About Carter Page
Since the Nunes memo puts him back in the foreground of public discourse, here is an NYT profile of Carter Page from this week: Carter Page, Ex-Trump Aide Once Shunned by Right, Is Back at the Center of the Russia Case.
Two things about this piece that are worth noting.
First, Page had been of interest to federal law enforcement before he worked for Trump (so, again, the Steel Dossier alone does not explain everything.
Second, part of the reason the Trump administration has the mess on its hands that it has is because the Trump campaign sought out a panoply of marginal, self-serving amateurs/self-proclaimed experts who had questionable backgrounds.
In other words: when you don’t know what you are doing, you often surround yourself with others who don’t know what they are doing, and that just leads to a potential world of trouble.
It’s true there are only a few people associated with Trump that rise to even second rate. (ex. Kelly) Page shouldn’t even be on the rating scale, if the consideration was someone with foreign policy experience. His experience was literally with Russian money launderers and a Russian spy ring. This isn’t a case of simply picking someone unqualified for the job, it’s a case of picking someone so far out of the running that there must be another reason for choosing him.
No one but a spineless fool, or corrupt looter would work for Trump. And that’s what he’s got.
And I do not exempt Kelly, @MarkedMan, he’s only marginally better, still a narrow-minded prick with more ego than ability. The only one anywhere near Trump in possession of both a brain and a spine is Mattis. The rest of Trump’s crew would embarrass a banana republic Caudillo.