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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2017 at 12:30 am
Since the late 1940s, Republicans have hurled the charge of “appeasement” at every Democratic President
Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson found themselves accused of “selling out” to the Soviet Union. The motive for this was usually attributed to cowardice—if not outright treason. It didn’t matter to Republicans that:
- Truman began the policy of “containing” the Soviet Union within its World War II borders;
- Kennedy faced down the Russians during the Cuban Missile Crisis; and
- Johnson waged a bloody, budget-busting war against Soviet proxies in Vietnam.
Most recently, it became the turn of President Barack Obama.
On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 MH 17/MAS17 took off from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
But as the flight–and its 283 passengers and 15 crew—cruised above Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists shot it down. A Buk surface-to-air missile slammed into the aircraft, almost instantly killing everyone on board.
President Barack Obama
“The President is afraid of provoking [Russian President] Vladimir Putin,” United States Senator John McCain told Reuters. “Vladimir Putin is on the move because he has paid no price for his aggression.”
And Texas United State Senator Ted Cruz said: “Putin fears no retribution. [Obama’s] policy has been to alienate and abandon our friends, and to coddle and appease our enemies.”
But now the United States has a Republican President who has cozied up to Putin since he entered the 2016 Presidential race.
In January, the CIA, FBI, NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Russian Intelligence agents had meddled in the election via cyber-warfare to secure Donald Trump’s election.
Yet, at the G20 summit, Trump declared it was “an honor” to meet Putin.
After the meeting, Trump tweeted on July 9: “I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion…..”
Trump’s opinion, as he famously gave it, was: “It could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”
Even more worrisome to American Intelligence officials was Trump’s accompanying tweet: “Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded.”
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee reacted: “If that’s our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow.”
Even some Republicans likened the proposal to letting the fox guard the chicken coop. Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio tweeted: “While reality & pragmatism requires that we engage Vladimir Putin, he will never be a trusted ally or a reliable constructive partner.”
Yet America’s frustrations with Russia generally—and Putin in particular—long predate those of Barack Obama.
Nor were relations between the United States and post-Soviet Russia helped by the naivety of President George W. Bush.
In June, 2001, Bush and Putin met in Slovenia. During the meeting a truly startling exchange occurred.
President George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin
Putin, a former KGB Intelligence officer, had clearly done his homework on Bush. When he mentioned that one of the sports Bush had played was rugby, Bush was highly impressed.
“I did play rugby,” gushed Bush. “Very good briefing.”
But more was to come.
BUSH: Let me say something about what caught my attention, Mr. President, was that your mother gave you a cross which you had blessed in Israel, the Holy Land.
PUTIN: It’s true.
BUSH: That amazes me, that here you were a Communist, KGB operative, and yet you were willing to wear a cross. That speaks volumes to me, Mr. President. May I call you Vladimir?
Putin instantly sensed that Bush judged others–even world leaders–through the lens of his own fundamentalist Christian theology.
Falling back on his KGB training, Putin seized on this apparent point of commonality to build a bond. He told Bush that his dacha had once burned to the ground, and the only item that had been saved was that cross.
“Well, that’s the story of the cross as far as I’m concerned,” said Bush, clearly impressed. “Things are meant to be.”
Afterward, Bush and Putin gave an outdoor news conference.
“Is this a man that America can trust?” Associated Press correspondent Ron Foumier asked Bush.
“Yes,” said Bush. “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue.
“I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country. I wouldn’t have invited him to my ranch if I didn’t trust him.”
Of course, no one from the Right is now recalling such embarrassing words.
It’s far more politically profitable to pretend that all of America’s tensions with Russia began with the election of Barack Obama.
And to pretend that those tensions have vanished now that another Right-wing President occupies the White House.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 22, 2017 at 12:10 am
On May 17, President Donald J. Trump appeared at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
He was there go give the commencement remarks to a graduating class of Coast Guard cadets.
The Coast Guard Academy website explains what it seeks in candidates: “The Coast Guard needs officers who are intellectually curious, who seek continuous improvement, and who are committed to service above self. At the Academy, our academic programs provide the intellectual foundation for developing officers with these qualities.”
It also spells out what the Academy offers: “The Coast Guard Academy is ranked among the nation’s top undergraduate colleges. Our academic program, which awards a Bachelor of Science and a commission as an Ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard, must be completed in four years.
“It is designed to provide a superb academic foundation in a military environment. The result: future leaders of America.”
The Academy’s core requirements could not be more at odds with the realities of Donald Trump’s life:
- “Intellectually curious”–Trump’s attention span is notoriously short, limited to about four minutes on a topic. And he regularly confines his “writings” to the 140-character count on Twitter.
- “Who seek continuous improvement”–asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied; “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
- “Committed to service above self”–Trump dodged the draft during the Vietnam war by getting five deferments. As a Presidential candidate, he said of Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain, who spent seven years as a Vietnam POW: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Trump’s official reason for appearing at the Academy was to pay tribute to the 195 cadets graduating that day.
Coast Guard Academy graduating students celebrate
And, momentarily, he did: “These fine young cadets are about to take their rightful place on the front line of defense for the United States of America.
