Day 132 of Nat'l Emergency: Lawn Sign for Justice, Petty President, Will Trump Take a Shot

We have proudly joined the woke lawn sign brigade. Designed by Gilda, our sign displays an illustration of eight children of various ethnicities next to a Martin Luther King Jr. saying, “Injustice Anywhere Is a threat to Justice Everywhere.”

Presidential adviser and not-too-secret white supremacist Stephen Miller notwithstanding, Jews have been at the forefront of civil rights activism. We believe in the legitimacy behind the Black Lives Matter movement but have been repulsed by the open antisemitism and anti-Israel stances of some of its leaders and followers, made all the more reprehensible by the organization’s failure to call out repression and discrimination common in Arab Moslem lands. 

Our sign already has won approval from neighbors. We’re at the end of a cul de sac so the sign will get limited exposure. But it’s the sentiment that counts, not the number of eyeballs that see it.

Petty President: The pettiness, the mean-spiritness of Donald Trump continues to know no bounds as it continues to amaze. His latest denigration of the office of the president involves the removal of the official portraits of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush from a public viewing area and their placement in a non public room of the White House.

He couldn’t remove Barack Obama’s portrait because it has not been officially unveiled in deference to the longstanding animosity Trump has toward his immediate predecessor.

One has to wonder how Trump will be treated by his successor, an especially trenchant thought if it is Joe Biden in 2021 or a different Democrat in 2025. Will he be invited to ceremonial functions? Will he be shunned by the members of the exclusive Past Presidents club? 

Will foreign governments welcome him, not that he was an avid jet-setter before his election? As he was not overly complimentary to most foreign leaders while in office, his options for frequent flyer points are limited. Okay, he could visit Turkey, Russia, Brazil. And Israel. Perhaps his good buddy Kim Jong-un will invite him to a deeper visit inside North Korea. Or Xi Jinping might want to show him China’s biological warfare labs that Trump is always talking about.  

Will He Take the Shot? Should an anti COVID-19 vaccine be introduced while he is still in office, will Trump display presidential leadership by publicly taking the shot, or will he punk out and reinforce the cautionary call of the anti-vax brigade that rejects all types of inoculations? Perhaps he will claim an exemption to the injection because of a flareup of his bone spurs.

The current fight over wearing a mask to contain the pandemic’s spread will be child’s play compared to the opposition anti-vaxers will wage, especially if anyone administered the vaccine becomes infected (https://nyti.ms/2OAxMM1). 

It is truly a sad time when the health care system once touted as the best in the world has become a shell of its former prominence. 

Feds vs. States: Where does federal vs. state responsibility begin? States’ rights vs. federal authority. 

During the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has chosen to push responsibility for containment of the virus to governors, except when he sees political gain advocating opening up the economy and schools. He is trying to strongarm states to do his bidding even as case numbers and deaths rise. But his bottom line is that states, not he, are responsible for the pain the country is experiencing.

On the other hand, having clearly lost his bid to be a successful wartime general in the battle to beat COVID-19, Trump has shifted gears to be the law and order president by sending in federal troops to Portland, OR, to arrest and control Black Lives Matter and related protesters. No state or local official asked for federal troop assistance. Indeed, they have vociferously rejected their presence.

But Trump doesn’t care because this narrative fits the image he wants to project to his base and to voters who might feel threatened by the protesters. 

Be Careful Whom You Trust

Some people are trusting. Perhaps too trusting. 

Take, for example, this recent message on a residential association bulletin board: “We live on XYZ (I redacted the actual street name) and will be travelling during the last two weeks in July and need someone from July 17th through July 29th to come by once a day to feed our cat, take in the mail and water our vegetable garden.”

Hello burglars, or at least those who monitor the Internet for leads on which locations are most vulnerable to easy pickin’. I’ve often wondered why people post pictures of their extended time away from home during their trips. Couldn’t they wait until they returned to make their friends and family envious of their time in the sun or on the slopes? Those postings are open invitations to those with less than socially acceptable behavior to drop by for some extra curricular “play while the cat’s away.” 

In the above cited message, of course, the cat will be home, but it probably is not trained to protect home and hearth. Given today’s Internet-capable ability to hone in on addresses, providing the dates one will be away and the street of one’s home is pretty, oh, let’s just say, it, STUPID!

Oh, one more thing. The person in need of a daily house monitor included their name! Again, STUPID! Why not just leave a key in the front door or, better yet, leave it unlocked?

Am I being paranoid? I don’t think so. What do you think? Are people too trusting for their own good?

Speaking of trusting, Donald Trump’s just completed trip to Japan and Korea, both South and North, if you consider 20 steps inside a corrupt, repressive country a bona fide visit to Kim Jong-Un’s dictatorship, exemplified his foreign policy approach. It is all based on personal appeal. 

George W. Bush thought the same way at first, as when he initially met Vladimir Putin and said he “looked the man in the eye and found him to be straightforward and trustworthy.” Bush said he looked into Putin’s “soul” and believed he could do business with the man, so much so that he trusted him enough to invite him to his ranch. 

Yeah, Putin gave him, America and its allies the “business,” all right. 

Trump believes Putin didn’t interfere in the 2016 election and accepts his word that he will not interfere in the 2020 election. Trump’s security and intelligence chiefs tell him otherwise. He rejects their analyses. 

Trump believes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had nothing to do with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Turkey. Why, because MBS, as he is known, told him so. But U.S. and United Nations intelligence findings say he is responsible. 

Trump trusts autocrats over his own advisors. 

Trump seeks personal relationships with despots, believing, somehow, they are eager, or at least willing, to enhance the position of the United States over their own country’s interests. 

By contrast, when he has to deal with substance, such as the issue of climate change during the just concluded G-20 meeting in Japan, he is incapable of displaying mutual cooperation with our traditional allies (https://beta.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/as-g-20-reaffirms-fight-against-climate-change-trump-again-stands-apart/2019/06/29/d3d96f22-9a68-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad_story.html?outputType=amp).

Trump is a world class spinmeister. Without achieving any concrete breakthroughs, he has positioned his photo-op meetings with Kim and with China’s president Xi Jinping as building blocks to foreign affairs victories. 

Even his detractors hope he is on the road to success. But wariness abounds that he is being played and that America will wind up no closer to achieving Trump’s objectives of denuclearization of North Korea and a more even-handed trade agreement with China.

