t is axiomatic that everyone looks good when things are going well. Dealing with high times isn’t a traumatic test of character, and therefore doesn’t reveal true character. It’s when things get tough that authentic personalities are exposed – and there can be no better example of this psychobabbling truism than today’s Republican Party in action.

With the White House’s upper echelon now in criminal jeopardy, we pause with wonder at how leading GOPers have scrambled, dissembled, backpedaled and raised hypocrisy to new and breathtaking heights. Perjury? Obstruction of justice? Pshaw. Mere misdemeanors, they say, little bumps in the political road that only hypercritical naysayers would condemn as serious.

Remember how, according to Republicans, the national sky was falling when Bill Clinton hit these same bumps? His perjurious ways – and over sex, mind you, not national security – were a bane on our national reputation, an intolerable blight on the presidency and demanding of the harshest punishment: impeachment.

But so much for that. It’s a new age.

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