Tag Archives: Washington Post

national news

‘No obstruction’? Not exactly

I respect Hugh Hewitt, a noted conservative pundit, columnist and Donald Trump fan.

However, I believe he is mistaken when he repeats the president’s mantra about the findings released by special counsel Robert Mueller. Hewitt wrote this in an essay published in the Washington Post: 

“Last week’s message from a booming economy should have rocked the Democratic field. Alas, the party seems collectively intent on poring over the Mueller report yet again in the hope that, somehow, someway, there’s something there. But the probe is over. No collusion. No obstruction.”

Whoa! Let’s stop there for a moment.

I concur with the “no collusion” finding. The “no obstruction” assertion is a figment of Donald Trump’s imagination and that of Attorney General William Barr and millions of Trumpkins around the country.

The special counsel did not conclude there was “no obstruction.” He left it wide open. It is unanswered. Indeed, Mueller instead cited several instances where Trump sought to obstruct justice. Mueller said the president sought to fire the special counsel, but that White House counsel Don McGahn and other key aides resisted.

Mueller left it up to Congress to make whatever determination it will make regarding obstruction of justice.

As much as I respect Hugh Hewitt’s intellectual wattage, he is getting way ahead of himself — right along with the president — in asserting that there was “no obstruction.”

I am willing to wait to see what Congress determines. The president’s base should do the same.

national news

Donald J. Trump: political trailblazer

Donald John Trump is blazing a trail as president of the United States that well might establish a new benchmark that grabs the attention of future presidents.

The Washington Post has been keeping tabs on the number of lies that Trump has told since he took office in January 2017.

Trump has passed the 9,000 mark in the number of false or “misleading” statements, according to the Post. What’s more, he is on pace already to exceed the lying rate he set in the first two years of his presidency, the Post reports.

The Post reports: “The President averaged nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in his first year in office. He hit nearly 16.5 a day in his second year. So far in 2019, he’s averaging nearly 22 claims a day.”

Hey, man! That is awesome.

Trump brags about his big numbers: biggest crowd in history at his inaugural; biggest tax cut in history, he’s done more in his first two years than any president in U.S. history; more jobs created than ever.

Now, though, Trump has provided demonstrable evidence that his lying numbers are No. 1 in the history of the high office he holds.

Nice going, Mr. President.

media news, national news

Trump vs. Bezos; Fake News vs. Real News

I am trying to wrap my arms around what I believe is one of the richest ironies I can find in today’s political discourse. Follow me for a moment.

Donald Trump despises Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon and the Washington Post. He has denigrated Bezos, bastardizing the mega-billionaire’s name by referring to him via Twitter as “Jeff Bozo.” He hates the reporting that comes from the Post, which to many of us is one of the premier newspapers in the world.

Bezos — reportedly the world’s richest human being — has filed a complaint against the National Enquirer, the world’s pre-eminent supermarket tabloid and purveyor of tawdry, juicy and occasionally defamatory gossip. The owner of the Enquirer also is a big-time friend and ally of Donald J. Trump. Bezos alleges that the Enquirer is blackmailing him by threatening to publish salacious pictures of the Amazon/media magnate with a woman who is not his wife.

The irony? Try this on for size: Trump hates what he calls “fake news,” which in reality is merely news that casts him and the presidency in a negative light. Donald Trump’s supporters stand with him, yet many of them — I will presume — continue to support the world’s No. 1 platform for “fake news” by purchasing the Enquirer from supermarket shelves while they are buying their groceries.

Donald Trump’s friendship with David Pecker — whose company AMI purchased the Enquirer in 1999 — has been in the news of late, given the tabloid’s involvement with the Stormy Daniels (the adult film actress) and Karen McDougal (the former Playboy model) stories involving the women’s alleged relationships with the future president of the United States . . . yep, Donald John Trump Sr.

“Fake news” or real news? Salacious gossip or quality journalism? Donald Trump or Jeff Bezos?

I believe the juxtaposition of it all is, well, more than just a little weird, don’t you think?

media news

A real-life ‘Bozo’ hurls another epithet

I suppose this was to be expected. Donald J. Trump would use Twitter to poke fun at another man’s name, which where I come from is one of those off-limits targets, right along with poking fun at someone’s appearance or their ethnic background.

The president has referred to Washington Post/Amazon owner Jeff Bezos as “Bozo.” He chides the zillionaire media mogul for being challenged by other media outlets and then, quite naturally, mentions Bezos’s divorce from his wife — and his relationship with another woman.

Wow! Kettle, meet pot . . . and vice versa!