Can You Trust The NY Times? The Times is still the gold standard of reporting. But its copyediting/proofreading increasingly leaves something to be desired. As a former editor I read most things with an eye toward what might be wrong (I’m not perfect myself, but at this juncture in my journalism career I am not being paid to get everything right). 

Twice in the last few weeks I spotted the same mistake in two different articles—the printing of “though” instead of “through.” I blame whatever spell check program The Times uses and the laziness of copyeditors/proofreaders to actually read content for clarity. 

A June Op-Ed by Thomas Edsall on meritocracy contained the following sentence: “Much resentment focuses on the way in which the meritocracy is selected, though the education process, and on the winnowing effect of extensive standardized assessments that seek to measure and validate cognitive skills” (https://nyti.ms/2IC9RbK).

Did you catch the mistake? He meant “through the education process.” Hours after I read the piece The Times corrected it before I could send off a note to Edsall.

But a June 2 profile of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi and who The Times called “the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates” still contains the “though/through” mistake: “His military is the Arab world’s most potent, equipped though (should be “through”) its work with the United States to conduct high-tech surveillance and combat operations far beyond its borders” (https://nyti.ms/2EMnuE4).

I know spell check has been a godsend to many a writer. But copyeditors/proofreaders need to be more careful. They are supposed to be the last line of defense against errors. 

Winners Wanted, Not Almost Winners

Beto O’Rourke is running for president. The ex-Democratic congressman failed in his bid last November to unseat Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Sorry, Beto, but I cannot conceive of choosing a candidate for the nation’s highest office if he could not win the support of his own state. We’ve been there before. We muddled through eight years of George W. Bush because Al Gore couldn’t carry his home state of Tennessee. Sure, Beto has more charisma than Al, but I still want a winner, not a close second, as my candidate.

I learned the other day reading a Gail Collins column on Beto that he is so enraptured with the Odyssey that he named his first child Ulysses. Which made me wonder, why didn’t he name his son Odysseus, the Greek name of the heroic character of the epic poem by Homer who spends 20 years away from home, 10 fighting the Trojan War and another 10 on an action-packed journey back to his wife, the ever faithful Penelope? Why did he choose the Roman counterpart name, Ulysses? Was he already playing identity politics because he knew there are more Italian-American voters than those of Greek ancestry? Why didn’t he just call the kid Homer? That way he’d also get the Simpsons crowd behind his candidacy.

For the record, I’m also against Stacey Abrams thinking that coming in second in a tight Georgia gubernatorial race entitles her to think she is the best choice to be the Democratic presidential nominee able to send Donald Trump and his family packing from the White House. 

Ditto for Andrew Gillum, former mayor of Tallahassee and near-winner of the governorship of Florida.  

Where do these people get their hubris? Hubris is another one of those Greek words we should all pay attention to. 

Yes, as Gillum pointed out to Bill Maher last Friday night, Abraham Lincoln failed to beat Stephen Douglas in their Senate race from Illinois back in 1857, but let’s not equate Beto or Stacey or Andrew with our 16th president. 

To Impeach or Not? People who advocate for Trump’s impeachment argue he is unqualified for the job of president. They might be right, check that, they are right, but being unqualified is not an impeachable offense. 

So let’s stop using that argument. Qualified or not, Trump received sufficient votes in states with enough Electoral College votes to win the election. 

The task now is to pick a candidate who can carry states with more than 270 electoral votes. Beto, Stacey and Andrew may excite enough voters to win some primaries but could they win a general election? I’m not convinced.

How Do I Feel? My friend Mark, who will be turning 70 in a few months, asked me the other day if I felt any difference physically now that I am into my eighth decade. Not really, I replied. As a reputed hypochondriac to friends and relatives I told Mark it was all a matter of mind over matter. 

But last night as I was waiting for sleep to overwhelm my too active brain near midnight I cataloged what had transpired since my March 6th birthday:

My dentist told me I needed two replacement crowns and a filling repair. Within a week a temporary crown he installed cracked during breakfast, necessitating a frantic dash to his office;

A prolonged head cold left me with inflamed ear canals; ear drops prescribed by an ENT specialist;

And, most troubling, for the third March in four years I am experiencing back pain near my right kidney. Four years ago I suffered with a kidney stone throughout a most unpleasant flight from London. Fortunately, the pain subsided once I showed up in the emergency room of White Plains Hospital. Exactly a year later what I thought was another kidney stone turned out to be a bladder stone. That ailment required what doctor’s call a bladder blaster procedure and an overnight hookup to a catheter. I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking of that predicament. I don’t know how this new pain will be resolved but I do marvel at its timing, always slightly past the Ides of March. 

Was this ache like the mysterious hip pain that afflicted me for about 10 minutes on my 35th birthday, or could it be traced to a muscle strained Monday morning while chopping some lingering ice along the pathway to our yard? As I lay in bed in the middle of Monday night it hurt if I faced left but not if I faced right or remained on my back. By morning the pain was mostly gone, hopefully never to return, at least for another 12 months.

Some Acts of Protest and Praise

I try to shop Costco during the midday, the better to snag and snarf down one, er, many, of the sample foods offered throughout the store. During my most recent visit, Costco was giving out bite-sized samples of Nathan’s all beef hot dogs.

Hard to resist. But I did. At least for the short term I will defer any pleasure from swallowing a Nathan’s dog. It’s a form of resistance to the news earlier this month that Howard Lorber, executive chairman of Nathan’s, a real estate developer and one of Donald Trump’s closest friends, held a $3 million fundraiser in the Hamptons for the Republican National Committee attended by the Trumpster (https://dailym.ai/2vRjRrN).

I’m under no illusions or delusions that my gastronomic protest will have any impact. Nor am I suggesting starting a consumer boycott of Nathan’s. To do so would be counter to many of my edible experiences.

For example, I obsess over Chick-fil-a chicken strips. Our daughter Ellie has admonished me for patronizing a  chain that in many policies is the antithesis of my progressive beliefs. As I generally only eat at Chick-fil-a when visiting Ellie in Omaha, I mostly adhere to her restriction, when I’m not in Omaha because there are few Chick-fil-a outlets where I live (okay, so I’m not perfect). 

