August 7, 2015--Friday at the Bristol Diner: Tony Said

He said, "I don't care."

"You mean you'd vote for someone who won't tell you what he'd do about immigration?"

"I told you," he said, beginning to get heated, "I don't care. I really don't."

Jack, who was sitting opposite Tony, stared at him.

"It's his biggest issue. His political claim to fame."

"How many times do I have to tell you, I don't care.

"Or what he would do about the Middle East." With that Tony turned to the window and started humming.

"Can you believe this?" I asked Jack who shrugged and shook his head.

"You're from New York, right?" Tony turned back to us. I nodded. "You remember that skating rink in Central Park?" It didn't register at first. "It was an ice rink. The city owned it."

"It's coming back to me," I said, knowing now where this was headed.

"There was some sort of a problem with it. The cooling system. It made slurry, not ice. For years. I forget how many, the city kept trying to fix it. Spent millions. Maybe over five years but still no ice. My boy, Donald Trump, The Donald, said he couldn't take it any more. He said he'd fix it and pay for it himself."

"I remember that," Jack said.

"Again, I don't remember how long it took. At most a few months. That was years ago. As far as I know the ice machine is still working."

"It is," I admitted.

"So now you know why I'm for him. He knows how to get things done."

"You don't care what those things are that you believe he can get done? Like what he would do to 'get things done'," I made air quotes, "with the 10 million illegal immigrants who are here--hundreds of whom I assume mow the grass on his golf courses?"

"I know he got in all sorts of trouble when he said the Mexicans here are murderers. That was ridiculous."

"And so?"

"And so, as I said, I don't care. Don't get me wrong, we should figure out what to do with all the illegals--most are doing work that none of us would want to do. Like pick lettuce in the hot sun. And I believe that Trump would figure that out."

"You mean like fixing the ice skating rink?" Jack asked.

"I know they're not the same thing. I'm not that deluded."

"So what are you then?" I said, "It feels as if you drank the Trump Kool Aid."

"Maybe I did, but let me put it to you another way--The other candidates, from both parties, have all sorts of position papers about immigration and education and the environment. But we know that once they get into office they never get done what they promise to do. Maybe in their first year or two a new president can get a few things through Congress. Whatever you think about those policies. But after that all those position papers and their speeches about this or that mean nothing. And then we're left with a president who can't get anything approved and who has to fall back on whatever ability he has--forgive me, she or he has--to get things done."

"Like what?" Jack asked. "Give me an example or two of what Trump could get done after he realizes he can't get anything through what will for sure continue to be a gridlocked Congress?"

"Well, first of all, as someone who knows how to get things done on a large scale, the people he hires--appoints--to say the Cabinet: the secretary of state, of the treasury, health, education would be the same kind of get-it-done people he hires to build his hotels and casinos and condos and golf courses. People, who if they don't get the job done, get fired."

"You mean people like his daughter, Ivanka?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Yeah, like her. Like Kennedy appointing his brother attorney general. remember that? Though with that I suspect you didn't have a problem." He winked, knowing he had made a good point. "Look, no matter who wins, Democrat or Republican, no matter how much they cut the budget, there's still lots of money around to do things with. Like rebuild the infrastructure. Not all the money you or I might like, but enough to make at least a bit of a difference. Wouldn't you admit that for doing that--fixing our roads--Donald Trump would do a better job than Jeb Bush or your Hillary?"

I couldn't disagree with that. "But what about foreign policy?" Jack asked, "You'd trust him to be commander in chief? He doesn't even know where Iran is on the map."

"First of all you don't know that. You're just being partisan. We need to get away from that--making everything partisan--and focus on fixing things as best as can be done. Like our southern border which is still like a sieve after decades of politicians promising to fix it. Again, who would you prefer to work on that? Bush? Walker? Rand Paul? Ben Carson? Or Trump? I vote for Trump."

"That's clear," Jack said with a sigh. "Before I have to leave, here's more ammunition for you."

"I'm all ears."