Yep, he went there

Trump vowed he would become more “presidential” once he took office. He hasn’t. I’m going to remain silent on that aspect of this individual’s presidency.

However, for this serial philanderer whose own name has been butchered and bastardized by critics to say anything critical of another man, well, it’s the kind of thing only a Bozo would do.

military news

If only Trump were ‘good’ at lying; he isn’t

Donald Trump is setting some sort of unofficial record for lying, prevarication, misstatements muttered, uttered and sputtered from the White House.

One of his more recent, um, lies takes the cake.

The commander in chief stood before troops in Iraq the day after Christmas. He went to the war zone with his wife, Melania, and told the men and women assembled before him that they had just gotten the first pay raise in 10 years. Lie!

Then he said he fought for a 10-percent pay increase, even though others wanted to grant them a considerably smaller pay raise. Lie!

Our fighting personnel have gotten raises every year for more than three decades. As for the 10-percent raise this year, it didn’t happen. Their raise is considerably smaller than what the president described to them.

Here is what troubles me greatly: Donald Trump’s incessant barrage of falsehoods seems pointless, needless, foundationless. It is gratuitous. He lies when he doesn’t need to lie.

The Washington Post has been keeping track of the president’s lying/prevarication/misspeaking. The newspaper’s total now is past 7,500 such statements — and this is before the end of the first half of the president’s term! His lying is accelerating as well!

I should be more circumspect in calling these statements outright “lies.” To lie is to say something knowing it is false. Some critics have suggested that Trump simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about; therefore, he doesn’t necessarily purposely lie to our faces.

However, Donald Trump has told us repeatedly that he possesses a level of intelligence that few men have ever had. He knows the “best words.” He went to the “best schools.” He got the “best education.” He surrounds himself with the “best people.” Doesn’t all of that suggest to you — as it does to me — that the president should know of which he speaks when he opens his mouth?

The president is a liar. Now he’s gone before the men and women he purports to “love” and revere — our warriors in harm’s way — and lied to their faces!

Amazing.

International news

Bolton has lost his spine

I am going to concur with Paul Begala, a former Bill Clinton political confidant and pal, who says national security adviser John Bolton has shown himself to be a coward.

Yes, Begala is a partisan. For that matter, I suppose you can argue that I am, too. Sure, I lean in the same direction as Begala, but I’ve never worked for politicians.

Begala is angry that Bolton has chosen to avoid listening to the recording of slain U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi being slaughtered by his Saudi Arabian captors, who killed him in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Reporters asked Bolton why he hadn’t listen to it. He said: “Unless you speak Arabic, what are you going to get from it?”

Begala responded in an essay: A lot. You will, presumably, hear struggle. You will hear beating, according to a Turkish newspaper, citing Turkish security sources. You will hear torture. You will hear an innocent man’s final, desperate words: “Release my arm! What do you think you are doing?” You will hear one of the alleged conspirators, who allegedly put on Khashoggi’s clothes to act as a body double, comment that “it is spooky to wear the clothes of a man whom we killed 20 minutes ago.”

Bolton didn’t want to hear that. Nor did he want to ask an interpreter to translate it for him. He said he could “read a transcript” if he could find an Arabic speaker to listen to it.

Read the essay here

Bolton’s crass and callous response defies human decency, in my humble view.

He is the national security adviser, for crying out loud! He needs to hear the screams of a journalist based in Washington, D.C., a Saudi national and a champion of political dissent. He had the temerity to insist on reforms in the land of his birth . . . and this is the response reportedly from the crown prince who allegedly ordered the man’s murder.

The CIA has determined that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s murder. The president has blown that assessment off. So, too, I guess has John Bolton, choosing to join Donald Trump in the hideous game of disparaging the nation’s intelligence experts.

Cowardly.

International news, military news

Trump ‘afraid’ to visit troops at war? Aw, c’mon!

Donald J. Trump has offered varying reasons for why he has yet to visit troops deployed in war zones.

He has too much to do at home. He’s too busy. He’s dealing with the so-called “witch hunt.” Then he said he doesn’t want the troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place.

Now comes a Washington Post item that suggests the president has a fear of harm that might come to him were he to venture into a war zone. As the Post reports: Trump has spoken privately about his fears over risks to his own life, according to a former senior White House official, who has discussed the issue with the president and spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about Trump’s concerns.

“He’s never been interested in going,” the official said of Trump visiting troops in a combat zone, citing conversations with the president. “He’s afraid of those situations. He’s afraid people want to kill him.”