“Cadets, you deserve not only the congratulations, but the gratitude of each and every American. And we all salute you, a proud nation.”
But, being Trump, he couldn’t praise others without also praising himself: “I won’t talk about how much I saved you on the F-35 fighter jet. I won’t even talk about it. Or how much we’re about to save you on the Gerald Ford, the aircraft carrier….
“I’ve accomplished a tremendous amount in a very short time as president….”
Donald Trump
Then he went on to pay further tribute to himself: “Jobs are pouring back into our country; a brand-new Supreme Court justice, who’s going to be fantastic for 45 years; a historic investment in our military; border crossings….”
Finally, he reached the climax of his address: “Now, I want to take this opportunity to give you some advice. Over the course of your life, you will find that things are not always fair.
“You will find that things happen to you that you do not deserve and that are not always warranted. But you have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight. Never, ever, ever give up. Things will work out just fine.
“Look at the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media. No politician in history–and I say this with great surety–has been treated worse or more unfairly. You can’t let them get you down. You can’t let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams.”
Trump was referring to the avalanche of criticism he had received for:
- His May 9 firing of FBI Director James Comey. Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. And he had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents;
- His meeting, the very next day in the Oval Office, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. During that meeting he gave the Russians sensitive Intelligence on ISIS that had been supplied by Israel; and
- On May 12, Trump tweeted a threat to the fired FBI director: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press.”
James Comey
Kislyak is reportedly a top recruiter for Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency. He has been closely linked with Jeff Sessions, now Attorney General, and fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn. A third Kislyak contact: Carter Page.
All three served as members of Trump’s Presidential campaign.
“I guess that’s why I won–thank you. I guess that’s why we won,” continued Trump.
“Adversity makes you stronger. Don’t give in, don’t back down, and never stop doing what you know is right. Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy, and the more righteous your fight, the more opposition that you will face.”
Trump, who has never shown a sense of irony, unintentionally displayed one now.
His self-tribute could have served as an epitaph for James Comey–a former United States Attorney, Deputy Attorney General and seventh director of the FBI.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on January 20, 2017 at 12:06 am
For five years, Donald Trump, more than anyone else, popularized the slander that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya–and was therefore not an American citizen.
For more than a year during his 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump continued doing so.
Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity steadily fell among blacks–to 1%, compared to the 91% of black voters who backed Hillary Clinton.
Even the managers of Trump’s campaign urged him to put the “birther” issue behind him.
And so, on September 16, 2016–10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton–Trump made his version of a reversal.
Donald Trump: “President Barack Obama was born in the United States.”
He did so in about seven seconds and 40 words–after spending a half hour paying tribute to the military and promoting his new upscale hotel in Washington, D.C.:
“Now, not to mention her in the same breath, but Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.
“I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean.
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”
His tone made it clear that he felt uneasy making that statement–and wanted to get it over with as fast as possible.
He refused to take questions from reporters covering the event. Nor did he apologize for his five-year campaign of slander.
Nor did any Republican apologize for the eight-year campaign of slander and obstruction their party had waged against the Nation’s first black President.
President Barack Obama
Among its highlights:
- In September, 2009, Joe Wilson (R-SC) yelled “You lie!” during Obama’s health care speech to Congress.
- In January, 2010, an effigy of President Barack Obama was found hanging from a building in Plains, Georgia.
- In December, 2011, Brent Bozell, who runs the right-wing Media Research Center, called Obama to “a skinny, ghetto crackhead.”
- In December, 2011, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), said of Michelle Obama: “She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.”
- In January, 2012, Mitt Romney’s son, Matt, said his father might release his tax returns “as soon as President Obama releases his grades and birth certificate and sort of a long list of things.”
- In February, 2012, right-wing columnist Ann Coulter offered: “Voters with forty years of politically correct education are ecstatic to have the first Black president. They just love the idea even if we did get Flavor Flav instead of Thomas Sowell.”
- In May, 2012, a flatbed truck drove through new York holding a trailer with eight mannequin-like bodies hanging on nooses. One of the figures resembled President Obama, with a sign on the truck reading: “Obama Is Onboard, Find Out Why. Visit YouTube.com And Search Keyword PatriotPhipps.”
- In May, 2012, Patrick Lanzo, a bar owner in Paulding County, Georgia, posted a sign reading: “I do not support the nigger in the White House.” In 2009 he posted a sign that read, “Obama’s plan for health-care: nigger rig it.” Lanzo advertises his establishment as a “Klan bar.”
- Throughout the 2012 Presidential campaign, Newt Gingrich repeatedly called Obama “the greatest food stamp President in American history.”
- Obama has been portrayed as a shoeshine man, an Islamic terrorist and a chimp. The image of his altered face has been shown on a product called Obama Waffles in the manner of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. He has been repeatedly depicted with a Hitler forelock and mustache.
- Among the protest signs they have brandished by Tea Party members: “Obama’s Plan: White Slavery,” “The American Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s Ovens,” and “Obama was Not Bowing [to the Saudi King] He was Sucking Saudi Jewels.”
