It’s often the bit players who do you in, not the main actors who get all the limelight.

Back in 1973, a Deputy Assistant to the President named Alexander P. Butterfield disclosed, in a closed congressional committee hearing, that both the Oval Office and the president’s office in the Executive Office Building were wired for sound, and had been since 1970.

“Deputy Assistant to the President,” impressive as it sounds, is not too far up the White House chain of command. But Mr. Butterfield’s little footnote in history provided the critical bit of evidence that eventually answered the questions that lay at the heart of the Watergate Hearings: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”

The existence of the audiotapes, and the content therein, led directly to the resignation of the 37^th President of these United States, Richard Milhous Nixon, the following year.

That resignation ended one of the gravest constitutional crises in the history of the republic. The institutions built into our system of government by the founders to protect the integrity of the republic held, and the nation, despite major divisions, survived.

Recently, the first two criminal indictments were handed down in our current constitutional crisis – whether a foreign government attempted, or perhaps succeeded in, affecting the course of the 2016 presidential election.

A couple of things off the bat. An indictment is not a finding of guilt. Even if guilt is ultimately found to exist, the current charges revolve around old-fashioned greed, money laundering, false statements, and financial chicanery. As the current administration is quick to point out, the potential criminal conduct does not involve the president, his campaign, or his tenure as president.

Under the law, there is a presumption of innocence, and the main actors, Paul Manafort, former chairman of the Trump campaign, and Rick Gates, Manafort’s right-hand man, are entitled to that presumption until guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt.

However, there is a latter-day Alexander Butterfield. His name is George Papadopoulos, He is described as having been a “volunteer” working on the Trump campaign. Not unlike Butterfield, he appears to be a bit player, but for two salient points: He has already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI … and he is now a cooperating witness through that plea agreement with the Feds.

From his guilty plea, it appears Papadopoulos actively sought to contact Russian interests, communicated that fact to Trump campaign officials not yet officially identified, and was encouraged by campaign officials to continue his efforts to find “dirt” on Hillary Clinton from Russian sources who claimed to be in possession of information previously hacked from Clinton’s emails, and those of the Democrat National Committee.

On the surface, this would be nothing more than a case of “opposition research,” a common practice in all campaigns, except for one thing – to pursue and accept such information from a foreign government, or that government’s operatives, is illegal.

If true, Mr. Papadopoulos’ contribution to history is to provide the first provable connection between the Trump campaign and a foreign power.

It moves alleged illegal conduct from the realm of conjecture into questions of fact, and moves the whole sorry mess closer to1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Let’s stop right there. The point is not to prejudge the outcome; the point is to allow our democratic institutions to come to an outcome one way or the other.

This will not be as simple as it sounds. Things are going to get rough. Partisans on both sides will be whipped into a fever pitch by their respective talking heads and loyalists.

There is little an ordinary citizen can do to affect the eventual outcome. However, how we treat each other during this time of national angst is within our control. We can disagree without being disagreeable. We can respect competing views if they are grounded in fact and not in some alternate reality.

We can allow our institutions to work.

The country survived Watergate. The country can survive this current test as well – if we can agree to do that.

A wise man is reputed to have observed: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Well, few have ever asserted that I am a wise man. A wiseacre, perhaps, but that’s something different. I am the first to admit that I am no angel.

Consequently, I am probably a fool – because here I tread.

I refer, of course, to our vice president’s grandstand play before the kickoff of the recent Colts-49ers NFL game.

I’m not going to get into a retelling of the entire chain of events that led to Mr. Pence’s early exit. Barrels of ink have already been wasted parsing the finer, or even the more obvious, points of free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

For those who may have forgotten, or perhaps never knew, the applicable language from that cornerstone of our republic reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law…abridging…the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Under our laws and traditions, the protections extend beyond spoken or written speech, and include symbolic speech or expressive content. Taking a knee to protest perceived unequal treatment at the hands of law enforcement and beyond is “protected speech.” Period.

As much as we honor or respect the flag no matter how offended we may be by the lawful means by which the protest is expressed … those considerations cannot be allowed to outweigh the First Amendment.

As the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University writes in its web page, “Freedom of speech forms the lifeblood of our constitutional democracy. It separates us from totalitarian governments and other places where individual freedoms are not respected.”

NFL players have a constitutional right to take a knee as a sign of protest.

