Tag Archives: White House

national news, political news

Hillary again? Absolutely!

Donald Trump cannot resist the temptation to re-litigate the 2016 election.

Neither can some of the rest of us who didn’t support the president in his winning bid for the White House.

That all said, I want to state something that won’t surprise regular readers of this blog: If I could re-cast my most recent vote for president a second time, I would cast it in a New York minute for the candidate I supported in 2016; that would be Hillary Rodham Clinton.

We’re coming up on the first year since Trump took the oath of office. It’s been the longest year of many of our lives. Each day, let alone each week and month, has brought crisis upon crisis. Headaches caused by chaos and confusion abound in the White House. The president cannot get his feet under him.

It’s fair to wonder: Would a President Hillary Clinton have taken office amid such stumbling and bumbling? No. The transition would have been seamless.

It also is fair to ponder whether Hillary Clinton was the perfect candidate for president. Of course she wasn’t. She had her flaws. Clinton didn’t seem genuine. At times she sounded and actually looked inauthentic. But I didn’t — and still don’t — buy the notion about her being “crooked.” Her flaws as a candidate in my view do not include criminality.

My continued support for Hillary Clinton, I must add, presumes she would run against Donald Trump. To be totally candid, there were other Republicans I found much more attractive than the guy who won the GOP nomination. Had the nominee been, say, Ohio John Kasich or perhaps even U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida I might be persuaded to vote Republican for the first time in my voting life. I particularly like Gov. Kasich — and I actually would like to see him challenge the president in 2020.

However, if I had the chance to vote all over again between Trump and Hillary Clinton, I wouldn’t regret for a minute supporting Clinton.

Her competence and her understanding of government cannot be questioned. Neither can we question her decorum or her dignity.

I grew tired very early in the Trump administration of shuddering at the president’s rhetoric. I have zero doubt that Hillary Clinton would know how to act presidential.

national news, political news

Imagine top aides for Obama, ‘W’ turning on the boss

Stephen Bannon’s assertion in a new book that Donald Trump Jr. might have committed an act of “treason” by meeting with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 brings to mind a fascinating observation.

It didn’t come from me originally. I heard it from Jeffrey Toobin, a legal analyst for CNN. Toobin said it would be unconscionable for David Axelrod to turn on Barack Obama or Karl Rove to do the same thing to George W. Bush.

Those two former White House strategists and key political aides were loyal to the boss and remain so to this day. Bannon presents another situation altogether.

He has said that Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Russian legal eagle constituted potentially “unpatriotic” and “treasonous” activity. They met, according to a book, “Fire and Fury,” written by David Wolff, to discuss dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton. The inference is that Don Jr. might have colluded with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election outcome.

The revelation made public has enraged the president. He says Bannon “lost his mind” when he was fired from his job as chief strategist for Donald Trump. He argues that Bannon had little influence or impact on the White House.

We might be witnessing an unprecedented unraveling of a presidential administration. It does appear to be unusual in the extreme that someone who once had the president’s ear to turn on him in the manner that has occurred.

What’s more, the reaction from the president does have the appearance of near-panic within the White House.

Toobin does pose a fascinating query. Can you imagine Presidents Obama and Bush being torpedoed in this fashion?

I cannot.

national news, political news

This is ‘winning,’ Mr. President?

Happy New Year, White House staff. They’re seemingly filled with anxiety about their future and the future, possibly, of the Man in Charge — the president of the United States.

Donald Trump has returned to the White House from his “working vacation” at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. He is sunny, upbeat and ready for the challenges that 2018 will bring him.

I hope he’s really ready for what could be a rough year, as if 2017 wasn’t rough enough.

Sure, he got that tax cut through Congress and signed it into law before Christmas. But … that was it, legislatively. Of course, the president had a different take on it, calling his first year the most successful in the history of Planet Earth.

A new year is now upon us all. The White House reportedly is getting ready for more senior staff shakeups. I guess they’re getting used to it by now. Trump has let one White House chief of staff go; he canned the White House communications director, who replaced the guy who resigned; he fired his first national security adviser; the first White House press secretary quit in a huff.

Deputy Cabinet officials have yet to be named in many departments. The secretary of state might be on the bubble; but then again, maybe not.

And, yes, we have the special counsel’s investigation into that “Russia thing.”

Against all that backdrop, there is a concern among White House staffers about a potential Democratic onslaught in the upcoming midterm election. “They absolutely should worry about 2018,” said Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary to President George W. Bush. “I do fear a wave election. Democrats are highly motivated to vote against Trump and all Republicans. Trump has got to grow beyond the base, and he has got to make himself less hated among a group in the middle.”

Anxiety abounds

Yet the president keeps talking about “winning” and saying all is good, all is bright, all is just plain peachy within the White House.

I, um, don’t think that’s the case.

national news, political news

Trump has a Christmas chip on his shoulder

Donald J. Trump seems to be picking a fight during this season of joy, merriment and holy worship.

