The successful operation of our government assumes a minimally competent Chief Executive that we now lack.

So concludes a long analysis of why the news that President Trump revealed classified information to the Russian Foreign Minister and his colleague the Ambassador is critical.

The most startling aspect of this (or perhaps not, given Trump’s prior behavior) is that

Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

In addition to all the other character flaws Trump has, the man is far too much of a braggart and knows far too little about government and national security to properly do his job.

I held a Top Secret clearance for about five years. I took it seriously. I never saw any documents classified higher than SECRET, and those were pretty routine daily reports disseminated widely to ships in port and at sea. I would never have thought of disclosing the contents of those reports to any of the 100 Communist-sympathizing demonstrators outside the gate of the base I worked at, even if I wanted to show off. Trump is one of those people who likes to brag that he knows more than anyone else in the room he’s in, when in fact he’s pretty damned stupid and every other person there knows it.