- Other Tea Party posters: “Imam Obama Wants to Ban Pork” and “The Zoo Has An African Lion, and the White House Has a Lyin’ African.”
- Tea Partiers have chanted at Obama: “Bye, bye, Blackbird” and “Kenyan go home!”
- During the Republican-imposed government shutdown–October 1-17, 2013–Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) told Obama: “I cannot even stand to look at you,” The incident occurred when Obama met with lawmakers to try to find a resolution to the shutdown.
- On October 1, 2013, Congressional Republicans shut down the government in an attempt to force President Barack Obama to de-fund his signature achievement: The Affordable Care Act (ACA). President Obama refused, and 800,000 federal workers were furloughed.
- On October 14, while Republicans were threatening to drive the nation into bankruptcy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin posted on Facebook her “secret plan” to impeach President Obama:
- “It’s time for the president to be honest with the American people for a change. Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense, and any attempt by President Obama to unilaterally raise the debt limit without Congress is also an impeachable offense.”
- In short: If the Republicans force the country into default, Obama should be impeached. And if the President finds a way to avoid default, he should be impeached.
* * * * *
When Republicans say, “We need to support our President,” they don’t mean every President.
They mean: Every Republican President. And only every Republican President.
For Republicans, Presidents elected by Democrats are usurpers: They are to be obstructed as often as possible–and impeached whenever possible.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on January 19, 2017 at 3:46 pm
Reince Priebus, the incoming White House Chief of Staff for soon-to-be President Donald J. Trump, is furious.
There are three reasons for his outrage.
First, millions of Americans are questioning whether Trump was legitimately elected. Their suspicions are based on solid evidence, supplied by the American Intelligence community, that Russian President Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 Presidential election to help him defeat Hillary Clinton.
Second, among those Americans are members of the United States Congress–such as Georgia Democratic Representative John Lewis.
On the January 15 edition of “Meet the Press,” Lewis was asked by host Chuck Todd: “Do you plan on trying to forge a relationship with Donald Trump?”
“No,” said Lewis. “I believe forgiveness. I believe in trying to work with people. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be very difficult. I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.”
John Lewis
“You do not consider him a legitimate president. Why is that?”
“I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”
And the third reason Priebus is outraged: He believes–or at least claims to believe–that President Barack Obama should vouch for Trump’s legitimacy.
“I think President Obama should step up,” Priebus said January 15 on ABC’s “This Week.” “We’ve had a great relationship with the White House….I think the administration can do a lot of good by telling folks that are on the Republican side of the aisle, look, we may have lost the election on the Democratic side, but it’s time to come together.”
Reince Priebus
“You didn’t have Republicans questioning whether or not Obama legitimately beat John McCain in 2008,” Priebus added.
“This Week” host George Stephanopoulos replied that Trump had questioned Obama’s legitimacy as an American citizen until almost the end of the 2016 Presidential race.
“But look, George, that’s not the point!” Priebus said, visibly agitated. “The point is not where Barack Obama was born! The point is that we’ve got congressmen on the Democratic side of the aisle that are questioning the legitimacy of President-elect Trump.”
In short: Let’s ignore Trump’s five-year slander campaign against the legitimacy of President Obama. What’s important is that people are questioning the legitimacy of a Republican elected with the help of Russian Communists.
In 2011, Trump, then-host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” was thinking of running for President against Obama.
Seeking to gain popularity among America’s Right-wing, Trump almost singlehandedly created the popular fiction that the President was born in Kenya–and was not an American citizen.
His motive: To convince Americans that Obama was an illegitimate President.
Donald Trump
Among the statements Trump made:
February 10, 2011: “Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further: The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don’t know who he is. It’s crazy.”
March 23, 2011: “I want him to show his birth certificate. I want him to show his birth certificate. … There’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like.”
March 28, 2011: “I am really concerned” [that Obama wasn’t born in the United States]. He said that the birth announcement for Obama in a Hawaii newspaper could have been planted “for whatever reason.”
March 30, 2011: “If you are going to be president of the United States you have to be born in this country. And there is a doubt as to whether or not he was. … He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”
April 7, 2011: “I have people that have been studying it, and they cannot believe what they’re finding. You are not allowed to be a president if you’re not born in this country. Right now I have real doubts.”
April 25, 2011: “I’ve been told very recently…that the birth certificate is missing. I’ve been told that it’s not there or it doesn’t exist. And if that’s the case, it’s a big problem.”
On April 27, President Obama released his original, long-form Hawiian birth certificate.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
“We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” said Obama at a press conference, speaking as a father might to a roomful of spiteful children. “We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.
“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other…if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers.”
Trump responded with a series of tweets on Twitter–all of them attacking the legitimacy of the birth certificate that President Obama had released.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on October 31, 2016 at 9:15 am
Today, America has two major candidates running for President: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Trump is a billionaire businessman and television personality. Clinton is a former First Lady (1993-2001), U.S. Senator from New York (2001-2009) and Secretary of State (2009-2013).
Despite the great differences in their backgrounds, they both share one thing in common: They are fiercely hated by millions of their fellow Americans.
