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. 

From Worst Cabinet Secretaries to Monuments Supporting Upholders of Slavery

Did you see results of the unscientific poll as to whom is the worst member of Donald Trump’s cabinet?

As reported by Gail Collins in The New York Times last week, the “winner” was Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos (https://nyti.ms/2sTmSr3). 

I disagree. For me, it is a three-way tie.  

Cabinet picks are both political and enabling choices. A president selects people who supported his election and who are willing to carry out his agenda, especially if it parallels their own. 

So Betsy DeVos was a perfect choice by Trump as secretary of education. However, she is not his worst pick as she is doing exactly what she has always professed to believe. As is Scott Pruitt at EPA. 

The winners, yes winners, for worst cabinet members are Rex Tillerson at State, James Mattis at Defense and Jeff Sessions as attorney general, the first two because they have subjugated the best interests of the United States to their loyalty to an incompetent leader set on a course of destroying the credibility and standing of America throughout the world, and the third for not realizing his obligation is to be the chief legal officer of the country and defender of the Constitution and not to be the servant of a president with little or no allegiance to rights won through years of sacrifice both at home and abroad.

Tillerson, Mattis and Sessions are the true enablers of the Trump presidency. 

Trumped by Spellchecker: Having railed against spelling mistakes generated by an over-reliance on Spellchecker and a lack of proofreading context, I was hoisted on my own petard the other day. 

Spellchecker didn’t catch that I misspelled “countermand” when stating nobody is able to overrule a president’s nuclear strike order. I had written “counterman,” not countermand. 

No one advised me of my mistake except my brother who wrote, “As they say in the old country, please don’t countermand the counterman. He knows what you want to eat.”  

For me at the deli it’s usually a tongue sandwich on seeded rye with a side of cole slaw and french fries or potato knish. Washed down with either a Diet Coke or diet Dr. Brown’s black cherry soda. 

Right now I’m eating crow.

Spellchecker isn’t the only application that’s done me wrong lately. My British friend Dave Banks sent me a note, meaning to end it with a “Thanks, Mur.” When I received the email it read, “Thanks, Murban.” 

Asked, “Where the heck did Murban come from?,” Dave replied, 

“Mur!

“I wrote MUR!

“I hate predictive text!!!”

So do I.

In case you’re wondering, murban is a term for a man’s turban (http://www.refinery29.com/is-the-male-turban-becoming-a-fashion-trend?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email_share). Or it could refer to the Murban Bab Oil Field 84 kilometers northwest of Abu Dhabi Islands. 

Frosted Glasses: Another one of my early adulthood touchstones has disappeared. 

The last Lum’s restaurant, a freestanding unit in Bellevue Nebraska, outside Omaha, closed May 28 (if you’re wondering how I found out about the closing, Gilda read an article in the Omaha World-Herald. She reads it every day. It’s her way of staying current with what’s going on where Ellie, Donny and CJ live. Here’s the article that Gilda uncovered in The World-Herald: http://www.omaha.com/news/goodnews/man-who-dined-and-dashed-years-ago-sends-to-last/article_f454a6b6-55fc-11e7-821d-df15ec7c719a.html. It’s an interesting story about paying back a long-term debt.). 

It was in a Lum’s on Route 5 in Dewitt, east of Syracuse, NY, in 1971-72 that I learned to love beer served in a frosted goblet. I would go there with Steve Kreinberg, a fellow graduate student at the Newhouse School of Public Communications of Syracuse University. 

Lum’s was a chain of family restaurants whose signature dish was hot dogs cooked in beer. I preferred their basket of fried shrimp dipped in cocktail sauce, but what made a visit to Lum’s special was the frosted mugs used to serve the beer. To commemorate those days I keep a few tall glasses frosting away in the freezer. Here’s more on the history of Lum’s: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/rocroots/2016/11/05/whatever-happened-lums/93327386/

Monuments to an Infamous Past: During the Civil War, 11 states seceded from the Union to form the Confederacy in defense of slavery. The South has many monuments to “the cause.” Richmond, VA, is the latest city considering removing Civil War monuments from positions of prominence.

Sounds reassuring. So how do you explain that, according to USA Today, there are between “700 and possibly more than 1,000 Confederate monuments in 31 states—in public parks, courthouse squares and state capitols”?

Many, said USA Today, “were created by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which was advancing the spurious idea that the South left the Union and fought the Civil War over states’ rights, not slavery.” (http://amp.usatoday.com/story/101870418/)

Those 20 non Confederate locations include Union states, such as “Massachusetts, Iowa and Pennsylvania and states that in 1861 were mere territories, such as Montana, Arizona and Oklahoma.”

North Carolina, once considered a template for a New South of tolerance and equality, has added 35 monuments since 2000, according to a University of North Carolina survey, USA Today reported. 

We have a long way to go as a country when we still venerate soldiers who fought to keep fellow human beings as slaves. 

Bombs Away: Actions Have Consequences

I cannot denounce Donald Trump’s decision to punish Syrian president Bashar al-Assad for his alleged chemical weapons attack on rebels and civilians earlier this week.

In truth, ever since Assad ruthlessly bombarded rebels and residents of Homs and Aleppo several years ago I was in favor of targeted military strikes to educate Assad that actions, particularly inhumane actions, have consequences. I wanted President Obama to issue a warning, and follow through on it, that he would systematically destroy Assad’s palaces, government buildings, and state infrastructure after any attack on civilians. But Obama didn’t, and one consequence of his inaction was the mass flight of millions of Syrians who felt insecure in their homeland, an exodus that has had significant international repercussions.

I am not ordinarily a war monger but I do believe a civilized country like ours has a responsibility to defend and protect the innocent against heartless slaughter or natural disaster, wherever they live. We did so in Bosnia. We did not during the Rwandan civil war. We are failing to do so in the humanitarian crisis of famine in East Africa.

We are not the policeman of the world. But we are the richest and mightiest nation. And the freest. We have some obligations to the rest of humanity.

Donald Trump will discover his actions, his words and those of his administration, have consequences, as well. Assad, it is reasoned, felt empowered to drop chemicals on Khan Shaykhun after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated his removal from office no longer was U.S. policy. Now it may be.

Beyond Syria the military response has implications for our relations with Iran and North Korea. Trump has more than hinted he would unleash American forces to deny both countries the ability to develop nuclear weapons. Will their leaders be more circumspect now that they’ve seen Trump’s trigger finger is primed for action?

Presidents who successfully flex their muscles are apt to do so with impunity until catastrophe reins them in. Trump has all the leadership characteristics of a strong man who demands to get his way. He thinks in the moment. He is impulsive. Long term analysis is not one of his strong points. Nor is adherence to prior statements. Back in 2013 Trump tweeted against military action in Syria, especially without prior congressional approval.

Obama was more strategic in thinking so he deferred military intervention in Syria, North Korea and Iran.

By striking Syria, Trump may have set the United States on a new course of action with as yet unknown consequences.