It’s not fair, but people who try to fight Trump with Trumpian methods usually lose. I wrote today how John Brennan is the latest example:

John Brennan may not know it, but he is acting in a drama scripted and produced by Donald J. Trump.

As Eli Lake of Bloomberg perceptively observed, President Trump isn’t trying to silence Brennan by revoking his security clearance, as the former CIA director’s defenders insist, but to elevate him as a foil.

Trump couldn’t hope for a better poster boy for the so-called deep state than a former CIA director who immediately began to sound like a commentator for MSNBC upon leaving government — and, indeed, signed up as a commentator for MSNBC.