You ever want to know what consensus and groupthink and conventional wisdom in Washington is, just find what David "Rodham" Gergen is saying and you'll find out what 99% of 'em are thinking.

[Donald] Trump at a press conference personally asked the Russians to get involved in the search [of missed Hillary Clinton's emails].

There's nobody better to tell you who's a man and who isn't than a woman. Women will spot manliness, or lack of it, faster than any man will. If you really want to know... It's just the way it is.

Politics has got its own rules and boundaries, and the daily narrative and the conventions. And if everybody in it concludes that Trump equals reprobate, Trump is a sleaze, Trump's... If you don't flow with it - if you don't at least admit to the premise first and then try to, you know, qualify yourself - you're dead in that world. It's a follow-me world, politics is, and the left runs it, and there are just certain things that you have to accept.

The word "concluded" is a trick word. It's designed to attach authority and ontological certitude to whatever follows, when it's just another way of stating what somebody thinks.

I'm just saying, there may be ways unlocking this deadlock here in the way the media covers people, Republicans and Democrats, and there may be a way for Republican to change it around. Trump may be showing how it's done, but I run great risks in saying that.

Donald Trump for his part's out there saying it's outrageous for a religious leader to say that he's not a Christian. Trump's out there saying (paraphrasing), "I'm the one guy that's out there saying the attacks on Christianity are gonna stop when I get elected."