Oh, the choices – so many choices. Is it March Madness, the March of Madness or the Madness of March? Take your pick. All I know is that there are a whole lot of things hidden in the dark, and/or buried under a pile of carefully scattered bovine scat, and that much of this is the result of the November madness that gave us President Trump and Baghdad Bob Spicer. Today the highest ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff accused the Chairman of that committee, Devin Nunes of trying to choke off public information about the hearings regarding Russia's meddling in the Presidential election and any collusion there may have been between Russia and the Trump Campaign. As you may recall, it was Chairman Nunes who raced to the White House without even telling his colleagues on the committee about documents revealing information he, Nunes, considered so important that it required an immediate briefing of the President! What those documents so carefully hidden from us and the other members of the Intelligence Committee may contain is a mystery! The subject matter in them is even a mystery! Nunes played up the importance of those documents then downplayed it when he was called out for violating the rules and precedents of the committee by revealing the information to Trump without first briefing members of the committee. This adds weight to Mr. Schiff's charge that Mr. Nunez is trying choke off public information about the investigation and the hearings by canceling the public hearings scheduled for this Tuesday. It also adds to the concerns about partisan interests and whether any congressional committee is able to conduct a credible investigation of this matter.
Unfortunately the Trump Administration is even more secretive than the Nixon Administration was. It insists that you don't need to see any of Trump’s stinking tax returns, that you don't need to know what financial interests might be causing Trump to plant big wet kisses on Putin's butt, or why Putin wanted Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton. According to Trump you do not even need to know what evidence he has that President Obama wire tapped Trump Tower, even though such a wire tap would be a criminal act. Secrets kept to protect national interests are one thing, secrets kept to protect Trump and his financial interests are an entirely different matter. Indeed, this whole thing about secrecy and what should or should not be revealed to the American people has become a mad dash into absurdity, the likes of which we have not seen since Watergate. And Trump, like Nixon, is telling us just accept the madness, to trust him, to flash him a double peace sign rather than a middle finger, and to believe him when he says he is not a crook or a traitor. Ask not what a man who hides everything has to hide!
Okay, the political scene is depressingly mad so lets move on to sports. I love March Madness because a single loss can knock even the best team out of the tournament. This means that there is a good deal of luck and skill involved and everyone has puncher's chance. One of the tings I do not like about this years coverage of the NCAA tournament, however, is the same thing that makes me so suspicious of Donald Trump, it is the secrecy. Will someone please tell the nit wits at CBS why stadiums and sports arenas have score boards. Twice now I have watched a game on a different channel simply because that other channel had the good sense to show me the score of the game it was covering as well as the score of the game CBS was almost covering! In the days before the networks had a good way of showing the score Vin Scully said a sports caster cannot give the score too frequently!