Mr. Pence has the constitutional right to leave the game before kickoff to protest what he (or his boss) perceive to be disrespectful of the flag.

Having come to this conclusion, I am still bothered by an asterisk that some appear to wish appended to the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances,” that being “Players have a right to protest, but they should do it on their own time.”

There is nothing in the Constitution that ordains the status of being an employee as somehow limiting the protections afforded by the First Amendment.

Which is not to say exercise of the right might not have adverse consequences.

For instance, Colin Kaepernick, the 49er quarterback who was the first to bend the knee, apparently has lost his career. Each of those who have taken part in subsequent demonstrations have done so realizing that their jobs could be on the line, especially if club ownership follows the advice of a president who took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

That advice? “Get that son of a b—h off the field!”

Come to think of it, what if that “do it on their own time” test was applied to the antics of Mr. Pence?

As vice president of the United States, is he not an employee of – us? That being the case, does it not logically follow that he should refrain from acts of protest while on the job? Just saying.

Mr. Pence has suffered no ill effects from his act of free expression. To the contrary, he has received accolades from his president and the president’s base.

The only folks on the hook for his actions are we the people, who have to pony up almost a quarter of a million tax dollars to pay for freighting him around the country so he could take part in a poorly conceived and poorly executed political stunt – and get back to California in time for a political fund raiser.

If Pence wants to protest disrespect for the flag, he might consider doing so the next time Old Glory is spread across the playing field during pre-game ceremonies.

According to the American Legion internet site, quoting Title 4 of the United States Code, Section 8, Subparagraph (c), “The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.”

I won’t be holding my breath, or taking a knee, in anticipation of his righteous wrath.

“Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.”

For those non-Romans among us, this is the opening line in Caesar’s Commentaries, which was primarily a work of self-promotion and political propaganda intended to buck up the poll numbers (if they had had them) of one Gaius Julius Caesar, described in Wikipedia as a “Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman republic and the rise of the Roman empire.”

In English, the words translate as “Gaul is divided in three parts.” They precede a description of Caesar’s conquest of much of modern-day France. They also provide a tip-off to how he intended to get the job done: Divide and Conquer.

No one is comparing the present tenant in the White House to Caesar. However, the strategy favored by the 2,117-year-old Roman would-be dictator seems strikingly similar to that apparently favored by our own latter-day-First Citizen: Divide and Conquer.

In a nation as diverse as our own, it is unlikely there is universal agreement on anything, even something as self-evident as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Someone always has another interpretation of the facts as they perceive them to be.

We are a nation of factions adrift on a sea of differences.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this. It was recognized by the founders of the American republic as being as being natural in the human condition. Much of their effort in drafting a workable constitution went into how to take factions into account, and yet find a means to bridge seemingly irreconcilable differences without wrecking the finely balanced constitutional protections provided to guarantee the right to hold often radically divergent views within a, nevertheless, united republic.

The office of president was designed, in large part, to play a major role in protecting the republic from the divisive human tendencies of its own citizens.

The presidency was conceived as being a unifying force – an entity that all factions could respect and, because of that respect, find common ground despite profound differences on individual issues.

When a president chooses to be other than a force for unity, the entire constitutional construct wobbles on its axis, and threatens to spin out of control.

Nine months into his term, we appear to have a president whose default is to divide, rather than to unify.

Be it pitting his supporters against his non-supporters, straights against gays, citizens against non-citizens, racial groups against other racial groups, countries against other countries, or even National Football League fans against NFL players, the president seems most adept at creating chaos.

More disturbing is the fact he appears to be most comfortable operating within the chaos he himself has instigated. Suggesting solutions do not appear to be his preference.

This is not to say he doesn’t make legitimate points. Sometimes he does.

For example, people of all ideological hues are understandably upset with a political establishment that seems most interested in perpetuating itself. It appears to be a political process hijacked by career politicians for their own personal benefit.

But beyond using the problem to whip up public fervor, has he offered any alternative beyond incendiary rhetoric and schoolyard bombast calculated to increase the frenzy to an even higher white-hot heat?

Is his tough talk only a ruse to divert and divide the public’s attention from something else?

I realize Howard County voted for this president by a wide margin, so mine is a minority opinion. I understand many would argue that the man should be given a chance. But with nine months to gestate this presidency, is there any indication that what we get in the future will be any better than that which we have seen every day so far?

