Tag Archives: Oval Office

Transitions should be peaceful … always

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Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump are giving Americans a fascinating civics lesson.

A bitter, divisive, ruthless and occasionally slanderous presidential has come to an end. The president is about two months out from the end of his two terms in office. The president-elect — one of the principals in the aforementioned campaign — is about to take the reins of the only public office he’s ever sought.

The two men met for 90 minutes in the Oval Office on Thursday.

They sat before the media and spoke of the transition that has begun. No outward sign of the acrimony that punctuated this campaign. No apparent hard feelings over the amazingly nasty things these men said about each other.

As Trump noted, they had never met face to face — until Thursday.

Now, to be sure, the backdrop isn’t entirely peaceful. Demonstrators have been marching in major-city streets for the past few days protesting Trump’s election. They vow to keep it up. Nor will the outward peacefulness at the White House dissuade others from making angry statements about the winner of this campaign, or about the candidate who lost, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

That shouldn’t cast too large or too dark a pall over the formalities that are occurring at and/or near the center of power.

The president is vowing a smooth transition; indeed, he wants to model the hand-off he got from President Bush and his team in 2009.

The peaceful transition of power is a marvelous aspect of our system of government. It becomes especially noteworthy when the presidents are of differing political parties.

In this particular instance, the transition should become a virtual miracle given the fiery rhetoric that was exchanged over the course of the past 18 months. Indeed, in the case of Trump, he’s been at the forefront of one of the biggest political lies of the past century: the one that suggested that President Obama wasn’t a legitimate American citizen.

None of us knows what the men said to each other in private. I would love to know how that conversation went.

However, we’re entitled to hear what they say in public. I am going to retain my faith that the tradition of peaceful political transition at the highest level of power in the United States will continue.

It’s all part of what enables the United States of America to remain the greatest nation on Earth.

Trump faces steep learning curve

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Donald J. Trump’s election as president has put me in a bit of a bind.

I live in a part of the country — the Texas Panhandle — that is steeped in Republican Party political tradition. Thus, this region voted overwhelmingly for Trump.

I’ve been fielding questions for most of the past two days from people with whom I have a good personal relationship about the election. “What do you think about the result?” they ask, knowing full well what my answer would be.

“Well,” I reply, “it didn’t turn out the way I wanted,” Then we talk about the challenges the president-elect faces.

The conversation turns inevitably to the h-u–u-u-u-g-e learning curve that Trump must confront. I don’t want to damage my relationships with my many friendly acquaintances, so I am careful to avoid getting too crass in my assessments of their candidate.

Thus, the bind.

You see, the man has no government experience … at any level! He didn’t serve in the military — which is no disqualifier; after all,  neither did Barack Obama, Bill Clinton or FDR, correct?

What’s more, he’s never served in any public service capacity. No school board, city council, county commission. Nothing, man! The first office he ever sought was the presidency of the United States of America.

So, here he is. He’s getting a lesson on governance at the highest level imaginable.

Trump met today with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. The men supposedly were to meet for about 15 or 20 minutes, but I understand they huddled for more than an hour. I don’t know what the president told his successor, but it’s a good bet he began schooling him on the nuance that will be required to do a fraction of the things he said he would do while he was campaigning for the office.

One man I spoke with today, someone I respect greatly, noted that Trump “is going to surround himself with individuals who know the system.” Uh, yeah! Do you think?

“He’d better find the best and the brightest,” I said, “and he’d better listen to every word of advice they have to offer.” If he doesn’t, then Trump is going to be in a serious world of hurt.

Among the many ridiculous statements Trump made on the campaign trail, one of them stands out at this moment.

“I have a good brain,” he said.

He’s going to have to absorb a lot of information that until this very week was foreign to him. We are about to find out just how good Donald Trump’s brain really is.

Oh, to be a fly on the Oval Office wall

U.S. President Barack Obama pauses while speaking about immigration reform during a visit to Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nevada November 21, 2014. Obama imposed the most sweeping immigration reform in a generation on Thursday, easing the threat of deportation for some 4.7 million undocumented immigrants and setting up a clash with Republicans who vow to fight his moves. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS SOCIETY IMMIGRATION HEADSHOT) - RTR4F3RB

I only can imagine how many others out there are thinking the same thing I am.

