Oh, great. We're going to war with Great Britain again. Lexington has been a little dull lately. Now, where did I leave that flintlock? From The New York Times:



“Since the leak of official documents from this embassy there has been a great deal of speculation surrounding my position and the duration of my remaining term as ambassador,” Mr. Darroch said in his resignation letter. “I want to put an end to that speculation. The current situation is making it impossible for me to carry out my role as I would like.” “Although my posting is not due to end until the end of this year, I believe in the current circumstances the responsible course is to allow the appointment of a new ambassador,” Mr. Darroch wrote. On Monday, Mr. Trump said the White House would no longer deal with Mr. Darroch after the leak of confidential emails written by the ambassador that had described the Trump administration as “clumsy and inept.”

Mr. Trump also accused Prime Minister Theresa May of ignoring his advice and mismanaging Britain’s tortured efforts to leave the European Union, a departure now delayed at least until the end of October. As for Mr. Darroch, the president described him as “wacky,” a “very stupid guy,” and a “pompous fool.”

Secreted away deep in the NYT piece is this little slice of heaven.

The controversy surrounding Mr. Darroch’s assessments has struck some members of the diplomatic corps in Washington as a broader peril: As one of his fellow European ambassadors put it, there was little in his cables that could not be found in their own.

That the United States is ruled by Mickey The Dunce, and that Camp Runamuck should not be trusted with anything more complicated than its breakfast order, ought to be no surprise to anyone. Neither should the fact that diplomats of many lands are concerned about the situation. But this well-timed leak, to the Daily Mail, one of Great Britain's more hysterical outlets, coming as it does while British politics themselves are a complete mess, shows all the signs of someone creating chaos for its own sake. It may also come from someone who would like to see the alliances between the United States and Europe placed under even more stress.

Darroch is pictured with his wife, Vanessa, in happier times. The Washington Post Getty Images

For example, it's possible that Darroch would have kept his job had the president* not leapt to the electric Twitter machine to chuck the usual middle-school invective at him. As Senator Chris Coons told CNN:

"The leak of this confidential cable has produced an unfortunate flap that has now led to the resignation of a very skilled career foreign servant. I will point out part of what drove this is President Trump taking to Twitter to insult the ambassador, to insult Theresa May, the outgoing prime minister of the United Kingdom."

Saying that we can expect to see more of this seems laughably redundant at this point.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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