Tag Archives: White House

national news

Pence’s stony silence most disturbing image

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Look at the picture. The person to Donald Trump’s right is none other than the vice president of the United States, Mike Pence.

Of all the chatter we’ve heard about that meeting, the one image that continues to stick in my craw is of Pence sitting there, silent, not saying a single word. Meanwhile, the president argues with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer about the federal budget and financing construction of The Wall on our southern border.

The image of Pence sitting there mute reminds me of what President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden said of their relationship during their eight years in power.

Obama has made it abundantly clear, and Biden has affirmed it, that Biden was the last person to leave any room where the two men were present. Biden would argue with Obama, telling him — sometimes with great emphasis — where he believed the president was wrong. The president would fire back. The two men would go at it tooth and nail.

But through it all, as the former president has recounted their service together, they forged a lasting friendship and partnership.

Do you think the current vice president and the current president have anything approaching that kind of relationship, let alone any semblance of a friendship? Of course not!

Trump comes from a world where he was The Boss. He made decisions. Those who worked for him did what they were told to do. If they didn’t, they were out. Indeed, we’ve seen evidence of that background even as he has morphed into what passes for the chief executive of the federal government.

Thus, when Trump, Pelosi and Schumer were haranguing each other in the Oval Office, one couldn’t possibly expect VP Pence to chime in with his own view. I mean, after all, he’s only the No. 2 man in the executive branch of government. He was elected right along with Donald Trump to lead the nation. Isn’t that right?

Doesn’t that by itself give him any “cred” to say what he believes, to tell the president anything at all that might contradict whatever passes for the president’s world view?

One would think. Except that we are talking about Donald Trump, who is unfit for the office he holds. He wanted an obsequious lap dog to serve as VP and, by golly, he got one.

national news

White House chief of staff: no longer best job in the world

There once was a time when the White House chief of staff was considered the best job in Washington, D.C. The chief was closest to the president. The chief ran a staff of individuals who helped formulate public policy. It was a dream job.

Now it’s a nightmare post. Donald Trump has just pushed his second chief of staff in less than two years out the door. John Kelly is leaving at the end of the month. He couldn’t control the president. He couldn’t manage the staff. He couldn’t do what Trump promised he would do after he fired the first chief of staff, Reince Priebus.

The heir apparent, Vice President Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, was thought to be a shoo-in for the White House chief job. Then he backed out. He doesn’t want the post and, I’ll presume, the intense aggravation that goes with it. He wants to move back to Georgia with his young family.

What has the president done to this formerly plum political post? He has wrecked it. He wrecks the reputation of those occupy that post. He continues to govern by the seat of his britches. The man is clueless, yet he wants to manage the White House staff all by himself, while he continues to “make America great again.”

So very sad. And weird. And bizarre.

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Let’s call him ‘Delusional Donald’

Donald J. Trump’s delusion is on full display every time events run totally counter to the lies he tells.

He said on March 6, for instance, that “Everyone wants to work in the White House.” He went on to tell the nation that every position is just chock full of applicants who want a part of the “energy” emanating from the West Wing.

Here is what he said

So, what happened this past week? White House chief of staff John Kelly resigned effective at the end of the year; his deputy chief, Nick Ayres, was slated to succeed him.

Except that Ayres doesn’t want the job. He’s bailing out, too, heading back to Georgia to, I suppose, “pursue other interests.”

C’mon, “Delusional Donald.” Can’t you just one time tell us the truth?

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Wishing the latest chief of staff well

I really and truly wanted John Kelly to succeed as White House chief of staff. I wanted the retired four-star general to bring some of his vaunted Marine Corps order and discipline to a White House that lives, breathes and operates in a chaotic atmosphere.

He didn’t cut it. However, I am not going to heap piles of blame on Kelly. It belongs to the guy who brought him into the White House: Donald John Trump Sr.

Kelly and Trump have all but ended their relationship. They reportedly are not talking to each other. Why do you suppose that’s the case? My guess — and that’s all it can be, for obvious reasons — is that the president no longer wanted to heed Kelly’s wise counsel.

Believe me when I say that I empathize with Kelly if that’s the case. A direct-report position requires constant communication between the boss and those who report directly to him or her. My own career ended not long after my relationship with my boss went from cordial to, well, non-existent.

Kelly replaced Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff. Priebus, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, couldn’t hit his rear end with both hands. The White House erupted into turf wars, battles among key advisers over who had the president’s ear; they stumbled into each other while entering the Oval Office seemingly all at once to have a word with The Man.