"I forgot where I read it earlier this week, but some columnist for the Times or Washington Post said that Trump is the first post-policy candidate."

"A what?"

"Post-policy. He was making your point. That it doesn't matter what his so-called polices are. Or even if he has any. All that matters is what people believe about him. Like you--you believe he can get things done. You're not interested in the specifics of what that means. Just that you believe he can. That a lot of people are fed up with 10-point plans to fix our education system or white papers about creating jobs. Trump is attractive because he gives you and many others the feeling of competence and a certain kind of hope for a better future, a better America."

"Now you're talking."

February 25, 2015--Two of a Kind

Appearing on CBS's Sunday show, Face the Nation, Senator John McCain said that he is "ashamed of my country" for allowing Vladimir Putin to annex Crimea and push militarily to overthrow the government of Ukraine.

Host Bob Shieffer was stunned. "I'll say this, senator, I've known you for a long, long time, interviewed you many, many times, and I've never heard you say I'm ashamed of my country."

McCain added, "I'm ashamed of my president and I'm ashamed of myself that I haven't done more to help these people."

Adding himself to the list of who to be ashamed of softened his otherwise outrageous characterization of his president. It is not appropriate for a senior senator to express these divisive and mean-spirited feelings. Yes, disagree, disagree strenuously, disagree fundamentally, disagree profoundly, whatever; but to be ashamed crosses the line and thus stunned veteran journalist Shieffer.

McCain was trumped in mean-spiritedness last week by Rudy Giuliani, formerly known as America's Mayor. Over the weekend at a Scott Walker fundraiser at New York's 21 Club, he said, "I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country."

And he didn't walk it back, reiterating later that he was merely expressing his feelings.

Giuliani, and to a lesser extent, John McCain are suffering from Dick Morris Syndrome. Sensing that they are both aging and losing influence and power. For Rudy, who ran disastrous campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, to see rising empty-suit political stars such as Scott Walker grabbing attention and headlines, it is hard because of his kind of colossal ego. Ditto for McCain who still can't accept the fact that he lost the national election in 2008 and that Barack Obama is president.

In Dick Morris' case, he began his professional political career working for Upper-Westside liberal Manhattan Democrats and then moved into the center of the Bill Clinton reelection campaign until he was forced out when he got into a scandal involving a prostitute. Next stop for him was Fox News and after making a fool of himself there (predicting on air a landslide victory for Mitt Romney), he descended further and is left now pandering to that 20-30 percent of the GOP base that takes Glenn Beck, Russ Limbaugh, and black helicopters seriously. There's money to be made there by writing books about how Obama is seeking to turn America into a totalitarian state with him self-imposed as president-for-life.

These same dead-enders are now the people with whom Giuliani is left to cavort. What a sad fate.

July 21, 2014--Clown Car

I don't know if they're still doing this, but in my youth, a favorite moment during the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus was when a car smaller than a VW would trundled to the center of the center ring and slowly disgorge clown after clown after clown after clown. At least a dozen appeared to have been piled into that tiny vehicle. I guess this was the inspiration for Steven Sondheim's Bring in the Clowns.

Of course there was a trap door beneath where the car came to rest and the clowns scrambled up from below the circus floor. Think of this as a metaphor for what follows.

Though Ringling Brothers may have moved on to higher-tech stunts, the good news is that their own version of the clown car is beginning to trundle toward center stage in the Republican scramble for the 2016 presidential nomination.

Three GOP clowns were especially active last week--Chris Christie, thinking his troubles are either behind him or that potential voters in Iowa have not been tracking the Bridgegate scandal (or, what is in fact true for them, seeing it to be a scandal created by the liberal eastern-establishment media) plunged into adoring crowds who came out to see a genuine political celebrity (ironically a celebrity created as much by media-fed scandal as achievement) who was eager to show the Republican competition how a seemingly straight-talking, tell-it-like-it-is anti-Washington regular overweight guy looks and feels like in the flesh (double meaning intended).

