Check out the word circled in red ink.
This error goes more or less without any comment, much less a full-blown critique. So I won’t offer one here.
Suffice to say that the White House apparatus — Donald John Trump’s self-described “fine-tuned machine” — needs a healthy helping of lube grease.
This is the official invitation to the president’s State of the “Uniom” speech Tuesday night.
Sad.
Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci has delivered a sparkling example of why he lasted only a few days as White House communications director.
His spinning skills are seriously deficient.
Let’s look for a moment at what he told CNN newsman Chris Cuomo. The Mooch told Cuomo that the New York Times story about how Donald John Trump ordered the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller was “irrelevant” because Trump never actually fired Mueller.
It made me go, “Huh?”
The Times cited four sources in detailing how the president ordered White House counsel Donald McGahn to get Mueller fired from his probe into the “Russia thing.” McGahn said he would quit if the president pushed any harder. Trump then backed off.
The Mooch doesn’t seem to understand, or is ignoring, this basic fact: Trump has said many times he never discussed firing Mueller; he has said the thought never crossed his mind.
The Times story has revealed yet another presidential prevarication, an outright lie. And it’s a doozy, man! Not only did Trump discuss firing Mueller, he actually came within a whisker of acting on it.
To what end? To torpedo Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians during the 2016 election.
From my perch, that looks for all the world like “obstruction of justice.”
Yep. The story is quite relevant.
The video I am sharing here occurred not long after the 2008 presidential election.
President George W. Bush welcomed President-elect Barack Obama to the Oval Office for a get-together with three other gentlemen with intimate knowledge of the office of president of the United States.
Former Presidents Bush, Clinton and Carter all joined in wishing the new guy well as he prepared to assume the massive responsibilities of the world’s most difficult public service job.
I watch this video and wonder: Could such an event have occurred when Donald J. Trump succeeded Barack H. Obama?
I will answer my own question: Hell no!
Trump managed all along the way toward his election to trash virtually all of his predecessor. Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush didn’t vote for their fellow Republican; Trump managed also to denigrate President Carter’s service; oh, and let’s not forget the way he defamed President Clinton while running against the 42nd president’s wife in 2016.
George W. Bush looked at his successor and told him, “We want you to succeed.” He added that all the men gathered in the Oval Office had unique knowledge of the challenges that awaited the new man and would be glad to share their advice if asked.
I read only recently that Presidents Obama and Trump haven’t spoken since Trump took office. The 45th president continues to isolate himself and the presidency from two centuries of tradition and custom.
Then again, I have to remind myself of what Donald Trump declared from the podium at the 2016 GOP national convention. You’ll recall he said that “I, alone” can solve the nation’s problems.
No. You cannot, Mr. President.
I am happy to report that my copy of “Fire and Fury” arrived in the mail today.
My original plan was to rush out to the bookstore to buy a book off the shelf. Then I realized I could buy the book for a lot less money if I purchased it online.
So I did. I bought the book from Amazon for about half of what I would have paid at the retail outlet.
Michael Wolff has taken some grief in recent days over the book that details a lot of what many of us have suspected about Donald John Trump Sr., and his presidency. It tells of the chaos, confusion and the narcissism that plagues the White House. There also are those notable observations about whether Don Trump Jr. engaged in a “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” meeting with Russians goons who had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
Critics have wondered about his sources. They have accused him of fabricating quotes. Wolff didn’t acquit himself very well when he got quite testy with CNN talk show host Michael Smerconish, who asked him completely appropriate questions about how Wolff ingratiated himself with Trump’s inner circle.
Many pundits, though, have said the book is a serious page-turner. They couldn’t put it down.
I now intend to find out for myself.
I’ll get back to you.
Good government requires compromise.
Past presidents have known it. So have members of Congress — from both political parties. The rigid ideologues — either on the left or the right — might sleep well at night knowing that they hold firm to their principles. But the rest of us pay the price.
So it is with the current government shutdown that commenced at midnight Friday.
