Paul Waldman writes: The Trump White House is facing its greatest test yet, as the Russia scandal deepens and the president’s own son has provided direct and incontrovertible evidence that at the very least the Trump campaign attempted to collude with the Russian government in order to destroy Hillary Clinton. Handling this scandal would be an extraordinary challenge for even the smartest and most competent collection of government professionals and political operatives.

But this White House is a confederacy of dingbats. That’s what got them into this pickle in the first place and that’s what will keep them from getting out of it. [Continue reading…]

Hardened skeptics on the issue of Russian interference might argue that no foreign government could hope to see its interests served by installing the Trump family in power and yet six months in office has surely provided the Russians with as much and plenty more of exactly what they hoped for: chaos in Washington.

It’s hard enough for Republicans or Democrats to successfully push a legislative agenda, so the Russians surely understand American politics well enough that they couldn’t pin their hopes on any carefully defined outcome.

Washington never operates like a well-oiled machine; the predictable value of having the Trumps in power is that this would be like pouring water in the gas tank.

If the plan was to cripple the U.S. government, then everything seems to be proceeding according to plan.