* One obvious upshot of the formal opening of the American embassy in JerUSAlem: The peace process is comatose.
* When it comes to North Korea, we should still be willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt. Granted, timing is, of course, critically important, and the North Koreans had been gaming the world for a couple of generations until it had nuclear leverage. It’s there now under Kim Jong-un. It also has an open-minded partner in South Korean president Moon Jae-in. And it has, of course, an American president who would love to flaunt that the “Art of the Deal” also applies on the nuclear stage.
But it can’t be discounted that the very nature of Trump–a scary, impulsively unpredictable, threatening bully–has had an impact, however ironic, that could conceivably help. I liken it to a cartoon that was around during the Cold War, nuclear standoff between the U.S and the U.S.S.R. It was a riff on popular teen movies that featured two punks playing “chicken” in their cars. They would head directly at each other until one “chickened out” and turned away to avoid certain fatality. Think early James Dean. Think latter day Kim and Trump.
Well, the cartoon showed one of the drivers getting into his car with a well-noted bottle of booze next to him. It sent an alarmingly existential message to his rival: “I can’t be trusted. I may be drunk. You think I’ll be the one to turn off and avoid a nuclear showdown?”
I never thought that would still be resonating.