With respect to those voters, I pose some questions:

While Caesar divided Gaul into pieces and, thereby, destroyed it piecemeal, is death by division going to be the fate of our present republic?

If this president’s tenure in office should fundamentally change the nature of our republic, what comes after?

For Caesar, “Divide and Conquer” meant taking advantage of divisions within the enemy. What does “Divide and Conquer” mean if it is the leader stoking divisions within our own country?

Who does this “Divide and Conquer” strategy benefit? Republicans? No, not in the long run. White Americans? No, not in the long run. The man himself? For a while. Then who? Are we, the American people, serving as Caesar’s Gaul, a momentary triumph that dooms our great American republic to the ambitions of our adversaries, not the least of which is a resurgent Russian bear?

I have no answer, but then again, I never expected to have reason to raise the question.

It’s more than a little reminiscent of one of the final climactic scenes in 1996’s “Independence Day” as Randy Quaid’s more-than-a-little-demented character, Russell Casse, prepares to save the world by inserting himself and his fighter jet up the, um, “tail” of the alien space craft where it is going to hurt the most.

With a manic look on his face, he intones his final words on the way to heroic self-immolation: “Hello boys, I’m ba-ack!”

I speak, of course, of the latest last-ditch effort to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Cassidy-Graham Bill.

What is it with Republican lawmakers and health care? Do they all have investments in funeral home chains?

After multiple attempts to overturn the ACA since January 20, 2017, it was just beginning to look like cooler heads would prevail. Perhaps the issue of the ACA’s future would be debated in regular order with all its trimmings just like our nation’s founders intended – with forgotten niceties such as bipartisan debate and open committee hearings working towards a repair bill that could attract a little bipartisan support.

And then, out of right field, comes this kamikaze attempt to achieve by September 30 that which could not be achieved over the last seven years. The date is important, because after September 30 it will take 60 votes in the Senate rather than 51 to pass this bill during this session, and even the Republicans know 60 votes isn’t about to happen.

Given the timeline, the Congressional Budget Office says it won’t be able to “score” the bill (and project its cost and impact) before the deadline, which, as this is written, is just over a week down the road.

How convenient.

We are left with little more than speculation as to how this would all turn out, which is a lousy way to make an intelligent evaluation of the legislation.

The gimmick in this bill, and it is a gimmick, is that rather than administering health care on a national level, block grant funds will be made available to the states to “tailor” health care to the druthers of each of the 50 states.

Such a plan is very much in line with Republican cant to devolve more power to the individual states, with the unspoken goal of minimizing Congress’ responsibility for resolving problems of national scope.

There is, of course, a little detail built into the bill that has serious consequences.

The federal largess terminates in 2026.

For politicians interested in reelection, 2026 is as far away as the Rings of Saturn. For the rest of us mortals, it is no further away in the windshield than 2008 is in the rear-view mirror.

Under this bill, by 2026, health care will be enshrined as strictly a state responsibility. Only a fool could expect Congress to voluntarily reauthorize block grant funds to subsidize state health care costs for another extended term.

But as the federal money dries up, not to worry. As they scramble to find ways to fund state healthcare costs, states can take advantage of other provisions in the bill – provisions that would save them a lot of money.

The only feature of the ACA that is protected under Cassidy-Graham is the ability to keep a child on his or her parent’s insurance until age 26. Every other major provision of the ACA is either repealed outright, or heavily amended.

In practical terms, under Cassidy-Graham, states could get waivers from the feds, which is not unlikely, that could put in jeopardy the ban on refusing insurance based on pre-existing conditions. At a minimum, higher premiums for folks with pre-existing conditions would be a distinct possibility. The removal of lifetime caps on how much insurance companies will pay for any single individual is not only possible, but likely. What constitutes an “essential health benefit” could vary from state to state. Insurance companies would have the ability to charge different rates based on age alone.

And while it is only speculation, it is anticipated that more Americans would lose insurance coverage over the next few years under this plan than in any of the previous attempts of Republican lawmakers to “honor” a campaign promise they never seriously considered they would have to keep.

It is at this point I am supposed to encourage readers to contact their congressional delegation to urge defeat of this bit of chicanery, but let’s face reality.