If only I could be a fly on the wall Thursday in the White House Oval Office when the president-elect walks in to meet with the fellow who’s president until Jan. 20.

Donald Trump and Barack Obama are going to meet, I presume to start preliminary discussions about the transition from one administration to the other.

Why the intense interest? I guess it has to do with the things Trump said about the president while he was campaigning for the office.

Worst president in history; corrupt; disaster; commander in chief of a “decimated” military machine? Oh, and let’s not forget how Trump fomented the “birther” myth that Obama wasn’t a legitimate citizen of the United States.

Trump said all of that — and much, much more — while waging a victorious campaign for the presidency.

And didn’t Barack Obama declare that Trump is “unfit” to be president? Didn’t he ridicule his temperament? Didn’t he suggest Trump curries favor with our adversaries, such as Vladimir Putin?

How does the president deal with the things Trump said? How does he set all that aside?

For that matter, how does the president-elect act as if he never made those amazing statements about the president?

How does the president turn the page from the criticism he leveled at Trump, particularly in the closing weeks of a bruising campaign?

Let the healing begin in the Oval Office … if it’s possible after the campaign we’ve all just endured.

There’s class … and then there’s Trump

Donald J. Trump keeps exhibiting a profound lack of class and grace as he stumbles his way toward a losing bid to become president of the United States.

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He needs to take a lesson from the gentleman on the right in this picture. That would be President George H. W. Bush. The other fellow in this photo is the man who defeated him in 1992, President Bill Clinton.

It’s a tradition for presidents to leave notes for their successor in the Oval Office. President Bush did so when he vacated the presidency on Jan. 20, 1993.

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It’s attached in the link I’ve added to this blog. Take a look at it.

It overflows with the kind of class one should expect in a losing candidate for the presidency. This note also is quite riveting, given that George H.W. Bush wrote it to the man who defeated him in a tough, aggressive and often negative presidential campaign.

What are we getting from the current Republican nominee as this campaign staggers toward the finish line? Bluster and threats.

 

Trump upsets the national political truism

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Donald J. Trump’s presidential candidacy has turned everything on its ear.

The Republican Party is at war with itself. How does the party back a presidential nominee who opposes traditional GOP orthodoxy? And just how does the party define “unity” if it cannot back its nominee fully?

Let’s play this out a little more.

What, then, about the rest of us who at the same time oppose traditional GOP dogma while also being repulsed by the very idea of Donald Trump ever settling behind a big desk in the Oval Office?

I’m trying to grasp the apparent conflict I’m enduring now as I watch Trump get ready to become the Republicans’ next presidential nominee.

I dislike the traditional GOP view on abortion, on tax policy, on wage and marriage equality, on gun control and on immigration.

I also dislike Trump’s views on at least one of those issues: immigration. The rest of Trump’s views are, to say the least, malleable. I don’t know precisely what he thinks about any of the rest of them.

Which brings me to this point. Why do I oppose this guy’s candidacy so vehemently?

I guess it’s his unfitness for the office he’s seeking.

Trump has no record of public service;  we have nothing on which to base his past performance. He has no grasp of the basics of government, let alone any idea on how to manipulate its complexities. Trump has lied constantly throughout this campaign — and until recently has been allowed by the media to get away with it.

He is a reality TV celebrity. He “owns” beauty pageants. He’s built glitzy hotels and has lived an opulent lifestyle. And American voters are supposed to relate to this?

And I haven’t yet gotten into his moral fitness for the job. He seems to possess no moral bearings. He has boasted openly about his marital infidelity. The things he has said about women simply stand as some of the most revolting things I’ve ever heard from anyone … let alone from someone on the brink of become a major-party presidential nominee.

How many other major, mainstream presidential candidates can you name who’ve spoken to shock jock Howard Stern about his sexual exploits?

This is what I mean about Trump upsetting every political calculation there is.

