Media analysis of the recent testimony by FBI director James Comey  before Congress  misses the forest for the trees.

Was Trump Tower wiretapped?

Well, who isn't?

That was the revelation of Ed Snowden in 2013, something NSA director James Clapper perjured himself to cover up.

Had Clapper simply refused to answer the question as to the existence of such a pervasive, intrusive, and probably unconstitutional covert surveillance apparatus, he would have given it away.

Covert is, well, "covert" if it's to be of any use at all.

But that brought up the nature of the surveillance, itself.  How can anything of that nature be subjected to public oversight?  Concerns of this nature were swept away in the bipartisan interest of national security.

But now, the chickens have come to roost.

When every American is under perpetual surveillance and classified information  of an obviously very partisan political nature routinely leaks, we have to ask: is there any reason to trust anyone?

The legacy of Obama is "all politics, all the time," with no law at all.  It doesn't matter anymore who is right or wrong.  When our major institutions have compromised themselves, the only thing that matters is winning.

That's a dangerous situation for any government.

Did Fox News really discontinue Judge Napolitano for making unsubstantiated claims?  Or did the Judge actually dig a little too deep into the swamp?  If he turns up at the Ecuadorian embassy seeking asylum along with Julian Assange, that will say a lot.  In lieu of that, we just won't know.

Is it a coincidence that the FBI investigation into Trump's campaign associates began about the same time he became the GOP presidential candidate?  We'd like to think so.  That'd be the easy way out.

But no such luck!

Even worse is that this surveillance hasn't accrued the decisive advantage against the jihad that it was supposed to.  Instead, it has worked against public trust in the very regime that assembled it.  Undermining public trust is also the very objective of the jihad, Ed Snowden and Julian Assange aside.  No one wants a head-on conventional war with America.  Since Viet Nam, subversion has proven far more effective, if more time-consuming.  But as Islamists put it, "you have the watches.  We have the time."  That's how Nguyen Giap and "Uncle Ho" won.

All governments dispense the collective power of life and death, but it's only on loan.  Public trust is the collateral.  When legitimate questions sound like conspiracy theories, money isn't the only  thing the government is lacking, although it's actually just more of the same: children in power.  A regime that cannot win wars or live within its means and conducts foreign and domestic policy by bribing "good behavior" is in trouble.  When it can't even keep its innermost secrets, it has to come up with a good story. When it can't even do that, its options become very limited. It's painted itself into a corner.

Republicans have only two years to prove that they can deliver the goods they've promised for decades: the elections of 2018.  They're on thin ice.

It doesn't take a wise man to predict the past, as Reagan's Soviet citizen once said.  One need remember only a few months to spot the hypocrisy in both Democrats and Republicans.  Democrats are even easier.  Just remember thinking like a 12 year old.  Republicans, on the other hand, haven't led for so long they don't even know how to follow anymore.  Pontificating  is a nice pastime, but it doesn't win battles.                  

Somebody needs to get us all on the same bandwagon before the wheels fall off of all them.  No telling when that's going to happen, but that's only because we've been creaking on wobbly wheels for so long that it seems normal.

Maybe that's the real problem in the Swamp, aka Washington, D.C.