It would be easy to document my other hypocrisies on food and nonfood purchases. For instance, I have never bought a German car. But I use a Braun coffeemaker and electric toothbrush. Go figure.

Which translates to a short recess from my Nathan’s denial.  What can I say? I’m an imperfect extremist. 

Neil Simon died last Sunday. He was the most successful American playwright. 

One of Gilda’s and my early dates was to a Broadway production of Simon’s The Gingerbread Lady starring Maureen Stapleton. I don’t recall any of the plot—the show opened in mid December 1970 and ran for just six months, the shortest of any Simon play, though it did secure Tony and Drama Desk awards for Stapleton. 

What I do recall is that Gilda and I wore jeans to the show. My parents were aghast that we would see a Broadway show so attired. I like to think we were in the vanguard of the movement to democratize theater attendance. 

Some 25 years later, while walking down Park Avenue to Grand Central Terminal after work I spotted Simon walking towards me. He had just come out of the Waldorf Astoria hotel. I often recognize celebrities and sports figures on Manhattan streets, luminaries including Dustin Hoffman, Richard Lewis, Johnny Damon, Al Pacino. My customary reaction is to shake their hands as I express appreciation for their work, all the while careful not to draw attention to their presence among us ordinary folks. 

In retirement I miss those serendipitous moments. 

The Last Word: Since his death last Saturday, John McCain’s farewell plans have pointedly excluded Donald Trump (https://nyti.ms/2ws0w0Z). Considering how Trump treated him, one cannot really blame the Arizona senator and Vietnam war hero. 

But in publicly shunning, some would say humiliating, Trump by not only failing to invite him to any of his bereavement services but also asking former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to deliver eulogies, McCain might have missed a more visible rebuke. 

Would it not have been more of a reprobation to have Trump seated in the first pew as his two predecessors—men he has verbally criticized—praised McCain’s patriotism, heroism and commitment to bi-partisan American values? The cutting irony would not have been lost on all attendees and the millions viewing on television as cameras switched back and forth from speaker to Trump back to speaker to Trump for his reaction.

It would be reminiscent of Trump’s stern visage as he endured Obama and Seth Meyers skewer him during the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. Some pundits claim Trump immediately started planning revenge, ultimately enabled by his election in 2016. 

So maybe it wouldn’t have been a good thing to give the vengeful-hater-in-chief another reason to diss John McCain. How any veteran and prisoner of war could support Trump after the insulting manner he has displayed toward McCain is beyond my comprehension.   

John McCain, an American Hero, but a Conservative in Policy and Heart

I admired John McCain, the maverick Republican U.S. senator, former prisoner of war who endured more than five years of captivity and torture in North Vietnam and who dramatically gave a thumbs down to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell’s plan to kill Obamacare, despite his overall disapproval of the Affordable Care Act. Yes, McCain had his moments during a distinguished life and career that ended Saturday, four days shy of his 82nd birthday. He deserves to be lionized for a life lived to the fullest. 

But let’s not forget in his heart McCain was a conservative. Had he outpolled Barack Obama in 2008 the Supreme Court today would look vastly different. Absent would be Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kagan. The court’s tilt to the right would be so steep a slant that it would be decades before even a semblance of balance could be attained. The judicial packing of conservative judges on lower federal benches now underway by Trump would have been part of a sustained 16 year program started by George W. Bush and continued by McCain. 

Let’s not forget he elevated Sarah Palin to national status. She might well have been his successor as president. McCain opened the door for an inexperienced, unprepared, uninformed blowhard of a candidate to be accepted as appropriate for the most important position in the world. 

Let’s not forget he was a military hawk. Would he have engaged us in Ukraine or would Russia not have dared to take over Crimea and mettle in eastern Ukraine? Would he have pushed for involvement in the Syrian civil war? Would he have triggered a military response to North Korea’s quest for a nuclear bomb? Would he have escalated our commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan or, as a veteran of one futile war, seen the absurdity of winning any Middle Eastern conflict? 

McCain was a straight talker. He took principled positions. He understood the need for bipartisan governing. He worked with liberal senators on such issues as immigration reform and campaign finance reform. But let’s not forget: he was a conservative. Social programs to provide a safety net were not his top priority. He did not champion civil rights. 

He believed in America. Perhaps his most enduring moment came not when he defied an egotistical, mean-spirited, cold-hearted incompetent president at 2 am on the Senate floor by casting the decisive vote on Obamacare, but rather when he defended candidate Obama in 2008 as a man and woman challenged his religion and allegiance to the United States. McCain forcibly, passionately, refuted them. He disagreed with Obama’s policy ideas, but never questioned his patriotism or qualifications (https://youtu.be/jrnRU3ocIH4).

How different the tone of government would have been under McCain compared to what we have today.  But let’s not conflate McCain with compassionate Republican conservatism. All that Trump has done domestically to reduce protective regulations on business, the environment, voting rights, social services and labor safeguards would have transpired under any Republican president, including McCain. on the other hand, we probably would not be in a trade war with anyone or be hostile to our allies and friends around the world. Russia would not be favored over our intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Flattery would not be the sine qua non for foreign relations. 

John McCain was a tower of a man. He was a patriot who ably represented his state and country. These last two years he was a noble foil to the fool in the White House. With his death (and the pending retirement of senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker) reason and rational thought have departed the GOP side of the Senate (save, perhaps from Ben Sasse). We are left with no mavericks but with lemmings blindly in lockstep with a leader racing to the edge of the precipice and beyond. 

Politics and Poker Don't Mix in the Age of Trump

The monthly poker game was at my house Tuesday night. Unlike a scene in the Tony award winning musical Fiorello!, which ran for 795 performances on Broadway beginning in November 1959, we did not talk politics while cards shuffled around the table. 

In case you’re not familiar with the song “Politics and Poker,” here’s a link to the original cast rendition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APsYihdXPRE. For those not interested in musical diversion, here are the appropriate smart and jaunty chorus lyrics that encase deliberations of New York City Republican machine politicians grappling with the difficulty of finding a candidate to run for Congress in a district thought to be unwinnable): 

Politics and poker, politics and poker 

Shuffle up the cards and find the joker 

Neither game's for children; either game is rough 

Decisions, decisions, like 

Who to pick, how to play, what to bet, when to call a bluff 

Politics and poker, politics and poker 

Playing for a pot that's mediocre 

Politics and poker, running neck and neck 

If politics seems more predictable 

That's because usually you can stack the deck! 