As I understand it, Democratic leaders in Congress have agreed to give Donald Trump money to build that wall he wants to erect on our southern border. They have demanded something in return: a commitment to avoiding the deportation of thousands of U.S. residents who came to this country as children when their parents brought them here illegally.
OK, then. Republicans get the wall; Democrats get to keep the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals rule.
Both sides give a little to the other.
Isn’t that how it works? Sure it is!
Meanwhile, the president who touts himself as a supreme deal-maker keeps changing his mind. He wants a deal to protect DACA recipients because he loves them. Then he feels the heat from the ideologues within his Republican Party who want to toss them out.
As for Democratic leaders, they, too are feeling the heat from their ideologues who want nothing to do with a wall.
I tend to favor the lefties on this one. However, I want the government to reopen fully. I also want compromise to rule the day. I want our elected leaders to do the job we sent them to Washington to do: I want them to govern effectively.
I do not believe in rigid ideology. I am now 68 years of age. The older I get the more room I seek to maneuver for the cause of good government.
Give a little. Declare victory. Open the doors to our government — for which we are paying good money!
One year into the presidency of Donald John Trump Sr. and the question is being asked: Has he changed the presidency forever?
He’s changed it. He has transformed the presidency into a sort of cult of personality. He demands loyalty from those he appoints to high office; he demanded it from an FBI director and then fired him when he didn’t get it.
By my reckoning, Trump has been a truly “consequential” president — for better or worse.
Has he delivered a permanent change to the high office? I doubt it. Strongly, I doubt it.
It’s often said that the office is bigger than the person who occupies it. That’s so very true even if that person possesses the ego and narcissistic qualities of one Donald Trump.
We cannot know, of course, what Year No. 2 will bring to this man’s time in office. Year No. 1 took us on one rocky ride after another. I suppose one could surmise that the constant chaos and confusion has brought considerable change to the nation’s highest office.
That’s how this guy rolls. He loves the chaos. He loves being the center of attention, no matter its cause or consequence.
But so help me this need not be a permanent fixture of the exalted office occupied at this time by someone who had never run for any public office of any kind prior to the 2016 presidential election.
Yes, he’s brought significant change to the presidency.
I guess all we need do at this moment is consider that on the first anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, he is presiding over a government shutdown.
By golly, that’s what I call “change.”
I also would bet real money none of us alive today is going to see this kind of first-year presidential commemoration ever again.
I now will hope that the next president will return the office to what we’ve long thought of as “normal.”
Donald John “Deal Maker in Chief” Trump Sr. reportedly has acknowledged the obvious.
The president is blaming congressional Democrats for the federal government shutdown that occurred at midnight, but has told White House aides that he is going to take the heat for it.
Imagine my absolute non-surprise!
Trump said in 2013 that the president should take the fall for a government shutdown. One occurred that year. A Democrat, Barack Obama, was in office at the time. Trump said the buck stopped at the president’s desk. The president is the nation’s head of state and government. Thus, he deserves all the blame.
That was then.
While campaigning for president in 2016, Trump then declared time and again from the campaign stump that he is the “greatest deal maker” in history. He made a “yuuuge” fortune cutting “the best deals.” No longer would there be “bad deals” struck inside the Oval Office “if I’m elected president,” Trump told us.
Well, Mr. President, what in the name of deal making has happened? Why didn’t you negotiate “the best deal ever” to avert a government shutdown?
Yes, the president likely will take most of the heat for this shutdown. Trump doesn’t deserve all of it, but he has managed — through his big mouth and thoughtless commentary — to deliver it directly to himself.
Our memories are long, Mr. President.
Now that Donald Trump is in charge, it’s time for him to step up — and lead!
I know I am not the only American who believes this, but the possible partial government shutdown seems to sum up quite nicely the first year of Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency.
Politics can be, oh, so poetic at times.
Such as right now.
