Trump is right for once: Resistance needs outing

For once I find myself in agreement with President Trump. The anonymous “senior official” who wrote the New York Times opinion piece depicting a secret resistance within the White House should be hunted down and fired.

It’s common for senior staffers in any administration, including my own as mayor, to try to smooth out some of the boss’ rough edges and counter bad impulses.

I’ll tell you a story. Once, when I was mayor, I was so ticked off at advocates for disabled people who were blocking an intersection in front of City Hall in a protest that I ordered then-police Capt. Greg Suhr to arrest the lot of them.

He ignored me. And thank God he did — having

people in wheelchairs hauled off to jail would have been an outrage. And it would have been a national embarrassment for me and for the city.

My chief of staff, Eleanor Johns, regularly took my more harebrained ideas, turned them into something workable and sent them off to department heads, along with practical orders for getting them done.

My press secretary, P.J. Johnston, was constantly having to turn my word salad into something that sounded smart. “What he really meant to say ...” could have been tattooed on his arm.

But for all my shortcomings, I was never a threat to the city’s wellbeing. It’s different with Trump, “Anonymous” claims in the Times piece — the author asserts that the president is acting “in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.”

If someone has legitimate concerns that the president is going off the rails, that person first needs to confront the president. If the president doesn’t return to the main line, the person needs to go public — with a name attached.

Assertions that there are “unsung heroes” and “adults in the room” don’t cut it. Those people weren’t elected — Trump was. If they think America made a terrible mistake in 2016, they need to convince America to undo it, not secretly enable a president whose root problem is “amorality.”

Anything less is just self-serving, political treachery. And a firing offense.

Round two: California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris both had big roles in the confirmation hearing for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Feinstein was her solid, studious self. Harris scored big on day one, but day two wasn’t so hot.

Rather than pursue the usual inquiry into Kavanaugh’s judicial history, Harris tapped her expertise as a former prosecutor to try to nail him on a potentially deadly subject: whether he had been talking with a President Trumplinked law firm about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Kavanaugh was clearly caught off guard and looked for all the world like anything but an innocent man. It was a loaded question, because as a Supreme Court justice, Kavanaugh may have to rule on a case involving the Mueller probe. Admitting to earlier discussions would probably force him to recuse himself from any such case, at the least.

“I’m asking you a very direct question: Yes or no?” Harris said. Ever seen someone duck, weave and fidget all at once while sitting down? That was Kavanaugh, for the full seven minutes and 56 seconds of the exchange.

The bell rang, and both Harris and Kavanaugh went to their respective corners.

The next day, after a night of coaching by his cornermen, Kavanaugh told Republican senators who gave him the chance to clean up that he hadn’t had any “inappropriate conversations” with lawyers at the Trumplinked firm. Having had her moment, Harris should have moved on and spent her question time on something else.

Instead she went down the same road, lamely told Kavanaugh that she had received “reliable information” that he had talked with someone — she never said who — and got nowhere.

Harris is a good prosecutor, but she forgot that sometimes you ask a question and don’t really want a reply. It can be better to leave the jury with the impression that the witness doesn’t have a good answer.

Blue waves: I happened to be in Washington, D.C., for a board meeting of the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture, so I stopped by to see House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi with a message from Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina.

Clyburn, the thirdranking House Democrat, has said he will run for speaker if the party takes back the House in November and Pelosi appears to lack the support to keep her leadership post. Clyburn wanted me to tell Pelosi that he’s not challenging her. By implication, that means the Congressional Black Caucus will be with her as well. Clyburn used to be caucus chairman and still carries a lot of weight there.

Pelosi took the news with a big smile. She’s not looking ahead to a speakership election, however — she said control of the House could come down to as few as 25,000 votes nationwide.

Not exactly a blue wave.

Nice ride: The taxis in Washington have the best electronics I’ve ever seen in a cab.

You say where you want to go, press a button, and a computer announces what your fare will be. No worries that the driver will take you on a sightseeing tour to jack up the cost of the ride.

All the taxis are red and gray, no other colors, which means visitors from all over the world can easily identify them. There are also taxi stands, so everyone knows where they can hail a cab.

San Francisco should take note.