Politics and poker, politics and poker 

Makes the average guy a heavy a smoker 

Bless the nominee and give him our regards 

And watch while he learns that in poker and politics 

Brother, you've gotta have that slippery haphazardous commodity 

You've gotta have the cards!

My poker buddies don’t smoke. We didn’t talk politics because, frankly, it’s too depressing. To my knowledge they all share my progressive leanings. 

Not that I am not friends with Trumpsters, few though they may be among my acquaintances and relatives. It’s just becoming a lot less taxing to simply avoid them or set ground rules for discussion topics.

Trump is not unique in dividing allegiances among the populace. Think back to the tenures of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. But with Trump the divide seems to be deeper, more extreme, more personal. 

Perhaps it’s a Forseter gene, but my sister Lee feels the same way. She has permitted me to share an exchange we had the other day after it became known that Trump waged a global war against breast feeding in favor of corporate America’s infant formula empire.

“The worse it gets the angrier I get at people I know that still support him,” wrote Lee.

“Or as they say, ‘we agree to disagree’. I’m about to tell them that their reckless silence or support of his behavior is so disgusting to me that I can no longer value them as friends and until they realize how hurtful he is and what a threat he is to democracy I do not wish to associate with them.

“Endorsing his hateful attacks on minorities and children and weaker nations is bigger than any friendship I feel for his supporters, regardless of how long I have known them. I feel I then become complicit in supporting him by not rejecting my friends.”  

“I informed David (her husband) that there will be no Fox News allowed in our home anymore. Certain radio stations are also banned. Emails are also off limits if they support him. Our home will be purged of all conservative venues.

  

“As for my friends, I am still confused and struggling with what to do. But the worse it gets the harder it is to remain connected to those who advocate and support him.”

When I first read those words I felt the real pain engulfing Lee, a retired early elementary school teacher in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood in Los Angeles, and still a semi-practicing psychiatric social worker. I identified with it. 

A year ago in late May I wrote about the Trump fatigue factor (“The fatigue factor is setting in. Donald Trump and his gang that couldn’t shoot straight is overwhelming me. There’s too much to write. If I miss a day the accumulated copy weighs me down.”)

I am not as depressed by Trump’s actions as I am by the reaction of too, too many of my fellow Americans. As Maureen Dowd observed in The New York Times the other day, “On the occasion of America’s 242nd birthday, we must ask who we are, if we can see accounts of infants snatched from their parents and returned covered in lice, and not worry about our country’s soul.”

Could be a timing coincidence, but I was intrigued by an article, “The Power of Positive People,” currently among the most popular on The Times Web site. Teased with the question, “Are your friendships giving you a boost or bringing you down?,” the article opines, “Friends can exert a measurable and ongoing influence on your health behaviors in a way that a diet never can,” according to Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow and author, later adding, “I argue that the most powerful thing you can do to add healthy years is to curate your immediate social network” (https://nyti.ms/2m4V7Hr).

Sounds like a no-brainer, but keeping the Trump Fatigue Effect from infecting my personal relationships could become a full-time job. Not something I would relish in my retirement.

By the way, in case you’re interested, I won $10 Tuesday night, not enough to cover the expense of hosting the game, but better than losing at poker. For the short term, at least, national politics is a lost cause.

Timing of Trump Presidency in the Balance

In life, it is said, timing is everything.

The future of Donald Trump’s presidency, it may be said, hinges on timing. If one believes the dumpster-in-chief will fire special counsel Robert Mueller, the question becomes not why, but rather, when.

If he wields the twitter ax before the November elections he would galvanize an already white hot opposition, perhaps fueling enough rage to flip the House and Senate into Democratic control. Impeachment proceedings would surely follow in the new year when the next Congress convenes.

He may, therefore, wait to dump Mueller, along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein until after the elections. But that route risks providing Mueller with more than seven full months to further his investigation of Russia’s influence and interference in the 2016 elections and the Trump family’s ties to Russia. 

Does Trump want, in his mind, to be a political piñata seemingly forever? According to CNN, Mueller has indicated he has four main topics he would like Trump to address through questioning: his “role in crafting a statement aboard Air Force One that miscast Donald Trump Jr.’s campaign June 2016 meeting with Russians in Trump Tower, the circumstances surrounding that Trump Tower meeting as well as the firings of FBI Director James Comey and national security advisor Michael Flynn” (https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/21/politics/mueller-four-main-areas-questions-trump/index.html).

Though he has repeatedly said he would welcome talking with Mueller, Trump’s propensity to fabricate and dissemble could place him in jeopardy of perjury. It is hard to imagine any intelligent lawyer permitting Trump to appear under oath before Mueller. Of course, that presumes Trump would listen to any lawyer. He believes he always knows best.

During his campaign Trump boasted he would hire the best people (considering how many firings, resignations and abuses of taxpayer money his appointments have racked up, it is startling to think anyone has any confidence in Trump’s capacity to select competent, honest people to serve in his administration). 

Trump lambasted George W. Bush for his foreign policies, particularly as they affected the war in Iraq. So one wonders how he could hire John Bolton as his new national security advisor. Bolton was a prime contributor to Bush’s foreign policy team (https://nyti.ms/2pz9SnY).

Bolton is as hawkish as they come, giving credence to speculation that Trump is surrounding himself with voices that prefer to counsel combat versus conflict resolution, be it with Iran, North Korea or any other trouble spot. 

Timing, again, comes into play. Trump wanted a tougher team behind him, with Bolton and secretary of state nominee Michael Pompeo, rather than General H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson, as he prepares to meet with North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un and reaches a decision on staying in or abrogating the Iran nuclear deal. 

In the context of what is good for the country or what is good for Trump, he might favor hostilities as history has shown that at least at the beginning of combat the public rallies around a president. 

In the end, however, a sufficient number of voters will come to their senses. As long as the Democrats do not choose an unelectable alternative, Trump’s tenure in office is just a matter of time ticking off until January 2020, or sooner. 

Catching Up On the News: Playing Trump, English Corn, Christmas Lights, Mall Stores

Not sure how many of you read the business pages of your newspaper but there’s a lesson to be gleaned from an article in Tuesday’s New York Times Business Day section: It pays to look beyond the public announcements and hoopla for the real reason why companies take action and the resulting impact.

