What a difference a week makes. Last Friday Donald Trump took off in Air Force One for the Middle East and Europe. He left behind a Washington and a nation buzzing about his firing of FBI Director James Comey and the multiple reasons he gave for doing so, the meeting he had with the Russian foreign minister a day later and his statement that Comey was a “nut job.”

The I-word — impeachment — was in the air, as Democrats and mainstream media muttered that he was obstructing justice by attempting to throttle investigation of “collusion” with the Russians. The brainy and quirky conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argued that the Trump cabinet should remove him from office as unfit under the 25th Amendment.