Trump’s character has been poignantly summed up by David Brooks, a conservative political columnist for The New York Times:
“The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love, so his relationship with women, it has no love in it. It’s trophy.
“And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality, but it comes out in his attitude towards women.”
For Republicans, Hillary Clinton arouses hatred that is often as much directed at her sex as her political views: She’s a bitch, a lesbian, physically unattractive. She’s not feminine enough. She “shrieks” and “shouts” when making speeches. She hates men–and, worse, castrates them.
She will abolish religion and force everyone to become atheists. She will authorize U.N. soldiers to confiscate the more than 300 million guns Americans privately hold. She will throw open American borders to millions of illegal aliens from Central and South America. She will sell out America to whoever pays the highest bribe to the Clinton Foundation.
But 48 years ago, Senator Robert Francis Kennedy aroused passions of an altogether different sort.
Kennedy had been a United States Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator from New York (1964-1968). But it was his connection to his beloved and assassinated brother, President John F. Kennedy, for which he was best known.
In October, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, his wise counsel helped steer America from the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. As a U.S Senator he championed civil rights and greater Federal efforts to fight poverty.
Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
Millions saw RFK as the only candidate who could make life better for America’s impoverished–while standing firmly against those who threatened the Nation’s safety.
As television correspondent Charles Quinn observed: “I talked to a girl in Hawaii who was for [George] Wallace [the segregationist governor of Alabama]. And I said ‘Really?’ [She said] ‘Yeah, but my real candidate is dead.’
“You know what I think it was? All these whites, all these blue collar people who supported Kennedy…all of these people felt that Kennedy would really do what he thought best for the black people, but, at the same time, would not tolerate lawlessness and violence.
“They were willing to gamble…because they knew in their hearts that the country was not right. They were willing to gamble on this man who would try to keep things within reasonable order; and at the same time do some of the things they knew really should be done.”
Campaigning for the Presidency in 1968, RFK had just won the crucial California primary on June 4–when he was shot in the back of the head.
His killer: Sirhan Sirhan, a young Palestinian furious at Kennedy’s support for Israel.
Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. on June 6.
On June 8, 1,200 men and women boarded a specially-reserved passenger train at New York’s Pennsylvania Station. They were accompanying Kennedy’s body to its final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.
As the train slowly moved along 225 miles of track, throngs of men, women and children lined the rails to pay their final respects to a man they considered a genuine hero.
Little Leaguers clutched baseball caps across their chests. Uniformed firemen and policemen saluted. Burly men in shirtsleeves held hardhats over their hearts. Black men in overalls waved small American flags. Women from all levels of society stood and cried.
A nation says goodbye to Robert Kennedy
Commenting on RFK’s legacy, historian William L. O’Neil wrote in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“…He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and, through error and tragic accident, failed at….He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That too must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death something precious disappeared from public life.”
America has never again seen a Presidential candidate who combined toughness on crime and compassion for the poor.
Republican candidates have waged war on crime–and the poor. And Democratic candidates have moved to the Right in eliminating anti-poverty programs.
RFK had the courage to fight the Mafia–and the compassion to fight poverty. At a time when Americans long for candidates to give them positive reasons for voting, his kind of politics are sorely missed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 16, 2016 at 12:19 am
On September 11, 2013, the New York Times published an Op-Ed (guest editorial) from Russian President Vladimir Putin, entitled: “A Plea for Caution from Russia: What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria.”
No one should be surprised that Putin came out strongly against an American air strike on Syria.
Its “President” (i.e., dictator) Bashir al-Assad, is, after all, a close ally of Russia. Just as his late father and dictator, Hafez al-Assad, was a close ally of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.
Putin, of course, is a former member of the KGB, the infamous secret police which (under various other names) ruled the Soviet Union from its birth in 1917 to its collapse in 1991.
He grew up under a Communist dictatorship and clearly wishes to return to that era, saying publicly: “First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
So it would be unrealistic to expect him to view the current “Syria crisis” the same way that President Barack Obama does.
(A “crisis” for politicians and news media is any event they believe can be exploited for their own purposes.
(In the case of media like CNN–which has devoted enormous coverage to the use of poison gas in Syria–the motive is higher ratings. “If it bleeds, it leads,” goes the saying in the news business.
(In the case of politicians–like Obama and Putin–the motive is to further their own status. And thus power.
(Few politicians really care about the “human rights” of other nations–unless promoting this issue can empower themselves and/or their own nations.
(President Ronald Reagan, for example, often wailed about the Soviets’ oppression of the Polish union, Solidarity–while firing hundreds of unionized air traffic controllers who went on strike.)
In his September 11 guest editorial in the New York Times, Putin offered the expected Russian take on Syria:
- Yes, poison gas was used in Syria.
- No, it wasn’t used by the Syrian Army.
- It was used by “opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons.”
- “There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough [al] Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government.”
But it’s the concluding paragraph that has enraged American politicians the most–especially right-wing ones. In it, Putin takes exception with American “exceptionalism.”
Vladimir Putin
Referring to President Obama, Putin wrote:
“And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is ‘what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.’