One of our senators is newly elected. He doesn’t have to worry about his constituents for years. The other Senate seat is up for grabs, and our own U.S. Representative Todd Rokita is in a mud-slinging contest with another Republican member of Congress for his party’s nomination. The remainder of our House delegation are safely gerrymandered, and fear being primaried more than losing in a general election.

None of our folks are likely to oppose their party’s leadership on this issue

While passage of Cassidy-Graham is not a certainty, remember that the last stab at a repeal and replace was defeated by one vote only because of two persistent lady senators from Alaska and Maine, one extreme right wingnut from Kentucky, and that old maverick, John McCain.

This time around, one of the bill sponsors, Lindsey Graham, is Senator McCain’s best friend in the Senate. Moreover, McCain has said he would be guided by the position taken by the governor of his own state. The governor has come out in favor of passage.

Should the bill become law, the only realistic option available to citizens who wish the retain viable health care is to remember that whatever is done can be undone. Perhaps they should bide their time until 2018, and then issue their own life-saving Declaration of Independence: “Hello boys, we’re ba-ack!”

In the wake of the president’s recent fling at consorting with the “enemy,” a/k/a Democrats, there has been an upsurge of incidents of arson as disillusioned members of the current tenant in the White House’s base burn their precious and overpriced campaign paraphernalia in protest.

Burning things to make a point has an impeccable pedigree. During the Spanish Inquisition, they burned people. In my day, there were those who burned draft cards. About the same time, according to long-debunked but persistent legend, women were burning certain items of their undergarments to draw attention to their fight for equal rights.

Suffice it to say, burning things is a time-honored method of registering discontent.

Among all the scenes of fiery destruction currently available on the internet machine, one caught my attention – primarily because on the wall in the background hung an Indiana state flag. In other words, the protagonist in this mini drama is a Hoosier, just like most of my readers.

The main character looks to be a young man, perhaps in his late teens. He has apparently abandoned his parents’ basement long enough to don a quilted jacket and move to what appears to be a screened back porch.

Clutched in his hand is his red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.

He looks petulantly into the camera (or, more likely, a cell phone) and lists his grievances: “Not doing away with DACA, staying in Afghanistan, and violating several campaign promises, leaves me no choice. You have become the swamp. Either drain the swamp or you will never make America great again.”

Whereupon, with a dramatic flourish, he lays the cap on a glass-topped patio table and sets it on fire. (The hat, not the table).

Then the young person looks meaningfully into the camera (or, more likely, a cell phone) and sends the following message to his commander-in-chief: “Your move.”

Well, actually, young man, it’s your move.

In a piece of advice as old as the Bible, we are cautioned, “Put not your faith in princes.” Psalms 146:3-5 (KJV). It is as valid today as it was when written.

There is, it seems to me, a tendency on the part of many in the president’s base to sit back and wait for him to improve their lot without a whole lot of effort on their own part. I am afraid that, for many reasons, this is an unrealistic expectation.

This president’s primary concern, as demonstrated daily since his inauguration, is his own personal record of wins and losses.

He has no ideology or loyalties except to himself. He craves adulation. He is transactional. Whatever option is most favorable to him in the short term is most likely the option to be followed. There is little in the way of consistency.

If there is any benefit to ordinary folks, that benefit is collateral to his primary purpose, which is to burnish his own image by whatever means are at hand.

Young man, you can’t afford to wait around for someone else to make America Great Again for you. You need to do something more constructive than burning a hat. You need to make America Great Again by your own efforts.

Get yourself to the nearest college or community college and work towards a degree or certification that will equip you to be the master of your own destiny.

If “book learning” isn’t your thing, use that community college to achieve skills that cannot be moved off-shore, say, welding, auto and diesel mechanics, plumbing, carpentry … the list goes on.

Put yourself in a position to act, rather than merely being acted upon.

The alternative isn’t very pretty.

Odds are, as changeable as this president is, he will do something in the future with which you will totally agree. As you rush to get back on board the train, as one wit noted on the net, they will be happy to sell you a new hat that cost five dollars to make in China, but sells for forty-five dollars or so over here.

Or worse, if this president doesn’t work out, you can sit around and wait for the next messiah to come along – or not.

And in the end, you will probably be where you are today, burning hats on the back porch.

Those readers who have followed my meanderings in these columns over the last couple of years might have noticed that I have been less than kind to the current tenant in the White House. But, to be fair, you also must give the devil his due when he consciously, or unconsciously, does something constructive for the commonweal.

