March 1, 2019--Diplomatic Ju Jitsu

One thing about which we are certain--Trump has an insatiable need for adulation.

He is indiscriminate about where it comes from or what it is about. He doesn't much care as long as he can bask in the spotlight and feel the love.

He must, then, by some measures, be feeling quite satisfied by the reaction to his "failed" summit in Hanoi with Kim Yong-un.

Conservatives are praising him for not taking the deal the North Koreans put on the table--they would dismantle one or two nuclear weapons plants in exchange for Trump agreeing to declare the end the Korean War and removing the sanctions that are crippling the North Korean economy.

Trump rejected the offer. Conservatives such as Ann Coulter (who is on the record as saying she doesn't care if Kim nukes Seattle) can't get enough of macho leaders who stand up to blustering strongmen, especially, oxymoronically, weak strongman.

And then moderates and liberals alike such as foreign policy experts such as Richard Haas and David Ignatius are also offering begrudging praise for Trump's refusing to give up too much (like the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea) in exchange for too little (the elimination of one or two nuclear facilities). 

Since the collapse of the talks, they have been praising him publicly for holding his fire and behaving as a responsible chief executive. Most, prior to Thursday, thought, distracted by Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress, that Trump would commit to almost anything to assure a bold headline. Even if he agreed to a bad deal.

Here's what I've been thinking--

Though Trump and his team are being criticized for not doing enough prep work to help assure positive outcomes, I am feeling that they may have done just enough for them to get the result they most desired--an obviously flawed deal that would allow Trump to "walk," as he put it, and thereby be viewed as either tough or moderate enough to reap the positive responses he in fact received from diplomats, world leaders, and (most important to him) the media and opinion makers.

Rather then seeing him as stumbling ineffectively he is now, about Korea if not Michael Cohen, receiving the praise he most craves.

Or maybe he just stumbled onto some fools luck.

January 29, 2019--The Wimp Factor

I'm sure you remember that during the campaign Trump frequently said it's all about "winning." 

He got in trouble when draft-avoider Trump said he didn't respect war hero John McCain because being shot down and held prisoner for years was evidence that he was a loser.

He told us if he was elected there would be so much winning that we'd get tired of winning.

Thus far, considering Trump's short list of accomplishments, I am managing to avoid winning fatigue.

He set this dialectic in motion so it is only fair that he is now being brought down because these days he seems to be doing a lot more losing than winning. And to be perversely consistent, he is looking tired of so much losing.

Catching myself enjoying his evolving fate I thought a bit more about this winning and losing business. Employing it as a prism through which to sum up how he is doing, vis-à-vis, say, Nancy Pelosi may not be the best rubric to be using.

During the 35-day government shutdown most of the stories in the media were about who was up (Nancy) and who was down (Trump). Most of the polling cited in the coverage focused on who was to blame (mainly Trump and the Republicans) and how Trump's approval ratings were faring (badly).

A special focus of much of this reporting was how Trump was being regarded by his Fox News followers, principally how he was being treated by conservative columnists and radio talk-show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

Coulter especially got under his skin. This could be because among other taunts she called his (fragile) manhood into question.

On one occasion she said we thought we were electing Trump but instead "got Jeb."

In a weekend tweet, after Trump gave in to Pelosi, Coulter wrote--

"Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States."

Trump was being savaged by his old friends who said that while seeking to build a wall he wound up with a cave. As in "he caved" to Nancy and the Dems.

One obvious common denominator--it has been primarily strong women who have made him crazy.

If true, maybe we should back off from some of the winning and losing talk. Especially if there are significant gender aspects connected to it. As there are. Do we want a hyper-riled-up Trump, worrying about his manhood, as we move though more and more perilous times?

War could be looming in Venezuela, Israel, and North Korea. And of course Syria, with us unwisely withdrawing, is in danger of further unravelment. All places where in wag-the-dog terms Trump might be tempted to have us intervene.

I'm not suggesting that Nancy and her supporters back off but just that we should continue to look for opportunities to weaken him politically (to "win") but not make too big a deal of the personal contest that is at the heart of the matter.