“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.
“There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too.
“We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
Putin has never publicly shown any interest in religion. But by invoking “the Lord,” he was able to turn the Christian beliefs of his Western audience into a useful weapon.
“I was insulted,” then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters when asked for his blunt reaction to the editorial.
“I have to be honest with you, I was at dinner, and I almost wanted to vomit,” said U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey).
Putin had dared to question the self-righteousness of American foreign policy–and those who make it.
Making his case for war with Syria, Obama had said: “America is not the world’s policeman….
“But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act.
“That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.”
President Barack Obama
In short: Because we consider ourselves “exceptional,” we have the divine right to do whatever we want.
It’s not necessary to see Putin as a champion of democracy (he isn’t) to see the truth in this part of his editorial: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”
From 1938 to 1969, the House Un-American Activities Committee sought to define what was “American” and what was “Un-American.” As if “American” stood for all things virtuous.
Whoever heard of an “Un-French Activities Committee”? Or an “Un-German” or “Un-British” one?
The late S.I. Hayakawa once made an obersation that clearly applies to this situation.
Hayakawa was a professor of semantics (the study of meaning, focusing on the relation between words and what they stand for).
In his bestselling book, Language in Thought and Action, he observed that when a person hears a message, he has four ways of responding to it:
- Accept the speaker and his message.
- Accept the speaker but reject the message.
- Accept the message but reject the speaker.
- Reject the message and the speaker.
Americans might want to consider #3 in the recent case of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 8, 2016 at 1:21 am
In late July, Donald Trump’s new spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, accepted an impossible mission that even Jim Phelps would have turned down:
Convince Americans that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were responsible for the death of Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed by a truck-bomb in Iraq in 2004.
Appearing on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on August 2, Pierson said: “It was under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that changed the rules of engagements that probably cost his life.”
Katrina Pierson
Totally ignored in that scenario:
- President George W. Bush lied the nation into a needless war that cost the lives of 4,486 Americans and wounded another 33,226.
- The war began in 2003–and Khan was killed in 2004.
- Barack Obama became President in 2009–almost five years after Khan’s death.
- Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State the same year.
- Obama, elected Illinois U.S. Senator in 2004, vigorously opposed the Iraq war throughout his term.
Pierson’s attempt to rewrite history touched off a frenzy on Twitter, leading to the creation of the hashtag #KatrinaPiersonHistory. Its purpose: To mock Pierson’s revisionist take on history.
Among the tweets offered:
- Hillary Clinton slashed funding for security at the Ford Theater, leading to Lincoln’s assassination.
- Obama gave Amelia Earhart directions to Kenya.
- Remember the Alamo? Obama and Hillary let it happen.
- Obama and Clinton kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
Not content with blaming President Obama for the death of a man he never sent into combat, Pierson claimed that Obama started the Afghanistan war.
Appearing again on CNN, Pierson said the Afghan war began “after 2007,” when Al Qaeda “was in ashes” following the American troop surge in Iraq.
“Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time,” Pierson said. “Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem.”
In fact, President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Millions of Americans who lived through 9/11 remember that.
When your spokeswoman becomes a nationwide laughingstock, your own credibility goes down the toilet as well.
In July an Associated Press/GfK poll found that half of Americans saw Donald Trump as “racist”–and only 7% of blacks viewed him favorably.
There are numerous reasons for this:
- His enthusiastic support by racist white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
- His “birther” attacks on President Obama as a non-citizen from Kenya–and thus ineligible to hold the Presidency.
- His attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and calling on his supporters at rallies to rough up minority protesters.
Since 1964, blacks have overwhelmingly voted for Democratic Presidential candidates. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s won their loyalty with his support for and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
President Johnson signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act
Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater opposed it–as did the majority of his party.
Since 1964, fewer than six percent of blacks have voted for Republican Presidential candidates. Whites have not only remained the majority of Republican voters but have become the single most important voting bloc among them.
John McCain received four percent of black votes in 2008 and Mitt Romney received six percent in 2012. When a Republican collapses into single digits among blacks and other minorities, it reduces the number of white votes a Democrat needs to win the presidency.
To counter this, Donald Trump has turned to his Director of African-American Outreach: Omarosa Manigault.
Trump made the appointment just hours before the first night of the Republican National Convention.
Omarosa Manigault
Manigault is best known as the villain of Trump’s reality-TV show, “The Apprentice”–where she was fired on three different seasons. Her credentials include a Ph.D. in communications, a preacher’s license, and topping TV Guide’s list of greatest reality TV villains in 2008.
During the Clinton administration she held four jobs in two years, and was thoroughly disliked in all of them.
“She was asked to leave [her last job] as quickly as possible, she was so disruptive,” said Cheryl Shavers, the former Under Secretary for Technology at the Commerce Department. “One woman wanted to slug her.”
In her role as Trump’s ambassador to blacks, Omarosa has inspired others to want to slug her. Appearing on Fox Business, she ignored Fox panelist Tamera Holder’s question on why blacks should support Trump,and then mocked her “big boobs.”
