I 2DV ?

Rich can rot in nevertrump hell


13 posted on 08/21/2018 11:58:57 PM PDT by wardaddy (Wake up and quit aping opinions you think will make you popular here)
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