Kelly was brought in ostensibly to bring order to the place.

But as he learned, the way Priebus learned, there’s little if anything to be gained by trying to persuade the president to follow certain steps in order. Donald Trump cannot be reined in. Those who support him cheer him on — and it’s those cheers that Trump hears. He cannot hear anything of substance over the proverbial din.

Kelly supposedly “committed” to staying on the job until the 2020 election. So much for commitment.

I wish the general well, even as I remain a dedicated non-fan of the man who hired him.

national news, political news

Here come the comparisons: 41’s era vs. today

You knew it would happen — comparisons would surface between the era that encompassed the service of the late President George H.W. Bush and the era in which we live today.

Remembrances are pouring in from around the world about the death Friday of our 41st president. They are heartfelt, sincere and affectionate. They recall a time when politicians of opposing parties weren’t “enemies,” but merely opponents with differing views on how to achieve the same goal: to make the United States a better place.

Some comments have alluded to what has called the passing of an era that we’ll never see again in our political life. I don’t share that view. I maintain hope that we’ll return to that time when public service matters more than personal aggrandizement. I believe we’ll have a day yet again when humility and modesty informs the actions of our political leaders.

Yes, it’s missing now. We all know it. We see it, hear it and feel it 24/7; it’s impossible to avoid it, given the incessant news cycles that bombard us.

President Bush embodied a seemingly quaint era. He didn’t want to dance on the proverbial grave of the communists who saw their empire crumble at their feet in Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He chose instead to work behind the scenes, to forge international relationships and to welcome the sea change in concert with our allies.

There was no “America first” policy coming from the White House in those days. President Bush operated on a different set of standards and ideals, far from what we get nowadays.

Yes, the comparisons will continue for a good while. The nation will mourn its loss of a great American. We also should smile at the full and astonishing life he led and the service he delivered to the public through the myriad tasks to which he was assigned.

He did so without glitz, glamor or self-proclaimed glory.

What a man!

national news

RIP, George H.W. Bush; you have earned it

The tributes are pouring in from around the world over the news our nation received Friday night, that our 41st president, George H.W. Bush has died at the age of 94.

We knew it would come sooner rather than later, quite obviously. President Bush led the fullest of lives. He now joins the love of his life, Barbara, in eternal peace.

The world reacts

Of all the ways to honor this great man, I want to look briefly at two related episodes of his four-year presidency. They speak to this man’s humility and his grace. Yes, he was the most qualified man ever to serve as president: combat Navy aviator during World War II, successful West Texas  businessman, member of Congress, special envoy to China, ambassador to the United Nations, director of the CIA, Republican Party chairman, vice president of the United States.

I’ll leave it to others to comment on those accomplishments, singularly and collectively.

Two events occurred on his presidential watch that speak to this man’s astonishing grace: the Berlin Wall tumbled down in 1989 and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

The collapse of the wall was a singular event that heralded what we all knew was going to happen, that communism in Europe was done for. Did President Bush high-five everyone he could find to celebrate the event? No. He stood by stoically while the world witnessed with its own eyes the unification of a great European nation and the first visible sign that the end of the Cold War was at hand.

Then came the dissolution of the Soviet Union two years later. Soviet chairman Mikhail Gorbachev resigned. The communist government collapsed under its own weight of corruption ideological bankruptcy. It was replaced by the Russian Federation. It began a new era we all hoped would signal the creation of a democratic state in the former USSR. Sadly, it hasn’t worked out the way we hoped it would.

Again, the president didn’t run a victory lap. He didn’t proclaim that the Good Guys had defeated the Bad Guys. He didn’t gloat, prance and preen. He acted with nobility and calm. The world did not need to hear the president of the United States explain what it was witnessing in real time.

Those, I submit, are the hallmarks of a man who knew his place and knew in his huge heart how to behave while the world was changing before our eyes.

We are saddened today to learn of the passing of this great man. We are grateful, though, for his lifetime of service to his beloved nation.

Well done, Mr. President.

national news

Christmas 2017 decor OK; this year, not so hot

 

I stood with first lady Melania Trump’s Christmas décor she used to deck out the White House in 2017.

This year, I have to say all those red Christmas trees don’t do it for me. She told a Liberty University audience that the trees “look fantastic,” in her view. Well, that’s her belief. She’s entitled to it.