Manigault isn’t bothered that blacks regard Trump so poorly in polls: “My reality is that I’m surrounded by people who want to see Donald Trump as the next president of the United States who are African-American.”
Appointing as your public relations director a woman who gratuitously insults and infuriates people is not the move of a smart administrator. Nor the move of a smart Presidential candidate.
If Donald Trump becomes President, he will inherit the authority to appoint thousands of officials to domestic and foreign agencies. Voters have a right to judge him on the quality of the appointments he has already made to his own campaign.
A review of those named within this series gives serious cause for concern.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 7, 2016 at 12:18 am
Even the Secret Service can’t protect Donald Trump from the notoriety of his supporters.
The current manager of Trump’s Presidential campaign is Stephen Bannon, who’s under fire for anti-Semitic remarks and having been registered to vote at a vacant house in Florida.
But before Bannon signed on, his predecessor was Paul Manafort, whom Trump hired to add stability to his often scattershot campaign.
Paul Manafort
For Trump, Manafort came with a dangerous liability: His longstanding ties to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine–which inevitably led to Vladimir Putin.
For years, Manafort worked for Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin protege who was deposed as Ukraine’s president in 2014 amid widespread demonstrations.
In August, the New York Times unearthed handwritten ledgers that listed $12.7 million in cash payments to Manafort from Yanukovych’s political party between 2007 and 2012.
Trump’s own ties to Putin were already facing increasing scrutiny for a number of reasons:
- Trump’s and Putin’s public expressions of admiration for each other’s toughness.
- The removal from the Republican party platform, written at the convention in Cleveland in July, of references to arming Ukraine in its fight against pro-Russian rebels who have been armed by the Kremlin.
- In July, high-ranking Democratic officials–including presumptive Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton–were embarrassed by a hack of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails. This was quickly traced to Russian hackers allegedly working on behalf of the Kremlin. Their alleged motive: To tip the election in favor of Trump.
- Trump drew more suspicion upon himself by inviting Russia to find 30,000 emails deleted from the private server used by Clinton while she was Secretary of State in the Obama administration: “I think you will probably be mightily rewarded by our press.”
Added to Manafort’s embarrassing ties to Russia was another minus: He and Trump didn’t get along. Trump had begun calling him “low energy”–a term he once aimed at his former GOP rival, Jeb Bush.
Manafort wanted Trump to bring more self-discipline to the campaign and concentrate his fire solely on his Presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. Instead, in late July, Trump ignited a days-long feud with members of a Gold Star family, costing him support within the veterans community.
Manafort also wanted Trump to establish a conventional chain-of-command organization typical of a Presidential campaign. But Trump resisted, preferring to improvise and rely on his instincts and the counsel of his family.
In late August, Trump fired him.
Foreign policy nearly always plays a major role in Presidential elections. Yet Trump has shown a surprising lack of respect for a detailed knowledge of it.
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied; “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
In late August, former Republican Congresswoman (2007-2015) Michele Bachmann claimed that she was now advising Trump on foreign policy.
Michele Bachmann
A member of the Right-wing Tea Party, Bachmann has said that diplomacy “is our option” in dealing with Iran–but wouldn’t rule out a nuclear strike.
Among the statements she’s made:
- “I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?'”
- “Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.”
- “President Obama waived a ban on arming terrorists in order to allow weapons to go to the Syrian opposition….U.S. taxpayers are now paying to give arms to terrorists, including Al-Qaeda.”
- “I’m a believer in Jesus Christ. As I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end time history.”
A woman who believes that God causes earthquakes and hurricanes, and that mankind has arrived at “End Times,” can hardly be a comfort to rational voters.
Another Trump adviser is former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. His assignment: Prepare Trump for the upcoming fall debates with Clinton.
But Ailes comes with huge notoriety: In July he was fired from Fox News on multiple charges of sexual harassment.
At first, only Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson dared accuse him. But then more than two dozen women came forward to accuse Ailes of sexual harassment.
On September 6, Carlson reached an out-of-court settlement with the parent company of Fox News for a reported $20 million.
At least two other women have settled with Fox, an anonymous source told the New York Times. And others may be planning to file lawsuits.
All of which makes Ailes the poster boy for sexual harassment.
Trump has been married three times and has often boasted of his sexual conquests–including ones he believes he could have had.
(Shortly after the 1997 death of Princess Diana, he told a radio interviewer he could have “nailed” her if he had wanted to.)
In a mid-March CNN/ORC poll, 73% of female voters voiced a negative view of Trump. Associating with a notorious sexual harasser like Roger Ailes can only do even more damage to his candidacy.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 6, 2016 at 12:08 am
“The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him.
“When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful.
“But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
So wrote the Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli more than 500 years ago in his famous treatise on politics, The Prince.
And his words remain as true in our day as they were in his.
Niccolo Machiavelli
They are especially important to remember when evaluating Donald Trump’s talents as an administrator.
In pursuing the Presidency, he is seeking the most powerful office in the world, one that would give him authority to appoint thousands of officials to domestic and foreign agencies.