I refer, of course, to his recent flirtation with a bipartisan approach to resolving issues that have caused congressional gridlock over the last several years.

The fact he has, for now anyway, found it necessary to enlist Democrat support to move an agenda forward also lays bare a current shortcoming within his own Republican Party. (And please don’t whine that he isn’t really a Republican. When the GOP embraced him, however reluctantly, as the best option to gain political power, it claimed him as one of their own, and it’s a bit late to argue otherwise.)

The national Republican establishment has been adept at achieving electoral success. Enabled by Republican-dominated state legislatures who have taken the art of gerrymandering to new heights, or depths, depending on your point of view, the GOP has pretty much sewn up domination of the House of Representatives for the foreseeable future, absent a voters’ revolt of gargantuan proportions.

And, hey, it’s just not a numbers game in which the deck is stacked against the Democrats. Gerrymandering is not an issue in Senate races, and the rampaging elephants are holding their own there as well. With only eight seats at risk in the 2018 mid-terms, versus 23 Democrat officeholders and two Independents who caucus with the Democrats, the Republican majority seems relatively secure, again, absent a voters’ revolt of at least significant proportions.

My Democrat friends might have to contemplate the possibility that the GOP “message” (horrors!!) resonates with the American voting public better than does their own, although, much to their irritation, the fact the promises that make up the message seem to be conveniently forgotten and tucked away until the next election cycle seems to have little adverse effect on the voting public.

No, the national Republican establishment has demonstrated that getting elected is not a problem.

The problem is, once elected, the Republican majority has yet to demonstrate that it can govern.

Divisions between Tea Party survivors who came in with the 2010 GOP sweep, the fiscal deadenders in the Freedom Caucus who seem willing to blow everything up if they don’t get their way, and the newly ascendant wing of loyalists devoted to the current president have made it seem almost impossible for the party to speak with one voice, or garner enough votes, to change the current state of gridlock.

Nor does the fixation of House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on getting legislation through with only Republican votes appear to be helpful, not to mention, working.

On a partisan level, it is understandable that a party leadership doesn’t want to allow the opposition a share of the credit for getting things done. But if you can’t get things done on your own, which has been the case to date on major issues, refusal to seek consensus with the other side only sets you up to take the blame for getting nothing done at all.

If you are the current tenant in the White House, a gentleman with no discernable ideological loyalties and even fewer political loyalties, a gentleman who is primarily interested in the “Art of the Deal” and his own personal list of “wins” and if your own political minions can’t deliver, you look across the aisle and ask yourself “why not?”

And then you invite Uncle Chuck (Schumer) and Aunt Nancy (Pelosi) over for dinner.

The desire to score a few points in the polls, or claim some short-term political victory, may not be the noblest of reasons to explore a more bipartisan way of doing business, but, hey, if it breaks the deadlock, on balance it’s a good thing, for which His Twittership should be given due credit.

If I were Uncle Chuck and Aunt Nancy, I would be very cautious. The gentleman in question is the walking definition of “mercurial.” This apparent romance could become a one-night stand without warning.

But until it does, if a little bipartisanship helps move things off dead center for the benefit of the American people, well, as noted by the Grateful Dead, “a friend of the devil is a friend of mine.”

With the recent debate over DACA (Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals), the current tenant in the White House had the chance to exercise leadership.

Once again, he muffed it.

It is bad enough that he caved to the threat of litigation by nine opportunistic state attorney generals threatening to challenge DACA, while ignoring the pleas of twenty other state attorney generals to leave DACA unmolested.

It is bad enough he ignored the advice of other elected officials from both parties, not to mention the overwhelming majority of America’s major business leaders, to leave DACA alone, and instead, catered exclusively to those who represent the basest nativist and prejudiced streak in our national character.

What is truly egregious, however, is that instead of at least having the intestinal fortitude to take ownership of his decision to kill the program, he trotted out Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III to do the dirty work, a job Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III clearly relished, and one entirely in keeping with his past record on immigration and race relations throughout his checkered career.

Let’s be clear about one thing, the concept of executive grants of Temporary Immigration Relief did not originate with the president’s predecessor.

In 1956, 923 orphans were “paroled” by President Eisenhower under his executive authority, which made them eligible for adoption. Likewise, President Eisenhower, during the years 1956-58, “paroled” 31,915 Hungarians who escaped their birth country after an unsuccessful revolt against the Soviet Union.

