H.R. McMaster briefing the press on Tuesday. AP "It is wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary," national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Tuesday, not denying that President Donald Trump shared classified information from an allied intelligence service with Russian diplomats last week.

This is the sad, laughable defense the White House is left with: When the president does it, that means it is not inappropriate.

When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

The president indeed has the legal authority to share classified information if he wants. Contrary to what McMaster claimed, this doesn't make his choice to do so automatically appropriate.

If you're claiming that Trump is a man of such good judgment that he would never share information inappropriately — that his own involvement in this disclosure is evidence of its appropriateness — you should remember that this is a man who leaked his own sexual infidelities to People magazine and who bragged about the size of his penis in a presidential debate.

If the president does it, it is very likely to be inappropriate. But unlike when he was bragging to People about sleeping around on his ex-wife, Marla Maples, the stakes of Trump's latest round of inappropriate behavior are deadly serious.