Case in point, according to The Times, is the intriguing reason Broadcom, a semiconductor maker, announced last month it would move its headquarters from Singapore back to the United States. Donald Trump hailed it as another example of his ability to lure companies to return to America, thereby increasing domestic jobs. 

But after looking behind the PR wall, The Times reported Broadcom’s real reason for the move was to remove an obstacle it might have faced as a foreign-based company in its hostile pursuit of Qualcomm, a major chip manufacturer. Moreover, if the takeover were successful, it would be likely that the net U.S. employment level of the combined companies would be lower than current figures by perhaps as many as 5,400 workers. 

One wonders if Trump has any idea of how he is being played by savvier business executives. https://nyti.ms/2l2GnLT

Ears of Corn: As a former editor I like nothing more than finding inconsistencies (okay, mistakes) in texts or film/TV show dialogues. So I immediately stopped my viewing of the first episode of the new season of Vikings when I heard Bishop Heahmund of England pray for vengeance against the invading Norsemen that included “slaughter them in battle, cut them down like ears of corn at harvest.” 

That last sentiment would have been a neat feat considering that the time period portrayed in the show was the fourth decade of the ninth century—corn was not known in Europe until after the New World was discovered more than 650 years later!

Christmas lights:  Does anyone else see the irony of the inept New York City Times Square subway bomber using Christmas lights to detonate his pipe bomb? 

You would think a devout Muslim would not risk the success of his venture on infidel-inspired holiday lights. Or perhaps he was hoping the lights would be a reversal of the peace on earth message extolled by Christmas. 

At any rate, one would think a lesson learned is not to trust the quality of Made in China products.

Souie: When I read Trump’s tweet about Senator Kirsten Gillibrand I immediately thought, “What a pig Trump is.” 

In case you didn’t see it, you might appreciate the response from USA Today which begins with the following statement:

“A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.” Click on the link for the full editorial: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/trump-lows-ever-hit-rock-bottom-editorials-debates/945947001/

Mall Stores Ban Moore: Among comments to The Times article on the selection of Democrat Doug Jones over Republican Roy Moore as Alabama’s U.S. Senate replacement for Jeff Sessions was one Gilda noted for me from nilootero: “Evidently, black lives, and black votes, really do matter.”

In voting for Jones, Alabamans rejected his opponent whose resume includes the fact he was banned from a mall. Take a moment to view Seth Meyers’ mall store sendup of Moore’s failed candidacy (it begins around 46 seconds into the accompanying clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzrYPuOYvYQ&list=PLR_ww2xUWgajGdik4ES4oQRRgmQAEXPnu&index=7

Economy, Not #MeToo, Will Decide 2018 & 2020

As much as it pains and disgusts me to acknowledge it, the elections of 2018 and 2020 will not be tipped by the revulsion to sexual predators generated by the #MeToo movement. To be sure, the reaction to sexual harassment will introduce the electorate to more female candidates, but their success will largely depend on the state of the economy of the individual household rather than on the abstract level of the stock market or the unemployment rate, the latter superceded by the growth, decline or stagnation in real wages, the former being mostly a measure important to those lucky enough to have a retirement fund linked to Wall Street investments.

As I write this, it is less than 24 hours from the verdict Alabama voters will provide on whether their state has the backward values ascribed to them by Eastern and Western establishment liberals by voting in an alleged pedophile as their next junior U.S. senator, or if they will provide a solid rebuke to an administration and Republican Party that has abandoned principle in favor of grabbing power for power’s sake. 

Donald Trump is taking a victory lap for the state of the economy during his first year in office. Too bad he is dissembling and claiming credit for a recovering economy Barack Obama set in motion.

It is generally recognized that the economy during the first year of a new presidency is reflective of the prior administration’s handling of fiscal matters. Obama, for example, had to deal with the recession he inherited from George W. Bush. Unemployment kept rising during his first year as president. But the last seven years of his presidency saw economic growth, which has continued into the first year of Trump.

Trump can aptly claim a reduced regulatory environment as his cabinet and agency heads dismantle protections. Wall Street, which cares not about the long term impact of fewer immigrants to fuel farms, manufacturing and high-tech industries, and is indifferent to lower environmental and worker protections, is at an all-time high. 

But the true test of Trump’s reforms will come later, as most voters will find their taxes are not lower, especially compared to the whopping reductions the super rich will receive. Their real income will not go up, as business leaders will not flow their companies’ reduced taxes into higher wages. And industries Trump said would rebound, such as coal and construction, will not bounce back. 

The other day the Associated Press fact-checked Trump’s claims during a stump speech in Florida. His dissembling is historic. https://apnews.com/4431ee4931ed40cea9e44b7a9deecb03

The ironic thing is that Trump blasts the media when mistakes are made. He is right to demand accuracy. But he wants reporters who make mistakes to be fired. Imagine if he abided by his own standard. 

Over and Over, Trump Reuses Catch Phrase "Like the World Has Never Seen Before"

They’re not the same vibes—unless, of course, you happen to live in Seoul or Guam or Hawaii—as back in October 1962 when the world thought it might be coming to an end as Russia and the United States eyeballed the brink of mutually assured destruction over missiles based in Cuba, but the tension everywhere is still palpable as our unpredictable, unrestrained mad-libber-in-chief practices schoolyard diplomacy with  an equally juvenile despot longing for recognition as a world leader.

Donald Trump’s “fire and fury” ad-lib response to North Korea’s nuclear threat was widely reported. But it took Stephen Colbert Wednesday night to put Trump’s coda “like the world has never seen before” in context. He aired clips of the Trumpster using the same tagline at least four times before, when speaking about his political movement (12/8/16), unleashing an energy revolution (8/8/16), economic deals (8/27/17) and airports he’s landed in (3/29/16). https://youtu.be/xzdaSklrg6w?list=PLiZxWe0ejyv8l1W8d5rKFdHYSYIqkpf7b.

Trump doesn’t mangle the English language as, say, George W. Bush sometimes did. Yet, despite telling us he has the best vocabulary, he constantly repeats words, such as “sad,” “amazing,” “beautiful,” making it understandable that he would repeat a catch phrase “like the world has never seen before” whenever he wants to add emphasis to his hyperbolic pronouncements. In so doing, however, he waters down the impact. So sad!