From 1959-72, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon “paroled” 621,403 Cuban asylum seekers fleeing the Cuban revolution.

“Paroled” means a temporary grant of legal status to immigrants who would not otherwise qualify for legal residence in the United State. This is essentially the same thing accomplished by DACA for those who meet its requirements.

According to statistics from the American Immigration Council, since 1962, there are at least 36 instances of executive grants of Temporary Immigration Relief. Even Ronald Reagan , of blessed memory, granted temporary relief to an estimated 302,000 individuals. This number does not include his “deferring deportation” for the children of approximately 100,000 families who applied to legalize their status under immigration reform legislation in 1986.

For Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III to infer that the evil Barack Obama acted without precedent, is, at best, disingenuous, and at worse, an outright lie.

Yes, I understand Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III dressed up his boss’s decision in a plausible legalistic defense. As a recovering lawyer myself, I can attest to the fact plausible legalistic defenses can be advanced for the most indefensible of actions.

Those eligible for DACA status were all minors, brought to this country, without their voluntary consent, by their caregivers. Among other qualifying criteria, they must meet stringent requirements as to age, and age at the time of their entry into the United States. A DACA applicant must have come into the country before 16 years of age. The median age for Dreamers coming into the United States is six years old. For most of these Dreamers, the United States is the only country they have ever known. They must have graduated from, or be working towards, a high school diploma or a general education certificate (GED). If a veteran, they must either be on active duty or honorably discharged. They must not have been convicted of a felony or a “significant” misdemeanor. They must pass a background check. They must not pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Those having DACA status are not on a path to citizenship, because there is no path to citizenship available. They have renewable two-year deferments from deportation procedures. They may attend school, hold a job, and pay taxes, including Social Security taxes, but are not eligible for government benefits—including Social Security benefits.

According to the largest study to date of DACA recipients, with a sample size of 3,063 respondents from 46 states and the District of Columbia, 97 percent of respondents were either employed or attending school. Of those attending school, 72 percent are pursuing a bachelor’s degree or higher. If small businesses are the engines of economic growth, 5 percent of respondents started businesses after achieving DACA status. Among respondents over 25 years old, this percentage increases to 8 percent. Among the general American public, the rate of starting a business is only 3.1 percent.

According to the Center for American Progress, DACA beneficiaries are predicted to contribute as much as $460.3 billion dollars to the United States Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years, economic growth that would be lost with the termination of DACA without a replacement program.

These are the Dreamers Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III disparagingly referred to as “illegal aliens.”

The decision to terminate DACA has been made, and it is within the president’s power to make that decision. Having done so, he also has given Congress six months to find an alternative before the program is terminated.

Rather than providing the kind of leadership expected from any self-proclaimed Chief Executive Officer in working through this situation, the current tenant in the White House has evaded responsibility by punting the ball over to the House and Senate.

Congress should pick up the challenge, perhaps by taking up consideration of the already introduced, and bipartisan-sponsored , 2017 Dream Act, as a starting point.

Congress should act with all due haste on the issue of these 800,000 young people who are American in all but legal status. It should be a clean bill, not cluttered with bells and whistles favored by the president, such as funding for his boondoggle of a wall.

He had his chance to be part of the conversation. He lost that chance when he ran away from the problem rather than addressing it. He chose to tell Congress to find a solution, so let a bipartisan Congress do so on its own terms.

Writer’s block is a terrible thing for a writer. So many thoughts wandering between the synapses, none of which seem to lend themselves to an insightful, or even mildly entertaining, 600 words or so.

And so, it was. as I sat there in my study staring at a blank screen on the computer machine.

Occasionally I would glance over my right shoulder listening to the scurrying of the mouse (or more likely, mice) who inhabit the third shelf of my bookcase. In a 130-year-old house, such domesticated wildlife comes with the territory. Rarely, I would catch a momentary glimpse of my tiny rodent friend (or more likely, friends) nibbling at the cat food located on top of the non-functioning wine refrigerator located next to the wall of books.

This sight, in turn, caused me to question the dedication to her job of Cleopatra, the cat, (“Cleo” for short) who, at that moment, was in the dining room at the other end of the house grooming herself in a chair warmly lit by sunshine streaming through a window.

I have a bad history with mice.

