March 13, 2019--He's Just Not Worth It

In truth I had mixed feelings when Nancy Pelosi said that impeaching Trump  would be "horrible for the country" and that she would not be willing to go through it unless there is "overwhelming and bipartisan justification."

In a wide-ranging interview with the Washington Post, she also said that "impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling . . . I don't think we should go down that path because it divides the country." And," she added, "He's just not worth it."

One part of me has been relishing the prospect of Trump's impeachment. Considering the harm and divisiveness he has engendered I was eager for his comeuppance. I wanted retribution. I wanted to see him in the dock in the Senate. I couldn't wait for him, his grifter family, and his flimsy financial empire to be brought down.

But knowing that Speaker Pelosi for decades has been about the smartest political operative in Washington and is as adept at running things as was Tip O'Neill, calming down from what I at first felt was capitulation, I gave what she said more thought.

I am now seeing her strategy as more brilliant than not.

When Bill Clinton went through impeachment and trial in the Senate, rather than losing the support of the American people, his approval ratings soared. As each day of his trial proceeded he became more and more popular. Many in the country felt that the Republicans were overreaching. Of course they were, and politically Clinton benefitted.

Even though she called Trump "unfit" to be president, Pelosi is concerned that this time it would be the Democrats who would be accused of being obsessed with impeachment and Trump's poll numbers would rise. 

As House Tea Partier Jim Jordan claimed untruthfully, from the first day of Trump's presidency Jerry Nadler, then the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, was talking about the need to impeach Trump.

Pelosi doesn't want to see her Democratic colleagues, by ignoring history, fall into the same trap.

She feels the best way to deal with Trump is to allow the Mueller report to lead the way. If it describes high crimes and misdemeanors and includes enough corroborative evidence to justify impeachment and even prosecution, with other evidence gathered by hearings in the House, she and the Democrats at that point, perhaps with some Republican support, could return to the subject of impeachment.

Until that time, she argues that Democrats in the House should get on with their legislative agenda, showing the electorate why they should vote in 2020 to allow Democrats to retain control of the House, compete for leadership of the Senate, and most important, defeat Trump himself at the polls.

So, I am with Pelosi.

One final point. My favorite part of what the Speaker said to the Post is how she concluded her remarks--

"He's just not worth it."

What a subtle, devastating putdown. And how appropriate for a women to say that about an overbearing man.

How many women, stuck in destructive relationships, have had this thought? 

Too many.

But the bells and whistles this will set off among women will hopefully motivate more of them to vote this time than did in 2016 when, inexplicably, more than half the women who voted, in spite of the Access Hollywood tape and many other affronts, voted for Trump.

In that sense women elected him, but with Pelosi clearing the way, women will have the chance in 19 months to send him packing.

January 31, 2017--Trump's Band of Amateurs

Much of Donald Trump's appeal has been his swaggering claim that because of his experience as a successful businessman he is not some over-experienced, incompetent government type.

The latter, by definition, are incompetent. Look at the mess professional politicians have made. It's time to turn government, whatever small part of it we will leave intact, over to people who know how to get things done. Like build a casino. We'll take our business acumen and apply it to the simple matter of running the government.

Thus, all the generals and CEO types Trump has selected to join him in running USA, Inc.

But so far, just 10 days into his presidency, Trump has already demonstrated that his boys don't in fact know how to get the job done.

Case in point this past weekend is the roll out of the new ban on Muslims from seven Middle Eastern countries. Including Iraq where people who risked their lives to help us fight ISIS are being turned back as they try to come to America.

The Trump immigration roll out was as bungled as the mocked Obama launch of Obamacare.

In Trump's case the immigration-ban mess is a result of intentional choices--rather than recruit and hire a few key staffers who know how things work at the senior executive level he selected the under-experienced Steven Bannon (now frighteningly a member of the National Security Council) and Stephen Miller to be in charge of White House policy.

Together they hatched this plan, opted not to consult with anyone in the Pentagon or Department of Homeland Security, so that Trump could sign the executive order with a ceremonial flourish, believing that all that was required to successfully implement this xenophobic and likely illegal policy was a stroke of the presidential pen.

Trump ran against elites of all kinds but primarily those in the media and government. There is a lot to find fault with in both places, but a certain amount of experience and, more important, competency counts when you want to get big things done in a complex and contested political environment. The Oval Office is not the set for The Apprentice or the Trump Organization.

Even incoming presidents such as Ronald Reagan who famously proclaimed government not the solution to problems but rather the cause of them, stocked his cabinet and the White House with solid citizens who knew how things work when dealing with Congress and the press.

This time around we have Bannon and Miller, neither one of whom has a clue about how things are accomplished in Washington. They clearly do not know that Reagan needed Tip O'Neill as a partner. Or that Bill Clinton had Newt Gingrich.

