* “Can we call that treason?”
You know the (unapplauding-Democrats) context. That would have been inappropriate for Barack Obama to have said–and he had an opposition party member yell at him during one of his SOTU speeches. But this is the new pathological normal.
* We can see why Vice President Mike Pence was not favored to win any diplomatic medals in Pyeongchang.
* So Donald Trump doubles down on his reputation for loving the military more than any other American in the history of bone-spurred, draft deferments. He wants a big, show-off-the-military and-its-commander-in-chief parade, one that will cost in excess of $20 million. A lot of folks, including many in the military, are not in step, so to speak, with Trump’s parade idea. They know the Pentagon is plagued with budget–as well as readiness–issues. For this president, a military parade is more a forum for macho exhibitionism–than a show of American pride and commitment.
But there are prominent people outside the Trump Administration who do get it. Alas, they’re in Russia and North Korea.
* The resignation of key White House aide Rob Porter has added more chaotic diversion to a White House that can’t stay on its chest-pounding, football-spiking tax-cut message. But maybe it has a point on the Porter case. Maybe this really is just another classic “he said/she said/she said/ black eye said” case. Or to paraphrase the late Richard Pryor, “Who do you believe? The FBI or your pathologically lying president?”
* “Is there no such thing as due process? There is no recovery for someone falsely accused–life and career are gone.” This, of course, was Trump’s knee-jerk take on the Porter accusations of abuse by two ex wives. It was also disingenuous–for someone who once advocated “Lock her up” as a due-process alternative. Trump, to be sure, knows better than most that there can be quite the life after sexual assaults and expensive settlements.
* No you can’t make this up. So who does Porter date in the wake of revelations about two ex-wives having accused him of spousal abuse? Trump advisor Hope Hicks.
* Stuff is always said in the heat of primary pandering. But the 2016 Republican presidential primary had some brutal gems. And it wasn’t, as we well know, all gotcha rhetoric. Stuff continues to resonate, as we’ve been witnessing. Recall how Ted Cruz characterized Trump during the Indiana primary. He called him a “pathological liar, utterly amoral, a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen and a serial philanderer.” Imagine if Cruz had stooped to cheap-shot hyperbole.