I have always felt that in many hotly contested situations winning without gloating is the preferred way to go. This is a glaring and frightening example.

December 24, 2016--Merry Christmas At the White House

It is Christmas Eve day and I am sure you are feeling cozy that our nation's First Love Birds are huddled together roasting chestnuts on the White House Yule Log's open fire.

This in spite of the fact that our president painted himself into a political corner only to get rolled by Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter who once called Trump a "god" but late last week referred to him as a "gutless douchebag." This because he was willing to trade away his Wall to the Dems so they could strike a budget deal and everyone could slip out of town.

So sure was Trump that things would work out that his wife and a few of his sons hopped on the First Lady's plane (why, by the way, do First Ladies have their own taxpayer-paid-for plane?) and lit out for 16 days (16!) of baking in the sun at their gaudy Palm Beach chateau, Mar-a-Lago.

Trump had to stay behind for politically cosmetic reasons--he couldn't be seen in shorts teeing off at one of his golf courses while nearly a million federal workers would not be getting paychecks.

Rush and Ann, these two Grinches spoiled his Christmas. Poor thing. 

So much so that Trump unleashed a series of tweets that suggested he was becoming even more unhinged. Saturday night, for example, he referred to himself as "the most popular hero in America" for withdrawing all our troops from Syria and "your favorite president." He does need to check the most recent polls.

But a funny thing happened on the way to that deal--after Limbaugh and Coulter slammed him for being weak, calling his manhood into question, he had no recourse but to pull the plug on the budget deal and cancel his golfing getaway.

Then, most interesting, a day after arriving, Melania had them gas up her plane and she flew back to Washington so she could spend Christmas with her beleaguered husband.

Unusual loving behavior for a couple where the wife won't hold hands with her husband in public and for a husband and wife who famously do not exchange Christmas gifts, unless Melania's renegotiating their prenup when Trump was exposed, in a manner of speaking, for having affairs with a porn star and a Playboy Playmate might be considered a gift that keeps on giving.

I suspect that daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared were so shaken by Trump's railing after Defense secretary Mattis summarily quit, refusing to endorse Trump's precipitous and dangerous decision to pull all U.S. forces out of Syria and effectively turn the country over to Putin, Iran, Hezbollah, and ISIS that they were so shaken that he was about to completely lose it if he couldn't make a deal to fund his Wall and shut down the encroaching Mueller investigation, that the children thought the situation was approaching 25th Amendment territory and that Melania better get back in DC and try to calm him down.


And so there they are, Donald and Melania snug in the White House which is full of Melania's blood red Christmas trees. 

Perhaps, to get away from reruns of White Christmas Trump can practice his putting on the White House green. The weather is forecast to cooperate.

April 16, 2018--Ann Coulter & Me

Tell me I'm hallucinating. 

I woke up Saturday morning to the news that overnight we had bombed a number of chemical weapons sites in Syria. Putting aside for the moment how I feel about that, I thought I heard that Ann Coulter, as well as numerous right-wingers, who I assumed, as hawks, would reflexively call for tough action wherever and whenever, staunchly opposed President Trump's decision to attack military assets of the Assad regime.

I woke up in a hurray and sure enough, with the exception of dead-ender Sean Hannity, pretty much all the talk-radio bloviators, conspiracy theorists, and Fox News hosts and guests were ranting about how Trump violated his campaign pledge to bring all troops home from overseas misadventures, especially those that were involved in "nation building." They reminded Trump about this, since they know he was watching and listening, citing our failed involvements in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region.  

The Hill reported that Fox hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham both claimed that Friday night's attack was inconsistent with what Trump said during the campaign and that it could be "risky" for us, considering the country's experience with the Iraq War.

Well-named Michael Savage, host of the radio show, Savage Nation, tweeted--

"We lost. War machine bombs Syria. No evidence Assad did it. Sad warmongers hijacking our nation."

Warmongers, I assume, including Trump.

Ann Coulter showed her opposition to the missile strike by retweeting postings by other conservatives who condemned the move, citing Trump's past tweets in which he cautioned about military action in Syria.

Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, broke down in tears on his  talk show when grossly gasping out his opposition to the missile strikes. He said-- 

"If he [Trump] had been a piece of crap from the beginning, it wouldn't be so bad. We've made so many sacrifices [he did not list them] and now he's crapping all over us. It makes me sick."

Best of all, alt-right conspiracy theorist and social media personality, Mike Cernovich, on his men's empowerment website, Danger & Play, posted--

"At least I won't feel bad when he gets impeached."

About that, we agree. As I do with Ann Coulter. 

That is, unless I was hallucinating.

August 29, 2017--Trump's Trap

Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Paul Begala got it right--President Trump set a political trap and Democrats stepped right into it.

The ugly demonstration in Charlottesville more than two weeks ago was about plans to remove statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson  The white supremacist thugs rallied there to protest plans for their relocation. 

Sensing this would be an effective wedge issue that would pander to his alt-right base, Trump generalized efforts to move, even teardown forcefully, what he referred to as "our beautiful statues and monuments."

Trump's call to keep in place these statues were dog-whistle references to those memorials primarily honoring leaders of the Confederacy. All supporters of slavery. This Trump knew would be red meat for his core constituency, including the  K.K.K. and neo-Nazis. 

Trump tweaked the situation by mocking those in favor of removing these memorials by speculating that to be consistent liberals should also call for the removal of statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson since they were slave holders.

Good point, many on the left felt, not noticing the trap set for them. 

On the right, Trump supporters, tongue-in-cheek, suggested that perhaps while we're busy taking down memorials we should also give serious consideration to, say, getting rid of the statue of Christopher Columbus that graces New York City's Columbus Circle. 

As preposterous as this may sound--though Columbus' "discovery" of America ultimately meant that European settlers would over a few centuries "remove" "Indians" from their ancestral lands--as extreme as this might seem, it is reported that NYC mayor Bill de Blasio is giving this idea serious consideration.

Columbus Circle, you may also know, is also the location of Donald Trump's tasteless International Hotel and Tower. A blight on the Central Park landscape, which, in a better world, would be what we would be thinking about taking down.

So we are descending into a paroxysm of political correctness, this time about statues. 

Thus the wedge issue calculated to deepen the division between Trump's people and the rest of Americans, thus the trap to which Begala alerted Democrats.

In Philadelphia there are moves to remove the statue of Frank Rizzo, who in the late 60s was the tough-cop mayor. He was best known, as was Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio who was just pardoned by President Trump, for his heavy-handed, even brutal treatment of the city's minority population.

Instead of talking about Trump's racist comments after the Charlottesville riots and murder, those on the left are in a swivet about all memorials to the Confederacy and anything in any way associated with racism and slavery. 

There were failed attempts to rename buildings and academic programs at Princeton University because Woodrow Wilson was a white supremacist and there is a movement afoot to rename Faneuil Hall in Boston since Peter Faneuil was a slave owner.

George W. Bush's brain, Karl Rove was a genius at thrusting wedge issues into political contests. Rather than talking about the state of the economy or the hollowing out of the middle class, he got Americans to fight with each other about same-sex marriage, support for Planned Parenthood, prayer in school, and evolution.

Trump is employing the same strategy. When he senses political trouble as after Charlottesville or revelations about his possible complicity in encouraging Russians to intervene in the 2016 election, he riles folks up by bashing the media, inflaming feelings about immigrants, and more recently raising the issue of transgender members of the military.

But most effective, surprisingly, is the hot-button ability to get Americans agitated about statuary. 

Trump already figured out that millions of Americans--his base and many more--are affronted by the political correctness and identity politics they feel Democrats promulgate, particularly on college and university campuses.

Things such as costume codes for on-campus Halloween parties and forbidding people from referring to brown paper bags as brown paper bags since that might offend some people of color. Knowing that pointing to faux issues of this kind quickly enflames people who feel looked down upon and directly affected by the self-righteousness of coastal elites, the president keeps picking away at them in an attempt to make things more contentious and distracting.

While struggling to make ends meet, they see spoiled college kids imposing speech codes and driving conservative speakers such as Ann Coulter off campus, as they did recently in Berkeley.

To some this feels like good citizenship. To me it sounds a little too much like the Taliban.

Columbus Circle