Choosing the Right Title for Trump, Truth Be Told

The children’s ditty that only “sticks and stones can break your bones but words or names can never harm you” has been upended or, in Trumpian terms, disrupted, by the petulant responses The Donald has to any negative commentary on his physique or reign of terror.

Which leads me to the statement, I can’t do it anymore.  I can’t call him president. Or 45, as some scribes have used when pointing out his rank in presidential succession. Nor is he entitled to be called commander-in-chief. He has failed to earn the respect that traditionally accrues to the occupant of the White House.

Rather, aside from using his name, Donald Trump, or just plain Trump, or Trumpster, or the aforementioned The Donald, to the best of my abilities I am no longer going to confer on him the legitimacy of calling him president. Instead, I will refer to him by any number of sobriquets that through words and deeds he has earned the right to be called, including:

Dissembler-in-Chief

Liar-in-Chief

Fabricator-in-Chief

Reneger-in-Chief

Spender-in-Chief

Groper-in-Chief

Golfer-in-Chief

Disrupter-in-Chief

Con-Man-in-Chief

Demeaner-in-Chief

Conflict-of-Interest-in-Chief

Exaggerator-in-Chief

Huckster-in-Chief

Groper-in-Chief

Putin-Puppet-in-Chief

Whiner-in-Chief

Cyberbully-in-Chief

Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief

Peeping-Tom-in-Chief

Voyeur-in-Chief

Truth Squad: It is not enough for the media to point out, after the fact, the fabricator-in-chief’s misrepresentations. Corrections must be done in real time as Peter Alexander of NBC News did during the 77 minute press tirade a little more than a week ago when the dissembler-in-chief falsely stated his Electoral College victory was the biggest since Ronald Reagan.

So the question is, will Democrats arraigned before the huckster-in-chief during a joint session of Congress Tuesday night sit idly as he misleads the American public or will they shout out “Not true” when the Trumpster tramples on the truth?

You may recall Republican Congressman Joe Wilson shouted “You lie” when President Barack Obama addressed Congress on his then-proposed health care plan. Wilson later apologized for the breach of decorum and was widely criticized by members of both parties.

Democrats especially said they never treated George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan with such disrespect. But these are extraordinary times. We have a president who not only flirts with untruths but does so repeatedly even after the truth has been pointed out. We have a president who demeans other elected officials, war heroes, allies, immigrants, other nations and their citizens,  indeed anyone who does not see the world through his gold-tinted glasses. He has diminished the office of the presidency and the reputation of the United States. Perhaps a taste of how the British prime minister must stand before the House of Commons each week for 30 minutes and respond to the vocal challenges of the opposition party would bring some humility and context to the cyberbully-in-chief. 

Absent that quaint parliamentary custom the American alternative of an after-presidential-address-address is insufficient to convey and correct the damage to the truth a big con man like Trump can foist on a naive and uninformed public.

Will they do it? Will Democratic senators and representatives rise to the status of the vocal opposition even at the risk of being censured by their respective houses of Congress?

Probably not. Pity. They would have forgotten how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell muzzled Senator Elizabeth Warren a few weeks ago as she read a letter by civil rights icon Coretta Scott King. They would have forgotten how McConnell would not allow the Senate to consider Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court. They would have forgotten how House Republicans over and over again investigated Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi tragedy and her email server, yet have shown no inclination to probe Putin-puppet-in chief’s ties to Russia, his conflicts of interest and Russian interference with our elections. They have forgotten how the Tea Party disrupted their town hall meetings six and seven years ago but now that the GOP is in the majority Republicans are avoiding standing before their constituents at town hall meetings.

The time for staid, polite adherence to the norm is long past. Politics is a blood sport; it is time for Democrats to inflict some pain, even if it means interrupting a speech to set the record straight. The truth demands it.

Republicans at the Barricades? Given the minority status of Democrats in Congress, at least for the next two years, conventional wisdom is that any hope to limit the excesses of the Trump administration rests on the precarious shoulders and patriotism of Republican members of the House and Senate.

Early indications are we are witnessing a hunchbacked GOP that is more than willing to ditch its patriotic duty in exchange for electoral dominance.

There are exceptions, at least in verbal stances, though the real test in voting one’s conscience has been lacking. Only Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska broke ranks and rejected Betsy DeVos as secretary of education despite her obvious lack of qualifications for the position. 

 DeVos, in turn, argued against Attorney General Jeff Sessions who wanted to rescind the Obama rule allowing transgender students to use the school bathroom of their choice. But when confronted with the reneger-in-chief’s backing of Sessions despite his campaign pledge to support the LGBTQ community, DeVos knuckled under rather than take the admirable path and resign. So much for standing up for principle.

Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina have been caustic in their evaluation of Trump actions. But they have yet to cast decisive votes against him. 

The bottom line is the public should not count on Republicans to counter any Trump initiative no matter how shameful it is, how obvious a conflict of interest it may be or how any nominee might lack the experience or credentials to effectively manage the people’s interests. 

Can We Talk? Some people criticize Trump for his inarticulate, incomprehensible English, as if that should automatically disqualify him from office. 

Yes, all my educated friends, listening to Trump is an assault on our ears and brains. But let’s not forget we live in a bubble of intelligence. I’ve met many real estate developers during my publishing career. Some of the most successful could barely string a proper sentence together. 

And let’s also not forget that George W. Bush was equally challenged compared to Bill Clinton’s verbal facility, yet he sat in the Oval Office for eight years. So buckle up. The ride will be bumpy. 

Oy! A Common Refrain In the Age of Trump

Oy.

Oy vey.

Oy-yoy-yoy. 

Oy—a Yiddish exclamation of chagrin, dismay, exasperation or pain.

It looks like it will be worse than expected. It looks like Donald Trump will systematically destroy the foundations of our country while a vast majority of the Republican Party shows itself to be a spineless entity only interested in staying in office with no regard for truth, justice and the tenets of their sainted Ronald Reagan.

Oy vey—Yiddish for “Oh, how terrible things are.”

Let’s start with some basic agreements. First ISIS and al Queda are terrorist organizations. They can attack us and kill scores at a time but they are not existential threats to America, at least not in a physical sense. They do no more physical damage than Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., or Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.

The danger from Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in San Bernadino, Calif., or a Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas, is that we will overreact and start to dismantle constitutional protections. We should fear the loss of liberties we all take for granted.