Consider some of those he has placed around him in his campaign for President:
Founder of Latinos for Trump Marco Gutierrez told MSNBC’s Joy Reid: “My culture is a very dominant culture. And it’s imposing, and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re gonna have taco trucks every corner.”
At a Tea Party for Trump rally at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Festus, Missouri, former Missouri Republican Party director Ed Martin reassured the crowd that they’re not racist for hating Mexicans: “Donald Trump is for Americans first.
“He’s for us first. It is not selfish to support, or to be for, your neighbor, as opposed to someone from another nation. And Mexico, Mexicans, that’s not a race. You’re not racist if you don’t like Mexicans. They’re from a nation.”
From the outset of his Presidential campaign, Trump has polled extremely poorly among Hispanic voters. This is perfectly understandable, given his comments about Mexicans as:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
Trump has also promised to “build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
Donald Trump
These comments made Trump the winner of the Republican primaries, where voters always nominate the most extreme Rightist candidate.
But the general election phrase requires Republican and Democratic candidates to appeal to both their base and beyond it. As a result, Trump is now desperate to attract the votes of Hispanics.
Comments such as those by Marco Gutierrez and Ed Martin guarantee this won’t happen.
Wayne Root, opening speaker and master of ceremonies at many Trump events, told Virginia radio host Rob Schilling that people on public assistance and women who get their birth control through Obamacare should not be allowed to vote:
“If the people who paid the taxes were the only ones allowed to vote, we’d [Republicans] have landslide victories. But you’re allowing people to vote. This explains everything! People with conflict of interest shouldn’t be allowed to vote. If you collect welfare, you have no right to vote.
“The day you get off welfare, you get your voting rights back. The reality is, why are you allowed to have this conflict of interest that you vote for the politician who wants to keep your welfare checks coming and your food stamps and your aid to dependent children and your free health care and your Medicaid, your Medicare and your Social Security and everything else?”
Wayne Root
According to a March Gallup poll, 70% of women–or seven in 10–have an unfavorable opinion of Trump.
Such comments as Root’s aren’t going to increase Trump’s popularity with them. Nor with anyone who receives Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security.
Donald Trump’s new campaign manager, Stephen Bannon, was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery, and dissuading a witness in 1996, after an altercation with his then-wife, Mary Louise Piccard, in Santa Monica, California.
Picard also said in a 2007 court declaration that Bannon didn’t want their twin daughters attending the Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles because many Jewish students were enrolled there.
Stephen Bannon
Not only is this certain to lose Trump votes among women, it will make him unpopular among Jews. A campaign manager charged with anti-Semitism could cost Trump heavily Jewish states like New York and Florida.
In addition: Bannon and another ex-wife, Diane Clohesy, were registered to vote at a vacant house in Florida, a possible violation of election laws in a key swing state.
Republicans have vigorously denied voting rights to tens of thousands on the pretext of “voter fraud.” More than a dozen states still have voting restrictions in place since 2012.
A Washington Post investigation found just 31 credible cases of voter fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of an estimated 1 billion ballots cast in the U.S. during that period.
Meanwhile, voting rights groups have been fighting back–and winning.
“Voter ID” laws in Texas, Wisconsin and North Carolina have been found discriminatory against minorities–who traditionally vote Democratic.
With evidence of Republican fraud like that supplied by Trump’s own campaign manager, victories against “Voter ID” laws may well increase.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 3, 2016 at 12:05 am
Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump recently attacked the integrity of the parents of an Army captain who died heroically in Iraq in 2004.
For this, he has taken heavy fire from Democrats, veterans organizations and even his fellow Republicans.
But an even more damning assessment comes from Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine statesman whose two great works on politics–The Prince and The Discourses–remain textbooks for successful politicians more than 500 years later.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Consider Trump’s notoriety for hurling insults at virtually everyone, including:
- Latinos
- Asians
- Muslims
- Blacks
- The Disabled
- Women
- Prisoners-of-War
These insults delight his white, under-educated followers. But they have alienated millions of other Americans who might have voted for him.
Machiavelli, on the other hand, advises leaders to refrain from gratuitous insults:
- “I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one.
- “For neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy–but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”
And Trump’s reaction to the criticism he’s received?
“I can be Presidential, but if I was Presidential I would only have–about 20% of you would be here because it would be boring as hell, I will say,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Superior, Wisconsin.
For those who expect Trump to shed his propensity for constantly picking fights, Machiavelli has a stern warning:
- “…If it happens that time and circumstances are favorable to one who acts with caution and prudence he will be successful. But if time and circumstances change he will be ruined, because he does not change the mode of his procedure.
- “No man can be found so prudent as to be able to adopt himself to this, either because he cannot deviate from that to which his nature disposes him, or else because, having always prospered by walking in one path, he cannot persuade himself that it is well to leave it…
- “For if one could change one’s nature with time and circumstances, fortune would never change.”
Then there is Trump’s approach to consulting advisers:
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied;
“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
This totally contrasts with the advice given by Machiavelli:
- “A prudent prince must [choose] for his counsel wise men, and [give] them alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else.
