The Great Unforced Error

Baseball has concept of an unforced error, a mistake that a player makes, not when they are faced with a challenging or unexpected situation, but in the normal course of the game when they are executing a play that they should be able to complete successfully with relative ease. The player can’t blame this mistake on anyone else. Whether it was due to physical strain, bad judgment, or a lapse in concentration, the responsibility for committing the error is theirs and theirs alone.

As I watch reports from the tax evasion trial of President Trump’s one-time campaign manager Paul Manafort, I wonder whether we are witnessing one of the great unforced errors in modern political history.

If Mr. Trump had not fired FBI Director James Comey, the Attorney General would not have appointed a special counsel. It was Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that dug up Mr. Manafort’s history of financial dealings with powerful Ukrainian businessmen and led to his indictment on numerous counts of financial crime. If Mr. Trump had not fired Director Comey, Mr. Manafort might be spending the summer at his house in the Hamptons, free to enjoy his $20,000 watches and his $13,000 ostrich jacket.

And in all seriousness, who actually wears an ostrich jacket?

The firing of Director Comey was not the Trump administration’s and/or candidacy’s only unforced error, but it was the one that raised a red flag so glaring, so egregious, that the Department of Justice had no choice but to open an investigation.

Other errors were made. It would have been to the administration’s benefit if they had needed President Obama’s warning about hiring General Flynn, another target of Mr. Mueller’s investigation. And they might have done themselves a big favor by declining the meeting with Russians who claimed to have unflattering information about Mrs. Clinton. But the real step-in-the-dog-dirt moment for this administration was the abrupt and inexplicable firing of Director Comey. That was Humpty Dumpty’s first crack, and it was easily avoidable.

Copyright © 2018 Daniel R. South 

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