We are in no danger of sharia law overtaking our judicial system.

Second thing to agree on, existential threats may come from governments with the power to undermine our democracy, our safety and our economic system. Those threats can come from two countries—Russia and China.

Or they may come from within, from politicians who issue falsehoods while denying the truth, who divide to conquer, who fail to see real existential threats while promoting false ones, who undermine belief in our country’s principles and institutions by substituting their own misguided values and by not sharply rebuking and disavowing the bigoted rants of fringe groups, thereby giving them undeserved legitimacy.

OY-YOY-YOY: Yiddish for an exclamation of sorrow and lamentation.

It is widely believed by intelligence experts inside and outside our government that Russia tried to influence our recent election by hacking into Democratic Party and officials’ computers.

Donald Trump doesn’t believe that. But then Donald Trump believes it is okay to retweet falsehoods as legitimate news. So does his choice to be national security advisor, retired general Mike Flynn. So does his choice to be chief strategist, Stephen Bannon.

But as troubling as those individuals are with their careless and carefree regard for the truth it pales in comparison to the hundreds, if not thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Republican politicians and voters who are not protesting their insanity.

Now that the election is over, GOP senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, especially the former, now seem ready to fight for the integrity of the government rather than for the in-the-moment-victory of a Republican presidential candidate no matter how flawed he might be or how crass his behavior toward them was during the last 18 months. 

Under the existing rules of our electoral system, Trump won the election, though not a mandate, as he claims, as close to three million more voters opted for someone besides him to lead America. He won the Electoral College vote, but that shouldn’t mean all truth and logic gets dissolved in his acidic view of reality. The optimal word in that last sentence is “shouldn’t.” 

Oy.

Trump is creating an alternative universe where intelligence does not exist if it doesn’t match his gut instincts and his desire to make a buck. He has mastered the art of the sham and the public diss. How exquisitely perverse was his dangling interest in Al Gore’s explanation of climate change and environmental vigilance only to rebuff it quickly by nominating an Environmental Protection Agency chief who rejects it all and has no appreciation of the link between fracking and the thousands of earthquakes that have shook his home state of Oklahoma.

Cabinet departments were established to further the benefits of their disciplines and constituencies. Yet Trump has chosen a labor secretary who doesn’t believe in a minimum wage and who is anti-union. Trump has chosen a housing secretary with no prior experience in public housing other than the fabrication (by others) that he grew up in public housing rather than near it. He’s chosen as United Nations ambassador someone with no foreign relations experience. During the campaign Trump blasted Hillary Clinton for being close to Goldman Sachs, yet he picked three current or former Goldman Sachs bankers as teammates (Steve Mnuchin as Treasury secretary, Bannon and Gary Cohn, the current Goldman president, as director of the National Economic Council).

The Bill of Rights was adopted to protect and enshrine freedom of speech, religion and assembly. Yet Trump disparages—bullies, actually—those who make fun of him, those who burn the flag as a protest, those who adhere to Islam, those who assemble peacefully. 

Republican values are being torn down by Trump. From Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon such values included stewardship of the land and natural resources. Yet Trump surrounds himself with fossil fuel advocates and climate change deniers even as the oceans rise, the polar cap melts, residents of cities like Beijing and New Delhi choke under pollution from coal and fossil fuel exhausts. Do we really want to return to the days of smog in Los Angeles when children, seniors and those with respiratory ailments were advised to stay indoors? Is that how Trump will make America great again? 

Abraham Lincoln is revered for fighting for racial equality. Yet Trump and his minions want to roll back laws that have advanced voting rights of minorities. 

Reagan was the consummate anti-Russian. Yet Trump rejects such Republican orthodoxy. He sees Russia only through the eyes of an entrepreneur, as a market to exploit, failing to see how Vladimir Putin has aggressively sought to undermine Western values and democracies. 

Trump lacks a world view commensurate with the responsibilities of the commander-in-chief of the most powerful nation on earth. There is one silver lining in his leadership. He is a teetotaler, so there’s no danger of his being drunk and ordering some dangerous military adventure as Nixon’s top staff worried in the days before his resignation. Of course, our last experience with a non drinker would not instill such confidence. Abstainer-in-chief George W. Bush got us into two wars in the Mideast in which we are still engaged. 

Trump also poses a downside risk—he says he gets just four hours of sleep a night. Last week AAA said driving on four hours’ sleep is as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. Driving on 4-5 hours’ sleep increases the chance of an accident by 400%. Less than four hours increases the crash risk by 12 times.

Teenagers, older adults and those who have sleep debt are among the group with the most risk of an accident, according to AAA.

So how comfortable should we feel about the decision making skills of a 70-year-old future president who boasts he gets just four hours sleep a night?

Oy vey!

The Re-Selling of a Would-Be President

Donald Trump generally has nothing good to say about George W. Bush, but his campaign has adopted an important strategy that helped propel W. into the White House. Just as Bush, rather than Al Gore, became the guy you wanted to sit down and have a beer with, Trump is recasting himself as an everyman who, despite his alleged billions of dollars of net worth, is a typical American who chows down KFC and McDonald’s like everyone else, who lets Jimmy Fallon muss up his hair, who seeks the comfort and approval of Dr. Oz to “reveal” his medical history. No doubt next we will be treated to seeing him read The Pet Goat to schoolchildren (as Bush was doing when informed of the 9/11 terror attacks).

He’s remaking himself into a lovable, huggable Teddy bear. 

The birther controversy? 

Who me? It was Hillary and her campaign back in 2008 that started it, he’s saying now, an allegation deemed false by independent fact checkers. 

(http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/16/donald-trump/fact-checking-donald-trumps-claim-hillary-clinton-/ 

and http://theweek.com/speedreads/649186/no-hillary-clinton-did-not-start-birther-movement)

Trump is taking credit for ending any doubts Barack Obama was born in the United States. Though he reluctantly admitted the truth Friday morning, the damage from his five year campaign to delegitimize the president remains. 

According to Public Policy Polling, 59% of those who said they viewed Trump favorably think Obama was not born in the United States. In addition, two-thirds of such voters believe Obama is a Muslim (http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/poll-two-thirds-trump-supporters-think-obama-muslim#sthash.5sMlFugI.dpuf).