Come on, will ya? Didn’t the president say he would be willing to rush into a school where a shooter was gunning down innocent victims? He said that after the Parkland, Fla., massacre.

Hey, the president is fearless. That’s what he has told us!

national news

Wait for the discrediting campaign to commence

It’ll come, of that I have no doubt.

Donald John Trump will seek to discredit the reporting skills of one of America’s premier journalists, who has just completed a book on the Trump administration called “Fear.”

As I noted in an earlier blog post, Bob Woodward, the author of “Fear,” is no schmuck publicity hound. He is a reporter who has become legendary for his meticulousness, for the thoroughness of his reporting.

He won a Pulitzer Prize back in the 1970s after he and Washington Post partner Carl Bernstein reported on the White House’s involvement in the Watergate office break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

Then we hear this remarkable recording of Woodward talking to Donald Trump, telling the president of the effort he made to talk to the president prior to the completion of the book.

I know for certain there will be complaints that Woodward is doing the dirty work for Democratic Party operatives. Hmm. So, um, fascinating, given that Woodward’s history shows him leaning Republican … although his politics has never tainted the quality of his reporting for the Washington Post.

“Fear” follows a trend of earlier tell-all books about the Trump administration. Former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman speaks to the chaos within the West Wing, as does David Woolf’s earlier publication.

One can challenge the credibility of Newman and Woolf. It would constitute a serious mistake to do the same thing to Bob Woodward.

The man is a pro. He’s a careful craftsman who for decades has brought honor to his profession.

My gut tells me Bob Woodward has done so yet again with “Fear.”

national news

Bernstein: ‘Worse than Watergate’

Carl Bernstein knows a serious political scandal when he sees one.

The veteran journalist had a front-row seat as the Watergate scandal unfolded in 1972 through much of 1974. His work for the Washington Post in tandem with fellow reporter Bob Woodward uncovered a constitutional crisis that eventually brought down President Richard Nixon.

So, when Bernstein asserts that the current troubles involving Donald Trump are “worse than Watergate,” I tend to take notice.

I will concede immediately that Bernstein is no fan of Trump. Indeed, he came from a family of radical left-leaning political activists. I recognize his bias.

However, he is able to apply some serious analytical thinking to these two events. His view about Trump’s handling of the Russia matter means a lot to me.

The Hill reports: “I think it’s time to recognize that what we are watching in the Trump presidency is worse than Watergate,” Bernstein told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “It’s worse than Watergate, as I say, because the system worked in Watergate.”

“The heroes of Watergate were Republicans who demanded that the president be held accountable, who demanded that he be transparent, who demanded to know what did the president know and when did he know it, and who conducted bipartisan investigation that led, in fact, to understanding and finding out what Nixon had done,” he continued. “Whereas the Republicans on Capitol Hill thus far, have done almost everything they can to impede and undermine legitimate investigation.”

The “legitimate investigation” seeks to find out whether the Trump presidential campaign “colluded” with Russians who attacked our electoral system and whether there is a demonstrable obstruction of justice. The president calls it a “witch hunt,” and his GOP allies have sought to derail the investigation headed by a man — Robert Mueller — who was hailed universally as a man of principle when the Justice Department appointed him to be special counsel.

Republicans say something different about Mueller as he continues to tighten the circle around Trump, the White House and key members of his presidential campaign.

I guess my question goes like this: Are there any Republican “heroes” going to emerge?

2016 election, national news

Are we entering Watergate 2.0?

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m beginning to sense a certain frenzy developing around the White House that — if memory serves — resembles the climate that fell over the place during the Watergate scandal.

Yes, Watergate happened a long time ago. President Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974 just as he was about to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. As Carl Bernstein — one of the Washington Post reporters who covered the story — noted the other day, the “real heroes” of the Watergate saga turned out to be congressional Republicans — led by Sen. Barry Goldwater — who told the president he had no Senate support were the impeachment to go to trial.

That kind of “heroism” is missing at the moment.

Still, my sense is that there is a growing tension beginning to develop in Washington, on Capitol Hill and the White House as special counsel Robert Mueller continues his work to determine if there was any “collusion” between the Trump campaign team and Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

I am in no position to know how this case will conclude. It well might end with Mueller saying, “I got nothin’, folks” — which I doubt will happen. He might recommend criminal proceedings against key White House aides, maybe even the president himself.

Or … he could scold the president and his team and leave all the political consequences up to the House of Representatives and the Senate.

However, those of us of a certain age — such as Americans, like me, who came of age politically during the Watergate era — might be feeling a bit of deja vu as we watch the current White House writhe and squirm as the special counsel goes about his complicated task.

I know I am.