The rich aroma of flop sweat is reeking its way out of the White House. Is this finally, actually, really-and-truly the beginning of The Trumpster’s end?

It's possible that he's not just running scared, he's running terrified

I live in the middle of Manhattan and don’t open my windows much. Just lift them a crack and in comes a cacophony of blaring horns, wailing sirens, clanking garbage trucks, plus dust, carbon monoxide, and disagreeable weather that’s usually too hot, too cold, too damp, or too damn something.

But this evening is different. Google is telling me the temperature as I write this is 66 degrees — Goldilocks weather. And so, late this evening when the streets had quieted down a tad, I hefted open the window a couple of inches. 

And whammo!

The stink from 

Pennsylvania Avenue

Into my cramped living quarters, ten stories above ground, drifted the unmistakeable aroma of flop sweat. And I know where it’s coming from.

It has wafted its way here all the way from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. You don’t have to see the stuff dripping down the President’s face and streaking his orange makeup to know this this time, at last, he really is in desperately deep doo-doo. Or at least probably.

I’m talking, of course, about the whole Ukraine thing. You know how badly Trump thinks he’s been hooked, harpooned, and netted by the frantically hysterical quality of his responses.

• He has accused Representative Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, of treason, for the treasonous crime of going about his Congressional duties.

• He has accused the New York Times of treason for reporting the news.

• He has demanded, in contravention of the law, to know the identity of the whistleblower who had the temerity — the treasonous temerity! — to blow the whistle from a place of safety, just as the law says whistleblowers should. (Well, Trump didn’t use the actual word “temerity,” probably because it’s not part of his limited vocabulary, but that’s the drift  of his furor.)

• Of course, Trump has also accused an FBI operative of treason, too, because of that agent’s involvement in the Russia probe. But that’s old-ish news.

Treason, treason, treason—

what does it all mean?

Notice that those accusations of treason are popping up quite a bit?

Inevitably, whenever Donald Trump accuses someone of a crime, you can scratch around a little and detect the distinct aroma of Trump’s own criminality. Evidently, he never outgrew the game that my generation and his played as six-year-olds. If somebody called you a name, or accused you of something naughty, you’d recite in a sing-song voice,

“I’m rubber, 

you’re glue, 

whatever you say bounces off me

and sticks on you.”

This, we all thought, would magically transfer our own guilt to the body of the accuser.

The thing is, the rest of us outgrew that kiddy stuff. Trump still uses it as a magic talisman. Whatever he thinks he’s in trouble for, he accuses somebody else of having done that exact thing. That, he appears to think, wards off the evil eye of justice. As a matter of fact, so far it has worked. 

But “so far” may finally be used up. Nevertheless, the word “treason” now hovers above the mess Trump created. And if he’s playing the rubber-and-glue game with it, it deserves some investigation.

Will the buzzing gnats

drop a dime on Trump?

It also turns out that Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s civilian lawyer, and William Barr, domestic Attorney General, have been buzzing around like gnats on secret and likely improper or illegal “diplomatic” missions to futz with evidence.

Those are some mighty big names, with some powerful reservoirs of knowledge, who could turn on Donald Trump if it’s a matter of their hide in the hoosegow or Trump’s, a few cobblestones down the road.

Plus there’s the little matter of that Super-Duper-Extra-Double-Secret server in the White House, on which the Trumpster’s sycophantic minions have stored conversations with Vladimir Putin and others. Who knows what an airing of those conversations might reveal? Might it be the treason of which Trump has accused others? Just asking.

Of course, The Trumpster to date has led a charmed life. The spirit of Roy Cohn hovers over him, a malevolent guardian angel protecting Trump from truth, justice, and overdue bills from small and badly stiffed building contractors. He could, once again, get away with everything.

But this time, also maybe not.

Okay, time to shut the window.