Trump is also refashioning his campaign positions to make them more appealing to non core constituency voters. He has, for example, appeared to soften on mass expulsion of all illegal immigrants the moment he gets sworn into office as well as proposing paid maternal child care. 

Of course, when you’re running for president, unlike when you’re engaged in a primary contest and must cater to hard core party voters, it is standard procedure to promise the world. Only a naive voter would expect all campaign promises to be kept.

But there is one way to measure the probability of some promise fulfillment. If a president comes into office with his or her party in the majority in the House and Senate there’s a good chance at least some of those promises will become law. That’s how the Affordable Care Act came into being, though it did not have all the features Obama had promised.

Hillary Clinton will need huuuge coattails to flip Congress Democratic in November. Her prospects of signing legislation for anything on her wish list are dim. She will be confined to be the resister-in-chief, pushing back against repeated attempts by a GOP Congress to roll back progressive legislation or executive actions of the past eight years. (She’ll also have to combat right wing determination to impeach her.)

Trump, on the other hand, may work with a GOP Congress to reverse much of what has been put in place, including Obamacare.

But the softer side of Trump may be more problematic for a President Trump. As currently constituted Congress has few Republicans who would go along with such progressive legislation. They would see paid maternity leave and other social welfare benefits as Trump-the-businessman has—as burdens on corporate profits.

Thus Trump would preside over a regressive administration, backed up, no doubt, by a more conservative bent on the Supreme Court and lower federal panels once he starts appointing judges.

To get to that pinnacle of ratings status—the presidency, or said another way, the entertainer-in-chief—Trump is trotting out all the theatrics he can. His supporters are rabid fans who care little about truth and integrity. They’ve been so conditioned by all the so-called “reality TV” shows.

So there’s nothing unexpected in recent polls that show Trumpsters more enthusiastic for their candidate than are Hillary’s supporters. It’s human nature for more people to complain than to compliment. 

Nonetheless, Clinton’s campaign must rev up the excitement quotient and, more importantly, the fear factor. Every day it must be pointed out what is at stake, not just for the Oval Office but also in Congress. 

Specifically, but not exclusively, at stake are:

• the prestige and standing of the United States as first among nations
• the balance of the Supreme Court as a progressive bulwark
• reform to Obamacare that does not strip it of meaningful affordable healthcare for all
• funding for Planned Parenthood
• a woman’s right to choose
• minimum wage increases
• safeguards against employment discrimination
• safeguards against food and drug abuses
• safeguards to worker safety 
• environmental protection including an acknowledgment that climate change is real
• business oversight legislation
• voting rights enforcement 
• the continued belief in National Parks 
• Wall Street oversight
• a thoughtful, reasoned foreign policy

In Search of Edward R. Murrow and the Truth

When it comes to correcting the record of candidate misstatements and outright lies during presidential debates, journalists are treating the public to a debate among their peers about their proper role in calling out untruths. 

Call it the Candy Crowley Conundrum. You may recall Crowley, CNN’s chief political correspondent, corrected Mitt Romney in 2012 after he said during a debate that President Obama had not initially declared the attack on the consulate in Benghazi “an act of terror.” Obama, backed up by Crowley, said he had. Crowley came under intense criticism from Republicans for inserting herself into the dialogue (http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/18/politics/fact-check-crowley-critics-debate/index.html).

Four years later, Chris Wallace of Fox News, chosen to moderate the third and last presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, has said he doesn’t believe it’s the job of a moderator to fact-check the candidates in real time. Like most liberal media folk, I don’t agree, but I can understand Wallace’s position of opting to let the candidates duke it out. After all, it makes for entertaining, unexpected, live television, good ratings, and Fox News itself has a history of shading reality, so why not see if Clinton has the cohones to stand up to Trump for a job that will require her to match muscles with the likes of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. 

In truth, it is not Candy Crowley TV journalists should be daring to channel. They should be aspiring to follow the example of Edward R. Murrow. On March 9, 1954, Murrow devoted his entire CBS show, See It Now, to exposing the lies, deceptions, innuendos and evil spewed by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis). 

“Using McCarthy’s own statements, Murrow painted a picture of a man whose recklessness with the truth and ugly attacks on his critics had contributed to a climate of deep fear and repression in American life,” wrote Jack Mirkinson, senior media editor, The Huffington Post, back in 2014 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/10/edward-murrow-joseph-mccarthy-60-years-later_n_4936308.html).

Sound familiar? 

Fourteen years later, another CBS legend, Walter Cronkite, ended a 1968 special report on the Vietnam War with editorial comments that clearly portrayed the futility of American involvement in the conflict. Afterwards, President Lyndon Baines Johnson was reported to have said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite I’ve lost Middle America.”

Murrow and Cronkite understood the power of their position, the power of their words on the public. Today’s television audience is more fragmented than during their heyday, but the devotion to journalistic principles and enterprise should not be diminished (though executives in the suites of the major networks might fear financial repercussions if correspondents or anchors today acted so boldly as to challenge the veracity of candidates. After all, look what happened to Dan Rather in 2004 when he questioned President George W. Bush about his military service in the Air National Guard—he lost his job at CBS.)

Matt Lauer’s performance as moderator of Wednesday’s forum on national security on NBC revealed how a democracy is poorly served by a journalist who allows a candidate to blatantly falsify the record. It’s one thing for a candidate to mislead when delivering a staged stump speech. It’s wrong, but understandable, and the damage usually is confined to a few thousand or so within earshot. But letting a candidate lie in front of millions of viewers is quite a different story. 

In a democracy, politicians and journalists are engaged in an adversarial relationship (the same is true of the relationship between journalists and business executives, the military, the healthcare profession, indeed all walks of life in a free society). It is not enough to just air or print a politician’s daily screed. Truth serves the American public.

Progressive print journalists have been spilling ink by the barrelful in their condemnation of Trump’s lies, by the man who promised he would always tell the truth and who planted the label of “lyin’ Ted Cruz” on one of his Republican opponents and who now calls his Democratic foe “lying Hillary” (http://nyti.ms/2bYlDzv).

But let’s face it: Unless a major television network, with reach vastly beyond that of the print media, sees its role as a defender of freedom and responsible journalism, unless a major network chooses to channel the likes of Murrow, Cronkite and Crowley, and even Rather, we as a nation have to accept the loss of truth in our political process.