It is quite possible that we’re going to wake up Saturday with the government shuttering some of its doors and windows. And think of it: This event might occur on the exact date one year after Donald Trump took the presidential oath of office.
No Drama Obama handed the White House keys over to All Chaos All the Time Trump.
Ain’t it cool? Well, no. It’s not.
The government shutdown, if it comes, will signify to me that Donald Trump’s time as president has come to a form of full circle.
He stood on the Capitol podium one year ago and delivered that dark, forbidding inaugural speech. Then right out of the chute, brand new press secretary Sean Spicer scolded the White House press corps with a scathing rebuke of its reporting of the size of the president’s inaugural crowd.
That, dear reader, set the tone for how this administration was going to conduct business.
So, here we are. One year later, we’re about the close many government offices, denying services to Americans who are entitled to partake of services they pay for with their tax money.
Trump, meanwhile, is chiding Democrats because they insist on a funding bill that takes care of so-called “Dreamers,” those U.S. residents brought here illegally when they were children. Democrats are chiding Republicans over their insistence that a funding bill include money to build a “big, beautiful wall” along our southern border.
The president’s “leadership” on this government funding madness has been missing in action.
I’ll just remind you all that of all the principals involved in this fight, only one of them represents the entire country: the president of the United States.
To borrow a phrase, Donald Trump “is leading from behind.”
Ah, yes. The political poetry of this chaos is so very telling.
As is its irony.
I am not going to spend a lot of time looking back on the first year of Donald J. Trump’s time in the White House.
High Plains Blogger has devoted a seemingly infinite amount of space to this subject all year long — and then some!
Readers of this blog know how I feel about the president. I have no need to recap it here.
I will offer this bit of advice, though, if anyone is interested in looking back. Just click on the “Search” tab on the blog’s home page and type in “Trump.” You’ll see it all.
There has been a bit of positive commentary on this blog about the president. I pledged to offer it when such matters presented themselves. I think I’ve been faithful to that pledge. The problem has been that Trump hasn’t done enough to merit more positive comments from this corner.
***
Looking ahead briefly to Year No. 2, to be candid I don’t expect much to change with regard to this blog’s posture relating to the president.
We still have that “Russia thing” to resolve. The special counsel, Robert Mueller, remains hard at work trying to determine whether the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russian hackers who sought to influence the 2016 election outcome.
Along the way, I expect the president will keep denigrating Mueller’s integrity, even though he was universally praised when the Justice Department appointed him. And … I’ll have plenty to say about that.
I’ll also comment on the lies he’ll continue to tell and the insults he’ll keep hurling at his political foes as well as the media.
I guess my hope for the second year of Trump’s term as president is that he is able to hone the White House into the “fine-tuned machine” he called it. He isn’t there yet.
My other hope would be for the president to keep tweeting.
He gives me — and other commentators — plenty of grist when he unleashes his Twitter thumbs.
I consider myself a modern fellow. I believe I am adequately liberated from the hang-ups that bedeviled my parents and grandparents.
However, I remain kind of stodgy in one respect. I expect the leader of my country to be the best we have to offer. I expect the president of the United States to be relatively free of the bad habits that afflict many of the rest of us.
Take for example the latest offering from Donald John Trump. He sat in the White House conducting a serious meeting on immigration reform. He was talking to several key lawmakers: six Republicans and a Democrat. The discussion turned to special protections offered to immigrants from Third World countries.
Then the president blurted out his now-infamous “sh**thole” comment about immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and Africa.
His supporters say he’s speaking for millions of Americans. They say he is using language many of the rest of us use.
I get that. I have been known to pepper my language with terms similar to what the president used. However, there’s a big difference.
Donald Trump is the president; I am not. He is the one who talks about high-minded public policy with other government officials; I talk to my friends and family members. He represents the greatest nation on Earth; I represent only myself.
I want the president to be better than what he continues to demonstrate.
I want him to speak with some semblance of dignity and decorum. He keeps disappointing many of his fellow Americans. We deserve better than what we’re getting from our head of state.