I am a carnivore. I will happily chow down on any manner of dead animal. Cow, pig, sheep, bird, fish, you name it. However, I can’t bring myself to kill anything on my own dime. I have been known to coax bugs onto pieces of paper, and then take them outside to release into the wild.

Except mosquitoes. Mosquitoes I kill summarily, without any semblance of due process.

Mice aren’t mosquitoes. Hence, my story.

The last time I tried to terminate a mouse, the instrument of death was a trap consisting of sheet of extremely sticky paper. Sure enough, within a short period of time, one of the little rodents was trapped, vainly trying to wriggle free, only to become more fatally entangled with each attempt.

Taking pity, I took the sticky paper, with the struggling mouse attached, outside, and proceeded to attempt to separate the mouse from the instrument of death with my fingers.

Whereupon, the little ingrate bit me.

Try explaining that history to the folks in the emergency room as I explained the need for a tetanus shot.

To make matters worse, when I ran back into the house to display my bleeding digit to the missus, I dropped the instrument of death, with attack mouse still attached, on the floor.

The attack mouse then managed to engineer its own escape to points unknown. I strongly suspect it is the ancestor, several generations removed, of the residents currently occupying the third shelf of my bookcase.

I have become accustomed to hanging my head in humiliation as the missus regales anyone in the vicinity of her lovely voice with the entire somewhat embarrassing story.

Anyway, getting back to writer’s block.

It’s not so much that there isn’t anything to write about. To the contrary, there is so much to write about that it is hard to concentrate on any one thing long enough to pound out a column.

I’ve almost given up on the current resident of the White House. He has said and done so many things that would at other times be disqualifying, that I am beyond being scandalized, or even surprised.

I have given almost up any hope of reasoning with his supporters. I can understand supporting a narcissist who, nevertheless, gets things done. I can even understand supporting a nice guy who, nevertheless, gets nothing done.

Continuing to support a narcissist who, nevertheless, gets nothing done is beyond me.

But that’s just me.

Ed, and you know who you are, feel free to take a shot.

Meanwhile, as this is written late at night, Cleo is on her stool, which is located next to the non-functioning wine refrigerator, upon which is her cat food, and she appears to be paying much attention to the third shelf of my bookcase.

Perhaps if she can find a way to do her job, I can find a way to do mine.

And all that’s a bit over 600 words!

When I was a boy, my parents decided to take a trip to the Big Easy (New Orleans) for a week’s vacation. I was only seven or eight, so I don’t remember much of the specifics, but a couple of incidents still stand out in what is left of my memory.

We were on the obligatory Grey Line bus tour of NOLA’s sights, one of which was a statue of Robert E. Lee perched on a tall column. The tour guide was waxing eloquent about the virtues of Marse Robert, the ultimate personification of the Virginia cavalier, etc., etc., when a querulous voice, with a distinct northeastern twang, inquired, “And how do you suppose General Lee got to top of that column?” The perplexed tour guide looked at the elderly lady posing the question, momentarily at a loss for words. And then she supplied the answer: “Ulysses S. Grant chased him up there!”

So much for all of the guns falling silent after Appomattox.

At the time there were few, if any, interstate highways sweeping majestically across the landscape. To go from A to B, you used two-lane roads that meandered through whistle-stop towns and towns too small to have whistles. When nature called, you made a quick stop at the nearest gas station. Being in the South, the facilities were clearly marked “white” and “colored.” The importance of the distinction was lost on my dad, only recently arrived in the USA. Ever practical, if you had to go, you had to go. If the white’s only bathroom was occupied, and the colored bathroom was open …

When Dad came out, I don’t know who was more horrified, the white good-old-boy gas station attendant or the black gentleman who was waiting to use the segregated facility next.

Somehow, we were able to skedaddle out of that particular town without reigniting a second round of the War Between the States, or, as the locals tended to call it, “The War of Northern Aggression.”

The point is, here we are, more than 60 years on, and what are we talking about? Confederate monuments, and race relations.

Really? Still?

Of all the justifications coming out of Charlottesville for preserving the statues of individuals bent on destroying the United States, the one that comes the closest to being defensible is that they represent and honor Southern heritage.

Heck, I get that.  My “hole in the water into which I pour money” is named after a battle that reestablished Scottish independence. That battle, the Battle of Bannockburn, took place in 1314.