And, so it appears, neither does Trump who is now bumbling his way through the mess he and his amateur staff devised, including late last night firing his acting attorney general, evocative of Richard Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre

In fact, Trump's response has been so inept that he managed to make things worse. Now at least half the world hates us. All the product of a week's work.

As a result, he is quickly losing control of the agenda and has fewer and fewer Washington friends who he will need if he is to have a successful legislative agenda.

Which, in the end, may be a good things. The less of his agenda the better.

Stephen Miller (left) and Steven Bannon

June 17, 2015--Schmoozing With Congress

Again on Sunday, Maureen Dowd (who my 107-year-old mother calls Maureen Shroud) in the New York Times castigated Barack Obama for his unwillingness to deal directly with Congress. To work them, schmooze with them. How he has disdain for them, remains aloof, and thus is unable to get even widely-supported legislation passed, including last week to give him and future presidents more flexibility in Asian trade policy.

She wrote--

The president descended from the mountain for half an hour on Thursday evening, materializing at Nationals Park to schmooze with Democrats and Republicans at the annual congressional baseball game.

It was the first time he had deigned to drop by, and the murmur went up, "Jeez. Now? Really?" 

Obama has always resented the idea that it mattered for him to charm and knead and whip and hug and horse-trade his way to legislative victories, to lubricate the levers of government with personal loyalty. But, once more, he learned the hard way, it matters.

I am reading James Patterson's Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore, and a large section of it is devoted to Ronald Reagan and his presidency.

Reagan may not have been the sharpest tack but he was among the most effective presidents in getting his agenda enacted by Congress, even though during his eight years in office, for the most part, both houses were controlled by Democrats. Fiercely partisan ones at that. Tip O'Neill, for example, was Speaker of the House during Reagan's tenure and there was no stronger partisan than old Tip.

He disagreed with almost everything the president stood for, but made many deals with him when they met regularly at the White House after office hours, trading stories and sharing a bottle of fine Scotch.

No fan of Reagan, Patterson reports that during his first 100 days in office, even while recovering from a very serious assassination attempt, Reagan amazingly met 69 times with 467 members of Congress, in addition to lobbying many more on the phone.

No one yet has added up Obama's meetings with members of Congress, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that during his first six-and-a-half years as president he has had fewer than 69 meetings and met with and spoken personally with fewer than 100 members.

Patterson writes that--

Though Reagan rejected major changes in his [legislative] plans, his actions indicated . . .  that he was far from the inflexible ideologue that critics had described.

Yes, the tax cuts he enacted with bipartisan support added exponentially to the national debt, tripling between 1980 and 1989 from $914 billion to $2.7 trillion, in many ways he was a successful president--the economy improved and he proved adept at foreign policy, very much including getting along famously and doing serious business with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.

Clearly schmoozing works.

November 14, 2014--Best of Behind: Now That's Funny

Here is something from just two years ago--November 29, 2012--about the need for humor when things seem bleakest--

When was the last time Barack Obama said anything really funny? Excluding the jokes scripted for him for White House Correspondents' dinners. Like at the one in 2011 when he made fun of Donald Trump's birth certifcate. Funny stuff, but not really that clever much less spontaneous.

I ask because times like these demand that our leaders display a genuine sense of humor. Not just to help us deal with our fears but also to rally the public and make it possible, when struggling with tough issues, to reach consensus and strike deals. It's easier to come to difficult agreements if things are not always portrayed as portentous and grim. Humor has the ability to cut through the dire.

Case in point, the so-called Fiscal Cliff.

It's scary stuff even if you don't feel that it represents the coming of the apocalypse. On January 1st taxes will go up for all, especially for the hard-pressed middle class and working poor; all sorts of social safety net programs will automatically be cut; we may not be able to pay our sovereign debt; our credit rating which is already down a notch will decline further and this will lead to all sorts of nasty international ramifications; and . . .

I take it back--maybe this is the apocalypse. 

If so, then we desperately need to do a little laughing, and not just at the snarky jokes available every night from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but more the self-deprecating kind that is suffused with hard, often unpleasant truth that can best be raised with humor and, as a result, goes down much easier

There is one helpful example out there--Alan Simpson of the Simpson-Bowles Commission. It was created by Barack Obama in 2010 to identify "policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run."

And, amazingly, even as bipartisan as it was (it included the scold Paul Ryan), the commission did come up with a tough series of recommendations that call for real tax increases and heavy-duty cuts in all federal programs, very much including for the Pentagon and Medicare. Ten members, five Democrats and five Republicans voted for it.

But then nothing happened. Facing a tough reelection campaign, Obama thanked them and promptly ignored the commission’s politically unpopular proposals, and the Republican leadership in Congress blanched at the recommended tax increases. So it went nowhere in a hurry.

