TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “It’s impossible to know in the moment when a presidency begins to dissolve. But after a devastating 48 hours, it’s already clear that Donald Trump’s will never be the same. Whatever your view of Trump, his behavior and his presidency, Washington is watching the opening act of a stunning attempt to topple the elected leader of the nation. Damaging twin portraits of the President in a New York Times op-ed and Bob Woodward’s new book are using the words of current top officials to fracture the mythology of vanity and bombast, conmanship and intimidation of Trump’s personality cult. In an attack from an enemy within, top officials who see Trump up close, including one calling the band of renegades the ‘resistance,’ are finally daring to say — albeit under Washington’s invisibility cloak of anonymity — what outside critics have long believed. They warn the President of the United States is not only unfit to be the most powerful man in the world, but is a venal mix of ignorance and ego, pettiness, malignancy and recklessness that is putting the republic and the world itself at risk.”
–Stephen Collinson, “Trump sees treason from within,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, September 5, 2018 1:55 am