Why would Donald Trump, who ran his presidential campaign based at least in part upon suspicion of "the other", play nice with our nation's greatest global adversary, Russia? And why is he seeming to work so hard at getting himself and the intelligence community get off to a really bad start?
For one thing, Donald Trump knows everything, apparently intuitively. His narcissistic personality cannot accept anything being known by anyone else that he himself does not already know for himself. "Intelligence briefings?" Who needs them when you already know what is going to be said? It serves Trump's interests and personality well to call into question the only folks whom many believe could know things he doesn't know.
Trump knows Russia is filled with really good guys, from the very top of the Kremlin down to her richest oil barons. Maybe Russian spy agencies have briefed him on their character. They are so good that the best qualified person for Secretary of State is someone who knows how to "make deals" with the honorable and trustworthy Russians. Could anything go wrong?
Well, there's Syria. Working in concert with Russia, the Syrian army is rounding up and apparently executing thousands of civilian men, women, and children. We can and many have blamed the Obama administration for not stopping the Syrian civil war, but few options have seemed real-world viable. We tried to do deals with Russia in the name of fighting terrorism, and Aleppo's horror is the result. We should accept blame where blame is due, but we must not reward Russia.
If Russia and/or Russia's agents hacked into our election system in order to influence the outcome of November's presidential vote, we need to know it and we need to know it now. It would be regrettable if President Obama were aware of that possibility before the election and held off on making it public for fear of seeming to favor the Clinton campaign. His penchant for extreme caution has been one of his flaws. You can think a problem too much.
But now we know at least something, and a number of electors are asking for intelligence briefings before they vote. They need to know if the man they are supposed to elect as our president has honestly earned their votes. More power to them.
And why is this so difficult for the President-elect and his minions? Becaue there is money involved. Real money to be made by real corporations and by a real tycoon who sort-of claims to be willing to sever his ties to his many business interests in order to serve the all people of the United States of America. Desperate Mexicans and scary Moslems and fleeing refugees and the like have little to offer a man already made of billions who stands poised to make billions more as President of the richest nation on earth and Commander-in-Chief of the planet's most powerful military. He can't afford–literally, cannot afford–to think too much about anything else.
I am not an uncritical fan of the CIA and other such agencies, but I believe they play important roles in protecting our country and its interests. Government leaders and the intelligence community should respect and trust each other, and even allow some room for the benefits of doubt. Carefully listening to each other is a must. At the same time, the men and women we elect must not abdicate their responsibility to question closely and persistently the findings of intelligence experts, always considering those findings in the broadest possible context of everything known about a situation. It's complicated, this job of being the most powerful person on earth. Trump seems intent on not accepting that truth.
One thing for sure: Hillary Clinton's carelessness in using her own email server while Secretary of State is mere child's play compared to what the Trump folks seem to have been up to. Can anyone (except Trump and company) doubt that we need to know the full story? And to know it as quickly as possible?
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