It feels pretty good, the ever-modest Christie concluded, all smiles before heading back to New Jersey, praying that the various prosecutors and grand juries investigating the mess at the GW Bridge as well as other signs of corruption will not indict him before next November. My guess is they will, and that that will finally deflate him. In the meantime, he'll keep pressing the flesh. (Sorry, at times I can't restrain myself from being bad.)

Also getting into their clown gear were Rick Perry, who I believe is still governor of Texas, and Rand Paul, Ron's son, who I think is a senator though the last time he was seen in Washington was two years ago when he was sworn in. He's now a part of the Washington establishment, like it or not, and since politically being perceived that way is a ability, he is trying to figure out how to be both a senator and an anti-establishment, anti-governement figure though he is in fact a public employee and earns more than $200,000 a year in salary and generous benefits paid for by taxpayers whose taxes he wants to cut. Get it?

Only a clown could be that audacious. And then have you seen his hair-dye job and eye makeup? Right out of clown school. But there I go again being bad.

What is unusual so many months before the Iowa caucuses is for undeclared but for-certain candidates to attack each other directly, by name. This early in the game unannounced candidates have always talked in broad generalities while wandering around the country attempting to line up wealthy supporters while appearing to be above the fray and trying to act presidential.

But Rick Perry couldn't control himself. He went right after purported front-runner Rand Paul both by policy and name. Maybe he recalled that the last time around, assuming his memory is more intact this time--he had trouble during the debates remembering even his own talking points--perhaps he is acknowledging that that last-minute strategy didn't work. His front-runner status lasted about a week.

Though the problem may have been more him than his strategy, this time around he is working more on the strategy than the "him" part.

The governor showed up last week with a new pair of professorial-looking eye glasses. These are part of a strategy to look smart because, again in 2012, he both looked and sounded, how else to put this, dumb.

And he's even given up wearing cowboy boots. Another strategy to make him look serious. And maybe to appeal to women and independents who don't like to see too much testosterone in their presidents. Though God knows with John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and FDR it flowed freely.

All Democrats. Hum.

Rick Perry, to show he knows the location of Russia and that he can't see it from his ranch, and is thus comfortable with foreign policy issues and therefore ready to move into the White House, but also to distinguish himself from the GOP frontrunner, attacked Rand Paul by name, calling him an "isolationist," "flat wrong," and "curiously blind" (recall the eyeglasses).

Very bold. But before the ink dried on reports about Perry's otherwise high-toned speech, Paul's people retaliated, calling Rick Perry "dead wrong," saying that though he is running around wearing "smart glasses" (not spiffy smart but the style of glasses that make you seem smart), "apparently his new glasses haven't altered his perception of the world or allowed him to see more clearly."

I call that hitting above the belt and not politically smart since so many voters need glasses not to make them look smart but to see. Though someone should check to see if Perry's have prescription lenses or are just window glass.

Now if we could only get Herman Cain wound up and ready to climb into that clown car how much fun would that be this hot summer where nothing else is going on. Except, of course Israel invading Gaza and Russians or Ukrainian rebels shooting down commercial airplanes.

December 27, 2013--GOP Quandary

Republican don't know what to do. Up to now they have been all-in in opposing Obamacare. It is, they have been obsessively claiming, an evil intrusion of big government in people's lives fostered on us by an evil, illegitimate president; and they have passed nearly 50 bills in the House of Representatives in efforts to repeal it.

Of course that has been a futile effort--with the Senate in Democratic hands and the evil one still ensconced in the White House, that strategy was going nowhere. But they pursued it to make a political point--if you want to get rid of it and him, vote GOP in 2014 and 2016.

Now matters are even worse--it exists and people are signing up. Perhaps not in the numbers Obama and the Democrats had hoped for, but as of last count at least 2.0 million have; and as of January 1st they will have health coverage for the first times thanks to, sorry, Obamacare.

The GOP doesn't know what to do next. Especially if millions more sign up and, like those on Medicare, they come to like it. Flaws and all.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson got it right. He said, "It's no longer just a piece of paper that you can repeal and it goes away. There's something there. We have to recognize that reality. We have to deal with the people that are currently covered under Obamacare."