I’m still a bit miffed about the Act of Union of 1707 whereby Scotland lost its independent parliament and became a junior partner in something called “Great Britain.”

Scots never forget.

I understand the importance of heritage.

I can understand a desire to honor the bravery and sacrifice of those ordinary soldiers who wore the butternut gray.

However, it is something else entirely to honor the cause for which they fought.

The most sanitary explanation of the war is that it was caused by disagreement over states’ rights vis a vis the national government – a disagreement that still resonates today. But the major “state right” being asserted was the right to preserve the existing social order, which in turn, was built upon the “peculiar institution” of slavery.

Slavery is the original sin of this nation. For all the good they did otherwise, the framers of the Constitution simply kicked this festering sore down the road, many hoping that it would collapse of its own accord.

It didn’t.

The primary purpose of the statues in question, all erected decades after the guns fell silent, was not to honor the war dead, but to pay homage to a romantic notion of “The Lost Cause.”

At its heart, what was the Lost Cause? It was an attempt to restore, by other means, the southern social order antebellum – the pre-Civil War South of which racial inequality and bigotry was part and parcel.

It is not by chance that more than 400 of these monuments were erected in the era shortly after the Supreme Court, in the 1896 Plessey vs. Ferguson decision, approved state racial segregation laws for public facilities so long as the facilities were “separate but equal,’ which, in practice, they rarely were.

More than 90 more were erected in the late ’50s and early ’60s during the height of the civil rights movement.

A cause that was rotten at its core at its inception does not improve over time. It should remain lost.

And, because they seek to perpetuate that cause, these monuments’ time has passed.

Honor the war dead, their widows, and their orphans in their final resting places.

But consign to the trash heap of history the cause that led to their demise.

Where it belongs.

As a general rule, when folks with whom you disagree are themselves in self-destructive disagreement with each other, the last thing you want to do is interfere.

However, for every general rule there are exceptions.

A recent column in the Tribune by an enthusiastic supporter of the current president is a case in point.

Surprisingly perhaps, there were portions of the column with which I fully concur.

For example, I agree in the writer’s criticism of congressional Republicans who, for seven years, perpetrated a fraud on the American people that was largely successful. Using the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as a political club with which to beat the previous tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and all members of his party), promising to have a better deal for the American people and then proving to have none at all, was, indeed, political chicanery of the highest, or perhaps lowest, order.

Who says the right and the left cannot find common ground?

On the other hand, the overall “flavor” of the piece made me more than a little bit uneasy.

Perhaps I misinterpreted what the author of the column was trying to say, but the message I got was that the president, as CEO of our country, has a right to expect that all other governmental institutions, even those established by the Constitution, should get out of the great man’s way, fall in line behind him, let him work his magic as he deems appropriate, and support him in his efforts with little or no exceptions being made.

This is certainly a point of view, but I believe it is a point of view at odds with our foundational document, the United States Constitution.

If there is a theme that permeates that document, that theme is that power should be diffused, not concentrated.

It is for that reason that power is divided between three branches of government. That is why the prerogatives of each are specified. That is why we often have an uncomfortable, but nevertheless intended, tension between the three branches – what you learned in government class were called “checks and balances.”

We appear to have in Washington a chief executive, and his apologists and partisans, who seem to believe his election victory gives him the right, a mandate, to expect that even pre-existing governmental institutions should defer to his will.

This is the opposite of the framers’ intentions in drafting the document. Clearly, their intent was that transient holders of the Office of President would adjust their will to the strictures set out in the document.

Remember, at the time, there was another “great man.” His name was George Washington. He had near unanimous support. He became our first president, without opposition in the Electoral College.

Yet even he was subject to constitutional limitations on his exercise of presidential power – limitations he supported as he took the long view of what the new United States should be.

The Constitution is an exercise in the avoidance of extremes. At times, it appears to be a hindrance to action, and in fact, it does operate as a hindrance to precipitous unilateral action. That was the idea. If this can be the source of frustration in specific situations, it is also the price we pay to be able to accommodate, and bridge, the passing passions of the day.

The present administration’s inner circle, not to mention the president himself, does not seem to have grasped this basic fact. Until, and unless, this happens, our president will continue to bumble his way from one embarrassing gaffe to the next.

A “great man,” and unquestioning adherence to his whims, is a theory of government more acceptable in Pyongyang or Moscow.

But not here. Not yet.