He is peppering his speeches with Christmas greetings, implying — falsely, in my view — that Americans have been inundated with politically correct “happy holidays” greetings that diminish the true significance of Christmas.

I want to invite the president to look around and listen carefully to television and other media’s treatment of the holiday season. I am hearing plenty of “Merry Christmas” greetings from TV hosts, journalists, merchants, children … you name ’em, they’re saying it.

The president, furthermore, keeps insisting that his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, diminished Christmas’s significance in our culture by saying “happy holidays” when, in Trump’s view, he should be wishing us Merry Christmas. Of course, he is mistaken. The president and Michelle Obama decked the White House halls of plenty of Christmas décor, just as George W. and Laura Bush, and Bill and Hillary Clinton did and, well, you can go back to George and Martha Washington if you wish.

No ‘war’ on Christmas

What I suspect is occurring here is that the president is continuing the ongoing phony “war on Christmas” narrative that many in the conservative media have declared was underway.

C’mon, Mr. President. Give it a rest. Enjoy the holiday and wish happiness for everyone, even those who don’t celebrate Christmas.

political news

McCain to Hillary: Cool it with the criticism

John McCain knows the pain of losing a presidential election.

Accordingly, he has offered the most recent presidential election loser a bit of solid advice, although I disagree with the manner in which he delivered it.

The Arizona Republican U.S. senator has told Hillary Rodham Clinton to clam up, that she shouldn’t be so highly critical of the man who defeated her for the presidency. “One of the almost irresistible impulses you have when you lose is to somehow justify why you lost and how you were mistreated: ‘I did the right thing! I did!’” Trump told Esquire Magazine. “The hardest thing to do is to just shut up.”

He added: “What’s the f—–g point? Keep the fight up? History will judge that campaign, and it’s always a period of time before they do. You’ve got to move on. This is Hillary’s problem right now: She doesn’t have anything to do.”

Ouch, man!

McCain can’t claim to have remained silent about the man who beat him in 2008. He returned to the Senate after Barack Obama thumped in the race for the White House. He used his public office to criticize the president’s policies. To me, he did sound a little sour-grapy at times, but I understand his position as a member of the “opposing party” while sharing governing responsibility with the president.

Clinton’s situation is drastically different. She isn’t holding a public office. Sen. McCain notes that, too, suggesting that she could have waited a good while before publishing her book — “What Happened” — that chronicles her version of why she lost the 2016 election.

I say all this without apologizing for a moment that I supported her election as president — and I would do so again if she were to face Donald Trump a second time in a presidential election.

I just hope she doesn’t run again.

As for John McCain, he is in the midst of the fight of his life and it has not a damn thing to do with politics or policy. By my reckoning, his battle against cancer gives his remarks even more gravitas.

national news

White House protests too much

I have a simple bit advice for the White House press office, which seeks to explain the nature of the president’s time away from Washington.

Settle down, will ya?

The Trump family has jetted off to Florida to spend the Thanksgiving weekend at their resort. Fine. Enjoy yourself, Mr. President.

Back at the office, the White House keeps insisting that the president is taking a “working vacation.” Press aides keep telling the media that the president is hard at work while he plays golf, frolics with his grandkids and does whatever he does when he’s not in the Oval Office.

C’mon, gang! I’ve long defended presidential vacations by noting that presidents never are “off the clock.” I know that the current POTUS has squawked about the vacations his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, would take. I called him out when he would insist he would “never” take a vacation were he elected president. I defended President Obama for taking time away from the stressful atmosphere in the Oval Office.

I’ll do so again with Donald Trump. Which brings me back to my point: The president of the United States is supposed to be available to answer the call, whether he’s at his Oval Office desk or on the 18th green.

Message to White House press office? Stop insisting on calling it a “working vacation.”

national news

Bill Clinton paid the price for his misbehavior

We’re talking these days about sexual predation, abuse, assault, harassment. Men do behave badly at times. A number of men in powerful positions have been accused of that bad behavior.

I feel the need to set the record straight on one powerful man who once was in the news because of his misdeeds.

Republicans keep harping on former President Bill Clinton’s misbehavior while he was in the White House. They use that historical context to “defend” the actions of one currently prominent GOP politician, U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, who’s been accused of sexual abuse involving underage girls.

These Republicans, some of whom are friends of mine — and even a family member — wonder why President Clinton got a pass when he was messing around with Monica Lewinsky, a young White House intern in the late 1990s.

I must remind them: President Clinton got impeached. The House of Representatives — led by its GOP majority — impeached the president because he lied under oath to a federal grand jury that was snooping around, looking for something to stick to the president. The special counsel, Kenneth Starr, uncovered the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship, summoned the president to testify to the grand jury, asked him whether he had an sexual relationship with Lewinsky.