Translation of "we have to deal with the people that are currently covered under Obamacare"--

"We have to figure out some way, some scam, to get them to vote for us. Or say hello to President Hillary. How does that sound to you?"

Equally flummoxed, the ever-effervescent Lindsay Graham moaned, "The hardest problem for us is what to do next. Should we just get out of the way and point out horror stories? Should we come up with a mini Contract With America on health care, or just say generally if you give us Congress, the House, and the Senate in 2014, here's what we'll do with you on multiple issues including health care?"

Translation--

"Listen up, I'm fighting for my political life here. I'm up for reelection next year and they're running a Tea Party flunky against me in the primary, saying I'm too liberal. So what if I have a man-crush on John McCain and spend all my time traveling around the world with him? If trashing Obamacare isn't enough to get me reelected, we'd better come up with something good. Maybe like Obama is fooling around with Jill Biden."

The Republicans didn't ask for my advice, but I have a suggestion for them anyway that would show them to be ideologically consistent (not just typical hypocritical Washington politicians) and would fit right in there with their hatred of big-governement Obamacare--

Go after something that really is socialistic--Medicare.

Besides their favorite federal program--the military--Medicare is the biggest government program of all time. Like Obamacare it too has the Feds requiring tens of millions to get their health care though the government. But unlike Obamacare it doesn't require people to buy insurance through for-profit insurance companies. It's socialized medicine pure and simple.

So Republicans should forthwith pull up their socks, forget about Obamacare, and go after the most evil program. Paul Ryan in his budget (which, recall, all House Republicans voted for as did all but one or two GOP senators) pretty much calls for Medicare's elimination. It would turn it into a voucher program and save trillions since the vouchers wouldn't provide enough money for millions of middle class people currently covered to go into the market place to replace it.

This would work, no?

September 25, 2013--GOPcare

Forty-two times Republicans in the House of Representatives have voted to repeal or defund Obamacare.

Most recently the end of last week when they did so as part of a budget package to make the entire federal budget contingent upon eliminating it. Effectively, they said, if you want the Affordable Care Act, there will be no government--no Social Security, no Medicare, no national parks, no aid to education, no airport security, no oversight of drugs and medicines, and even (their favorite federal program) no military.

And then they went home for their 6th or 7th vacation of the year.

Additionally, they left a marker back in Washington, saying that unless Obamacare is ended by the end of October they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling. They will not vote to pay for federal programs that they themselves already enacted into law.

Effectively, they are, with this, drawing a legislative red line which asserts that unless the Democrats and the president go along with this they will allow the United States for the first time in history to default on our financial obligations--if you have T-Bills, they will not pay you the interest you thought was guaranteed; and the U.S. dollar will no longer serve as the world's reserve currency because we will have welched on our international debts and obligations.

All because of Obamacare. All because the GOP leadership has caved in to the Tea Party crazies who are really anarchists seeking to eliminate most of our government, seeing nearly all of it profligate and evil.

While spending much of the past two years futilely voting against Obamacare, the Republicans have not put forth a credible alternative health care plan of their own. One to cover the 44 million Americans who who have no coverage, or would have none if Obamacare were to be rolled back--mainly dependent children and lower-income workers whose employers do not provide medical insurance or do not have the $5,000 to $10,000 a year to buy their own insurance.

By not voting in favor of a plan of their own the GOP is rendering a death sentence to hundreds of thousands of Americans who will die prematurely without preventative or on-going care.

I know for these radical Republicans the death penalty is one of their favorite governmental programs; but at least executing people comes after someone commits a heinous crime and is tried and convicted.

To kill people (and that in fact is what we're talking about) because they cannot afford to pay for an operation or cancer-fighting medications is not so different from condemning someone to death through the courts.

One difference--we usually put people in the gas chamber one at a time. Denying people the medical help they need and deserve is nothing short of mass murder.