Kurt Schlichter’s style might be described as writing harshly and humorously what many conservatives are thinking quietly and reasonably. A recent column that begins with a comparison of Trump’s relationship with the news media to the, umm, love dynamic in Fifty Shades of Grey is no exception.  This point merits additional thought:

Then there’s the Russians/Flynn nonsense, a non-story that America non-cares about. Oh, there’s a real story there, but the press isn’t interested in that. Here’s the real story – the intelligence community under the Obama administration was obviously eavesdropping on Trump’s campaign in violation of practically every law ever written. Whether it was direct tapping of phones and emails, or illegally accessing the communications swooped up by the NSA in its nets, it’s clear that Obama’s people were spying on Obama’s political opponents. The transcript excerpts of Flynn’s phone call with the Russian diplomat leaked because it could be played off as targeting the Russian, though this was still an outrageous disclosure of American spying capabilities. What these criminals can’t do is release the communications between Americans that they possess because doing that confirms what we all know – that Obama’s people spied on his political opponents like his IRS persecuted them. The only question really is what did Obama know, and when did he know it – interestingly, on his way out the door, Obama made it easy to hide the source of the leaks by opening up access to the information across a bunch of agencies. There’s your story, a scandal that makes Watergate seem microscopic, and the mainstream media will not touch it because it would destroy the media’s political allies.

Conservatives suspect that the reason progressives become so irate when we win offices is that they believe we’ll do what they do.  We won’t, but more importantly (in a practical sense), we can’t.  As Glenn Reynolds periodically writes, if you want accountable, heavily scrutinized government, you have to elect “straight, white, male Republicans,” because the institutions tasked with the scrutiny have been overtaken by progressives and only really scrutinize politicians who fit that profile.

[9:42 a.m., 2/25/17. A quick postscript, in case it’s needed:  I’m suggesting that it’s a bad thing that politicians’ demographic profiles affect how thoroughly they’re scrutinized and what they get away with.  To wit, note how the news media is freshly invigorated to hold President Trump accountable and progressives across the nation are extolling the virtues of Constitutional separations of power and the federalist empowerment of states.  Such sentiments seemed to be anathema to them during the Obama presidency, so if one values the Constitution and federalism, then having a president like Trump is more likely to advance your principles.]