Clinton said “no.” That was untrue. Thus, the House had its grounds for impeachment: perjury. The president was humiliated. His wife became, shall we say, quite angry with him.

Did the president get off scot-free? Hardly. He paid a huge political price in the moment.

The U.S. Senate put him on trial. Senators acquitted him. Thus, the president was allowed to serve out the remainder of his second term in office.

Yes, there were other allegations. Clinton did settle with one of the accusers. He was stripped of his law license in Arkansas.

There’s no doubt that the former president has reclaimed his political standing. Time does have a way of putting some matters into different contexts.

However, the notion that Bill Clinton did not pay a price for his misbehavior is a canard those who still despise him are using to divert attention from the issue of the moment, which involves the conduct of the current crop of high-powered men.

national news

The ‘moron’ now becomes the ‘dope’

One man’s “moron” is another man’s “dope.”

Is that how it goes these days inside the White House, the center of power of the United States, the place where the Leader of the Free World practices his statecraft?

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson famously called Donald J. Trump a “bleeping moron.” When asked whether he said such a thing, Tillerson didn’t come close to denying it, saying only that he wouldn’t engage in “petty” discussions.

Now comes national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who reportedly called the president an “idiot” and a “dope” and someone with the attention span and intelligence of a kindergartner.

I’m feeling the burn, which more than likely is being lost on the target of the epithet.

The White House, to no one’s surprise, denies McMaster — a U.S. Army lieutenant general and an expert on terrorism — said such a thing.

What does one think about all of this?

I get no satisfaction hearing about this level of disparagement coming from top hands within a presidential administration. I consider it virtually unheard of at this level of government.

I know what I’ve said about the president, how I don’t believe he is suited temperamentally to hold the office to which he was elected. He has uttered some remarkably intemperate, inarticulate and indelicate statements since entering political life in June 2015.

Trump’s knowledge of any sort of intimate details of anything remains suspect to anyone who’s watched this man operate.

Finally, I am left to wonder if anyone should be surprised that Lt. Gen. McMaster — an acknowledged expert on national security — would say the president lacks the understanding of the complexities these issues present.

I’m now waiting for McMaster himself to deny saying it.

national news, political news

Trump shrinks a big office

I wish I had thought of this, but since I didn’t I’ll deliver appropriate credit to the source of this piece of wisdom.

It comes from U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who fired off this tweet today about Donald J. Trump Sr.:

“The President would have left American students in a foreign jail because their families didn’t lavish sufficient praise on him. How can someone in such a big office be so small?”

What a great question, even though it’s more or less a rhetorical inquiry. Here’s another twist on it: How can Trump shrink the high office he won a year ago in one of those most stunning political upsets in U.S. history? I think it shrunk the very moment he took the oath of office.

POTUS shrinks his office

The object of Schiff’s retort concerns the Twitter tussle that Trump entered with LaVar Ball, the father of one of three UCLA student/athletes who were charged with shoplifting at a high-end store in the People’s Republic of China.

Trump talked to Chinese leaders while visiting that country and reportedly persuaded them to release the young men instead of convicting them and sentencing them to potentially years-long prison sentences. LaVar Ball then tweeted that Trump didn’t do anything to obtain the release of his son and the other athletes.

Then the president decided to fire back at Ball — a man known for his big mouth and outsized public presence in the lives of his athletically gifted sons.

He said he “should have left them in jail” because LaVar Ball didn’t lavish enough praise on the president for his efforts.

That is one way a small man can occupy such a big office. Indeed, Trump is managing to shrink the office itself with his persistently petulant behavior.

Trump has turned this remarkable “skill” into an art form.

legal news, national news, political news

‘Fine-tuned machine’ needs a serious lube job

The president of the United States has described his administration as functioning like a “fine-tuned machine.”

Such a description implies a thorough vetting of those seeking high-level government appointments, yes? Sure it does.

Why, then, did a Donald Trump nominee for the federal bench fail to report something that poses a potential conflict of interest? You know, that he is married to a senior White House lawyer.

Brett Talley failed to disclose that he is married to Ann Donaldson. Talley wants to be a federal judge; Donaldson works for an organization — the White House — that could face a challenge and appear in the very court where Talley presides.

Mr. President, we have a problem

Doggone it, man. Isn’t that a problem? What’s more, why didn’t Donaldson step forward and inform the White House judge-search team that there might be a problem with her hubby being seated on the federal bench?

And there’s an interesting back story, too. Talley wants an appointment to a judgeship that serves a district in Alabama, which is being tossed and roiled at this very moment by a scandal involving Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate who’s being accused of making improper sexual advances on underage girls.

Aw, what the heck. I digress … you know?

Talley also has never tried a case. His legal experience is quite limited and one can question whether he actually is qualified to preside as a federal judge.

Is this how the president finds the “best people” to serve the federal government? Is this how a “fine-tuned machine” operates?

Umm. No.