- “But he must be a great asker about everything and hear their opinions, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way, and in these counsels…comport himself so that every one may see that the more freely he speaks, the more he will be acceptable.”
And Machiavelli offers a related warning on the advising of rulers: Unwise princes cannot be wisely advised.
During the fifth GOP debate in the Presidential sweepstakes, host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump this question:
“Mr. Trump, Dr. [Ben] Carson just referenced the single most important job of the president, the command and the care of our nuclear forces. And he mentioned the triad.
“The B-52s are older than I am. The missiles are old. The submarines are aging out. It’s an executive order. It’s a commander-in-chief decision.
“What’s your priority among our nuclear triad?”
[The triad refers to America’s land-, sea- and air-based systems for delivering nuclear missiles and bombs.]
Nuclear missile in silo
Trump’s reply: “Well, first of all, I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible, who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important.”
He then digressed to his having called the Iraq invasion a mistake in 2003 and 2004. Finally he came back on topic:
“But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ballgame.
“The biggest problem we have today is nuclear–nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon. I think to me, nuclear, is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”
Which brings us back to Machiavelli:
- “…Some think that a prince who gains the reputation of being prudent [owes this to] the good counselors he has about him; they are undoubtedly deceived.
- “It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised, unless by chance he leaves himself entirely in the hands of one man who rules him in everything, and happens to be a very prudent man. In this case, he may doubtless be well governed, but it would not last long, for the governor would in a short time deprive him of the state.”
All of which would lead Niccolo Machiavelli to warn, if he could witness American politics today: “This bodes ill for your Republic.”
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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VLADIMIR PUTIN: OUTFOXING GEORGE BUSH AND DONALD TRUMP
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2017 at 12:30 amSince the late 1940s, Republicans have hurled the charge of “appeasement” at every Democratic President
Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson found themselves accused of “selling out” to the Soviet Union. The motive for this was usually attributed to cowardice—if not outright treason. It didn’t matter to Republicans that:
Most recently, it became the turn of President Barack Obama.
On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 MH 17/MAS17 took off from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
But as the flight–and its 283 passengers and 15 crew—cruised above Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists shot it down. A Buk surface-to-air missile slammed into the aircraft, almost instantly killing everyone on board.
President Barack Obama
“The President is afraid of provoking [Russian President] Vladimir Putin,” United States Senator John McCain told Reuters. “Vladimir Putin is on the move because he has paid no price for his aggression.”
And Texas United State Senator Ted Cruz said: “Putin fears no retribution. [Obama’s] policy has been to alienate and abandon our friends, and to coddle and appease our enemies.”
But now the United States has a Republican President who has cozied up to Putin since he entered the 2016 Presidential race.
In January, the CIA, FBI, NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Russian Intelligence agents had meddled in the election via cyber-warfare to secure Donald Trump’s election.
Yet, at the G20 summit, Trump declared it was “an honor” to meet Putin.
After the meeting, Trump tweeted on July 9: “I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion…..”
Trump’s opinion, as he famously gave it, was: “It could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”
Even more worrisome to American Intelligence officials was Trump’s accompanying tweet: “Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded.”
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee reacted: “If that’s our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow.”
Even some Republicans likened the proposal to letting the fox guard the chicken coop. Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio tweeted: “While reality & pragmatism requires that we engage Vladimir Putin, he will never be a trusted ally or a reliable constructive partner.”
Yet America’s frustrations with Russia generally—and Putin in particular—long predate those of Barack Obama.
Nor were relations between the United States and post-Soviet Russia helped by the naivety of President George W. Bush.
In June, 2001, Bush and Putin met in Slovenia. During the meeting a truly startling exchange occurred.
President George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin
Putin, a former KGB Intelligence officer, had clearly done his homework on Bush. When he mentioned that one of the sports Bush had played was rugby, Bush was highly impressed.
“I did play rugby,” gushed Bush. “Very good briefing.”
But more was to come.
BUSH: Let me say something about what caught my attention, Mr. President, was that your mother gave you a cross which you had blessed in Israel, the Holy Land.
PUTIN: It’s true.
BUSH: That amazes me, that here you were a Communist, KGB operative, and yet you were willing to wear a cross. That speaks volumes to me, Mr. President. May I call you Vladimir?
Putin instantly sensed that Bush judged others–even world leaders–through the lens of his own fundamentalist Christian theology.
Falling back on his KGB training, Putin seized on this apparent point of commonality to build a bond. He told Bush that his dacha had once burned to the ground, and the only item that had been saved was that cross.
“Well, that’s the story of the cross as far as I’m concerned,” said Bush, clearly impressed. “Things are meant to be.”
Afterward, Bush and Putin gave an outdoor news conference.
“Is this a man that America can trust?” Associated Press correspondent Ron Foumier asked Bush.
“Yes,” said Bush. “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue.
“I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country. I wouldn’t have invited him to my ranch if I didn’t trust him.”
Of course, no one from the Right is now recalling such embarrassing words.
It’s far more politically profitable to pretend that all of America’s tensions with Russia began with the election of Barack Obama.
And to pretend that those tensions have vanished now that another Right-wing President occupies the White House.
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