But we’re also entitled to gripe about it. I mean, the first family is merely a tenant in the People’s House. They’ll be there temporarily. Then they’ll move out eventually. We keep the White House in our possession. That gives us all the justification we need to raise a ruckus when we feel like it.

I don’t think I’ll change my mind on this matters, the way I did with the Amarillo Sod Poodles name for the city’s new Class AA baseball team that begins Texas League play next spring.

Nope. The silver décor was pretty cool. The red trees? Not good.

Nice try, Mme. First Lady.

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Ivanka: not your run-of-the-mill presidential kin

I know this doesn’t really need to be said, but I’ll offer it anyway.

Ivanka Trump is not your run-of-the-mill presidential family member who is “off limits” from intense media scrutiny. Ivanka is a key member of the president’s team of advisers. He’s a “senior” adviser, in fact, although I don’t know what in the world qualifies her as “senior” anything.

Donald Trump no doubt sees any media inquiry, for example, into her use of a personal e-mail account to conduct government business as an intrusion into a “private matter.” It’s far from it.

Ivanka Trump needs to steel herself for an intense look by Democrats who will run the House of Representatives. So should her dad, the president. So should her brothers, Eric and Don Jr.

So should we all.

Indeed, the only children of Donald Trump who should be exempt from media scrutiny are Tiffany, his daughter with his second wife, Marla Maples, and young Barron, who lives in the White House with the president and first lady Melania Trump.

Daddy Trump says there’s no comparison between what Ivanka has done and what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did when she used her personal e-mail account while she ran the State Department.

But . . . what Ivanka Trump has allegedly done is worth a careful look by Congress. She should be called to testify before, say, the House Oversight Committee and forced to answer questions under oath about what she put out there for all the world to see.

She’s not just a “first daughter” who deserves to be left alone. She’s part of the president’s inner circle, a cog in Donald Trump’s “fine-tuned machine.”

political news

Waiting for unqualified praise of POTUS

I have to make a confession.

It is that whenever I feel the need to offer an encouraging word about Donald J. Trump I am drawn to the need to somehow hedge on it, to offer a qualifier of sorts. Maybe one day, and I have no idea when, I’ll be able to offer praise to the president without having to call attention to all the negative things I’ve said about him.

He recently announced a criminal justice reform notion that would give federal judges more flexibility in handing out sentences; they currently are bound by mandatory sentencing policies. I think the overhaul is a good thing. I said so, too, with praise for the president. But, damn! I had to mention a pledge I made that I would say something good when he merited it; that’s the qualifier, man.

I truly want to get past that. Sadly, I have little hope that this president is going to allow me to do that.

President Bush, shortly after the 2008 election, brought all the former presidents to the White House to greet the president-elect, Barack H. Obama. President Bush wished the new man “success.” Sure, he opposed his election, but he told the president-elect that if he succeeds, the country succeeds.

I know I should be a bigger man that I’ve been at times with regard to the current president. I just cannot help myself. My distaste for his ascending to the first public office he ever sought is palpable and visceral. I’m not proud of it.

I merely acknowledge it.

This blog will continue to offer criticism of the president. I am afraid the critical comments will vastly outnumber the positive comments for well past the foreseeable future.

Just maybe, though, that day might arrive and I’ll be able to offer an encouraging word without referencing the discouraging words.

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Did Trump really believe he would win in 2016?

I’m fairly deep into the “Fear,” the blockbuster book by Bob “Watergate Fame” Woodward.

The book touches on a theme I keep encountering as I read analyses of Donald Trump’s administration, his winning campaign in 2016 and the slipshod way he assembled his White House team after he won the election.

The theme is this: Trump didn’t actually expect to win the 2016 presidential election.

Woodward refers to the surprise that voters delivered to the Republican presidential nominee on Election Night. Noting that surprise time and again throughout the book, I keep wondering: Why did Trump actually run for this office? Was it a business deal to end all business deals?

I have noted in this blog that Trump — before becoming a politician — had spent his entire adult life seeking to attain personal wealth. He is the master of self-aggrandizement. Self-promotion is his MO. He is wired solely and exclusively to promote himself.

How in the world does someone with that sort of makeup sincerely believe he is capable of assuming a job that requires him to take an oath to look out for the interests of others?

I cannot possibly believe that such a man actually intends to set aside his entire adulthood existence for a life of public service. When I refer to “public service,” I intend to suggest that one who climbs into that arena is dedicated to others.

Does the 45th president of the United States strike you as someone who fills that bill . . . or even expected to find himself in the role he now plays?