True-blue Republicans don’t trust him. My goodness, this guy is the classic RINO — a Republican In Name Only. Yet, he continues to collect the votes of millions of GOP base voters who, I guess, are trying to send some kind of “message” to the party establishment.

If he’s a RINO, which he is, then he ought to appeal to the rest of us who don’t swallow the Republican orthodoxy. Am I right?

Not even …

 

GOP’s presumed nominee is looking for love

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Donald J. Trump has a problem.

Actually, he has quite a few.

One of them is the lack of love coming his way from the so-called Republican Party “establishment” he must have if he has a chance of becoming the next president of the United States.

Get a load of this: U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan — the nation’s most powerful Republican — has said he cannot support his party’s presumed presidential nominee.

Why? He doesn’t represent the kinds of values Ryan wants him to represent. Trump is showing zero ability to unify the party, which also must happen if he intends to sidle into the Oval Office next January.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-paul-ryan-jab-at-each-other-deepening-fracture-in-gop/ar-BBsHgXZ?ocid=spartandhp

Trump is at odds with GOP orthodoxy on things such as trade, entitlement spending and foreign policy.

So, how does the nominee-in-waiting earn the speaker’s support? How does he pivot in the correct direction? Does a sudden change in philosophy — as if Trump actually has one — suggest insincerity? What’s more, does the speaker’s about-face look equally phony?

The Republican Party is about to nominate someone with the highest negative ratings in memory. The negative vibe is coming from within the very party Trump wants to represent in the fall campaign against the Democrats.

Here’s the best part: Trump now says he doesn’t support Ryan’s agenda. Someone needs to remind the presumptive nominee that the speaker of the House arguably wields at least as much power as the president of the United States.

Does he need proof of that? He ought to ask the man who occupies the Oval Office at the moment.

As the Chicago Tribune reports: “Whether Ryan’s conditions will be met by Trump remain to be seen. The businessman has shown only modest interest in hewing to party norms, and many observers do not expect him to do so now.”

There, folks, lies the problem that confronts the next GOP presidential nominee.

 

Hey … about those Nigerian girls

World crises seems to cascade all around us so rapidly that they yank our attention from, um, previous world crises.

Well, several crises ago, the world was aghast at the kidnapping of 300 or so Nigerian girls by yet another terrorist organization, Boko Haram. Remember that story?

The girls were taken into the forest where they’re reportedly being held hostage. Boko Haram had been demanding some sort of ransom. U.S. intelligence and special operations forces had joined the Nigerians and other international organizations in the hunt for the girls.

What’s happened to that story? Where are the girls? What has become of the urgency that was being expressed from places like the United Nations, the Oval Office of the White House, from the State Department, from capitals around the world?

I shudder to think that we can handle only one crisis at a time. Syria once was the crisis du jour; then came Ukraine; next up was Gaza and the Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli neighborhoods. The world is now fixated on Iraq, ISIS and the attempted overthrow of a government that the United States helped install.

Meanwhile, those Nigerian girls are still being held somewhere, by someone, for some reason.

Please, someone tell me the world still cares about those girls.

POTUS never off the clock

Wait for it. The critics are sure to climb all over this one: President Obama is going to raise money for Democratic Senate candidate while he’s vacationing with his family at Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

They’ll raise a serious ruckus about (a) the president taking a vacation at all and (b) taking part in political fundraisers while the world is exploding all around us.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/obama-fundraiser-marthas-vineyard-109346.html?hp=r14

I’ll make this point until I run out of proverbial breath: Presidents of the United States are never — ever — off the clock. They are entitled some time away from the Oval Office with their family.

Does that mean they’re shutting themselves off from the world? Hardly. They get national security briefings daily. They are told immediately when crises erupt. They are able to talk immediately to any world leader of American politician as events warrant. They aren’t sealed away in a vacuum chamber.

As for the fundraising part, well, I need to remind y’all that Republican politicians will take part in these kinds of activities as well when they take their summer break. Presidents and lawmakers do share a common theme: They’re all politicians, which by definition compels them to raise money for other politicians. It goes with the territory.

And just so we’re clear, I’m not sticking up for this president because I happen to agree with most of his policies. I’ve said many times over many years about many presidents of both political parties that they deserve time away.