But now, like Freddy Kruger, it's back because Obama decisively won a second term (he got 53 percent of the popular vote) and all sorts of tax increases and spending cuts will take place automatically at the start of the new year unless Congress and the president work out a comprehensive deal. So Bowles and Simpson have been resurrected and are making the rounds on Capital Hill and on the cable and Sunday talk shows.

Wyoming rancher that he is, the star of the two-man show is former Republican senator Alan Simpson. In addition to being at least as good as Bill Clinton at explaining things, he is also very funny, and this helps him get his difficult messages across; and, if we are lucky, may help save our economic day. He delivers hard truth in humorous, folksy ways and that makes the truth more palatable.

Here are some examples of Simpson unplugged, about the budget as well about other matters--

"If you want to be a purist, go somewhere on a mountaintop and praise the east or something. But if you want to be in politics, learn to compromise. And you learn to compromise on the issue without compromising yourself. Show me a guy who won’t compromise and I’ll show you a guy with rock for brains."

"I watch Republicans. They give each other the saliva test of purity, and then they lose and bitch for four years."

"But the thing that is really impossible to believe is that whatever adjustment we make and whatever has been suggested for the last 10 years in Social Security reform, from top to bottom, none of that affects anybody over 57. Where do I get my mail? From those old cats, 70 and 80 year-olds, who are not affected one whiff. People who live in gated communities and drive their Lexus to Denny's to get the AARP dissent. This is madness."

"Grandchildren now don't write thank you cards for Christmas presents. They are walking on their pants with their caps on backwards, listening to the Enema Man and Snoopy, Snoopy Poop Dog."

Ronald Reagan was funny--just look at videos of him fooling around with his political "enemy," Tip O'Neill as they figured out how to do business together. Then there was patrician Franklin Roosevelt, whose humor helped Americans get through the Depression. And, in spite of how he is portrayed in the current Steven Spielberg film, Lincoln was a great raconteur, which enabled him to get things done with his frequently contentious team of rivals. 

In fact I try not to miss Stephen Colbert; but maybe if our leaders would sit down over a Scotch and while negotiating make each other laugh while poking fun at each other and, more important, themselves, we'd get somewhere.

October 21, 2013--Ladies of Forest Trace: Senator Cruel

"I only have a minute. I'm watching C-Spanish." My 105-year-old mother was calling from Lauderhill.

I knew she meant C-SPAN. These days she's been glued to the TV. So much is going on in Washington.

"And it's making me depressed."

"What else is new," I said, "My recommendation is that you watch something entertaining. C-SPAN  and CNN and Fox News," the other things she watches, "will make you crazy."

"C-Spanish I also find entertaining. Most of what they say there is not to each other but to people watching on TV. Only when there is an important vote is anyone there. But it is making me crazy."

"So why . . ."

"Why? I may be on my last legs but I have my mind and things that I care about. That includes our country. America. You know I came here from a shtetl in Poland?"

"Of course I do. With your mother and sisters and brother. You've often told us that your father came to America first, saved enough money, and then sent for the rest of you."

"He would be turning over in his grave if he had a TV."

"Good that there aren't any where he is in Mount Lebanon."

She let that one pass and said, "One of the girls I have dinner with told me she read in the Yorker that that senator from Texas, Ted Cruel who filibustered for 20 hours against the president, Obamacare, said he is going to read it."

"I heard that too," I said, "He's finally going to read the bill itself. Someone passed the article along from the New Yorker--that's its name--about Senator Ted Cruz--that's his name."

"If you say so. But wouldn't you think before speaking 20 hours that he would do his homework? How can you talk for so many hours about something you don't know anything about?"

"They do it all the time. As you said, Mom, it about being entertaining. He is that--a political entertainer. Like Sarah Palin. By being so outspoken about Obamacare, even though like her he doesn't know anything about it, guarantees that he gets to be on television and as a result he has become a household name. He's been in the Senate for less than a year and is now more famous than others who have been there for decades. I bet more people know who he is than know about John McCain."

"And like that woman Palin he is probably making a lot of money and getting ready to run for president."

"I'm certain about that."

"Why do they hate him so much?"

"Senator Cruz? His constituents back in Texas still seem to like him even though he almost ruined our economy and failed to get Obamacare defunded."

"I meant the president. Obama. Why do they hate him so much?"

"What do you think?"

"On TV they should talk about that. About the real reasons."

"Which are?"

"It's not because he doesn't talk with Congress. He should do more of that. The way Reagan talked with that Tipper person and Clinton with that Grinch."

"Tip O'Neill and Newt Gingrich."

"Yes. Them. But that is not the real problem."

"Which is?"

"He's smarter than they are and enjoys pointing that out. As they say on TV, he's the adult."

