By Association

While the United States isn't as openly Puritanical a place at it once was, there is a still a certain desire for spotlessness in some things, and this lends itself to a level of needless dishonesty.

"The president did not write this letter [to Jeffrey Epstein], he did not sign this letter, and that's why the president's external legal team is pursuing litigation against the Wall Street Journal," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.

Trump is used to shaking off criticism - but the Epstein story is different

Personally, I wonder what the external legal team is going to say: That it's patently clear that the handwriting only looks like that of Donald Trump? Claiming the note is faked is going to be a heavy lift; the President's legal team/supporters are going to have to find a forger. If a chain of custody can be established for any length of time, there would need to be a claim that the book was planted prior to that, and it's already been pointed out that this would be a difficult accusation to square.

Democratic lawmakers and other elected officials are hoping that some ability to tie President Trump to Jeffrey Epstein will restore the law of political gravity, which is, in my opinion, wishful thinking. But the bigger question is why should it serve to bring the President down? Okay, so Mr. Epstein turned out to be a sexual predator. What does that have to do with anyone else?

The BBC article notes that people like the UK's ambassador to the United States, Lord Peter Mandelson, "very much regrets ever having been introduced to Epstein." I get that this is something of a requirement for people to stay in the public's good graces, on either side of the Atlantic, it speaks to another of those standards that people have, but don't tend to hold themselves to. If simply knowing, or being very good friends with, someone who turns a criminal was that bad, a lot of people should be in very deep trouble. But "friend" and "accomplice" are not synonyms.

To be sure, the the Administration is attempting to dig itself out of a hole that it dug for itself; if one is going to make a big deal about guilt by association, it shouldn't be in connection to someone that there's plenty of photographic evidence that the President was, once, associated with.

Still, it seems a bit over the top. Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein had a falling out in 2004, about the time when the very first allegations were being made. And there's no indication that he and President Trump ever reconciled after that point. So what does it matter that the two men moved in the same circles? Money and power have always sought access to each other, and themselves. This is simply the way the world has always worked.

Jeffrey Epstein's toxicity, even years after his death, makes him a useful tool; there's political benefit to be had in smearing him on people. But that benefit is a the result of the public not wanting to believe that a pervert can avoid surrounding himself with other perverts, and a populist desire to want to prove that the "Élite" are deliberately evil and dangerous. And one of the things that buttresses that worldview is people's willingness to play into it. Granted, it's not as if the media, politicians and other tastemakers suddenly all dropped it, that it would go away, but its influence likely would be lessened.

And that, I think would be a good thing. If for no other reason than it would make a lot of public life more honest. People keep secrets, even from people close to them, let alone people they socialize with for the sake of being seen with them, or because they're looking for some or another favor from them. They don't spill the beans to everyone they talk to who happens to be of the same social class, or has a similar bank balance. (Or happens to be in the same holding cell. I'm impressed that juries still believe random jailhouse snitches.)

I'd say that people's fear of letting "bad people" get away from them is fueling what comes across as a hypersensitivity to any indication that someone isn't entirely on the straight and narrow, but that seems to undersell what's in play.