And so damn what if they raise money? That’s part of the job as well.

Take ownership, not possession

Every now and then a politician and/or a pundit with whom I disagree offers a nugget of perspective that I find, well, agreeable.

Such was the case recently in a commentary written for CNN by a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who raked President Obama over the coals for what he called the president’s constant trip to “fantasyland.”

I refer to Newt Gingrich, one of the smarter conservatives around – but also one of the more bombastic.

I’ll stipulate up front that I disagree with Gingrich’s wholesale analysis that Obama is a failed president.

But then he offered this tidbit of “truth” as he sees it, and frankly, so do I.

He referred to a recent speech in which the president used the first-person pronoun – “I,” “my” and “me” – 207 times. That was 207 times in a single speech, according to Newtie.

Bingo, Mr. Speaker. The president’s use of that personal pronoun annoys the daylights out of me as well.

I’ve noticed almost from the day the president took office in January 2009.

At the very beginning, it was an impressive display of ownership that the young president had demonstrated as he took office to tackle the horrible economic crisis that threatened to swallow up the nation’s financial infrastructure.

Nearly six years into his presidency, and after a stunning re-election victory in 2012, I am finding the use of the first-person pronoun a bit of a distraction.

Listen to the president’s speeches or off-the-cuff public comments. He refers to “my administration,” “my vice president,” “my attorney general,” “my national security team,” “my economic advisers,” etc., etc., etc.

Let’s not draw any inaccurate conclusions here. I continue to believe that Barack Obama has done a good job in fixing the economic crisis he inherited. I also believe he is correct in relying more heavily on diplomacy than military action whenever crises erupt.

However, I do not believe taking ownership of the responsibilities of a high public office means that you can take possession of the office itself.

The government belongs to us, citizens who take the time to vote on those who seek to operate the government on our behalf. Yes, I mean those who actually vote, although I certainly recognize that non-voters’ tax money is just as important to funding the government as those who have cast ballots.

Therefore, it would seem more appropriate for the president to perhaps use the second-person pronoun – “your” attorney general, “your” vice president and so on – when referring to the tough issues that face those who run “your” government.

All these folks work for us – you and me – not the guy who sits in that big Oval Office.

What if we'd left Bergdahl behind?

As the feeding frenzy continues over the release of a one-time prisoner of war in Afghanistan, a lot of key questions have arisen.

I’ve covered some of them already in this blog. Another one has popped up.

What would the reaction have been had the United States — knowing the history of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s views on the Afghan War and perhaps suspecting he had left his post, as has been alleged — left him behind?

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/208213-reid-charges-gop-with-hypocrisy-on-bergdahl

The demands for answers have been loud, clear and largely justified.

Bergdahl was released by his Taliban captors after he’d been held for five years. In exchange, we released five high-ranking Taliban thugs from Gitmo on the condition they be restricted from traveling out of Qatar for a year. After that, well, it’s anyone’s guess, I suppose.

Bergdahl reportedly opposed our Afghan War effort. He said so in emails back home. Those views allegedly were known by the Army. We went after him anyway. President Obama said Americans “don’t leave soldiers behind” in war.

What we gave up to get him and the allegations that he “deserted” his comrades have raised a huge uproar.

Some of my very own friends here in the Texas Panhandle have called Bergdahl a traitor. They want him punished, thinking they know all the facts already. One fellow even said we ought to send him back to his captors.

Whatever.

Still, the question remains: What would be the tone of the criticism if we’d turned our backs on a soldier who some Americans already believe committed an act of treason? Would those people who today are critical of the recovery effort applaud an abandonment?

My strong suspicion is that they would be screaming themselves hoarse at the notion that the United States actually would leave one of our warriors behind, in the hands of a ruthless enemy.

Perhaps that takes us directly into the excruciating decision made at the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA, the National Security Council and the Oval Office itself.

It hardly, therefore, seems fair for peanut-gallery pundits to draw premature conclusions about a delicate matter about which they know next to nothing.

Yes, there are many questions to answer. How about first getting those answers?