"I agree with this too. He isn't good at the schmoozing and backslapping and never misses the opportunity to demonstrate he's the smartest person in the room."

"But he is the smartest person and that's part of the problem too. But only part."

"And the other part is?"

I think I knew where she was headed; but for someone her age, who can handle the challenge, it's important not to put words in her mouth or finish her thoughts. If she can it's more stimulating and even healthy for her to have to think things through. And the miracle is that she very much can.

"They don't talk about it enough."

"What's that?"

"His color."

"His color?"

"Because he's black. Millions can't stand that idea. That there is a black president. Not that they have a black president--but that there is a black president."

"I get the distinction."

"And one smarter than almost all the rest of us. That only makes it worse. If he was just ordinary that would be better for them because that's the way they think about black people. That they are inferior to white people. They even believe that black people who went to Columbia and Harvard are inferior to white people who just went to high school."

"I agree with that analysis."

"That's why Donald Trumpet wanted to see Obama's college transcript. He couldn't believe that there was a black person who could be better educated that he is. Even one who became president. Which, remember, he tried to do and made a fool of himself."

"I can't say I disagree with you."

"There's more."

"More what?"

"More to say about this. About white and black there are many complicated things. Remember, I'm almost old enough to remember slavery."

"That's an exaggeration. You only 105."

"And four months. Now like a baby I keep track of how old I am by counting months."

"But still . . ."

"It may have been 150 years ago when it ended but with something this terrible it takes longer than that for all whites and blacks to get over the cruelty and the family memories. Remember Bessie Cross, who worked for us? Who took care of you when I was teaching? Her grandfather was a slave and told her all the stories. And she told her son, Henry, who lived with us for awhile and was like an older brother to you."

"I remember them both very well. But they protected me from that history. Henry never said anything about his great-grandfather."

"Bessie told me everything." I heard my mother sighing at the memory. "And she told me other things too."

"What where those?"

"About how she was raising Henry. She knew that there were still separate black and white worlds. This, remember was after the War. The 1940s."

"There was still official segregation," I said, "Jim Crow laws in the South and unofficial segregation in most of the North. Including in New York. And in Brooklyn where we lived. There were separate black neighborhoods and in my school, PS 244, there were no Negros. But what did Bessie say about raising Henry?"

"She was a very proud and fearless person. And she wanted her son to have a safe and successful life. What the times would allow. She did not want him to expect or demand more than what was possible. In her heart she knew this was not right, not the way for things to be, but she accepted them. Though they made her angry and she did things to protest. She was active in colored organizations."

"The NAACP?"

"Yes that. But there were problems, violence, lynching as Negroes after the War asked for, demanded their rights."

"I too am old enough to remember that."

"But like every other mother Bessie wanted to protect her son. Even if necessary from his own desire to want to live in the white world."

"That is sad to hear, but I understand."

"But she knew that was what he wanted. Not to be white but to have the same opportunities. And to have them he might need to study and work among white people. And to do that successfully he needed to behave in certain ways so as not to make things worse for himself because to live this way would be bad enough."

"Which meant?"

She whispered, "Often compromise."

I could hear my mother's labored breathing. Remembering this and those days was painful, but I didn't attempt to distract her. I knew it was important to her to finish what she had called to discuss and that she could handle the intensity of the recollected feelings.

"For Henry to stifle himself at times. Yes, do that if it was necessary. Remember when this was."

"I do. And now? You raised all of this when talking about Obama. Why so many hate him and how he reacts to that."

"He is not from Henry's generation, thank God, and he had a white mother, which made it additionally complicated for him to figure out who he is and what he wanted to be. He wrote about these things."

"In Dreams from My Father."

"So, do you think this puts more pressure on him about the right ways to behave among white people?"

"Say a little more about this."

"That what we see as his willingness to compromise, even when he may not have to, could be a problem that comes from the way he thinks about himself--I know he thinks about himself as black--and how he feels a black person should behave among white people."

"This is indeed very complicated and not easy to talk about. I think especially for white people. Even liberals. I don't expect to see this discussed on TV or written about in the newspapers.

"Like Bessie Cross taught Henry, does Obama see the need to compromise, to stifle himself as part of what is necessary for a black person to do to be successful among white people?"'

"Some would call this a race-identity issue."

"And maybe a problem."

"Maybe."

"So, they hate him because he is black--that needs to be said and exposed--but also maybe by some of his behavior as president we still see what remains of segregation and even slavery. That we have made many things better; but even when someone becomes President of the United States, someone who was elected and reelected both times by more than 50 percent, the pain remains. The wounds are still there."

"Could be," I said. "One thing I am sure about."

"What's that?"

"That hard as it is we need to talk about this."

"That would be good," my mother said. I could sense that she was exhausted and I didn't want any longer to keep her from lying down. "Even if everything I said is wrong."