Tag Archives: Oval Office

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We still have only one POTUS at a time

Decorum matters. So does protocol. Say whatever you wish about a politician’s flouting of them both — whether you agree or disagree with him — they matter greatly in the conduct of foreign policy.

It is that backdrop, then, that compels me to say that Donald J. Trump is acting disgracefully during this transition period as he prepares to become the U.S. head of state and head of government.

The president-elect’s continual carping while President Obama conducts the affairs of state serves only to undermine the one president we have in power.

The recent decision by the United States to decline to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel over its building of settlements in the West Bank is the No. 1 example of how Trump doesn’t come close to understanding the meaning of protocol and decorum.

He launches routinely into his Twitter tirades, blasting the president’s decision, saying that Israel will have a true friend when the Trump administration takes over.

Consider, too, that another president-elect, Barack H. Obama, called a press conference shortly after being elected in 2008 to declare his intention to let President Bush conduct his policies the way he saw fit. President-elect Obama said he would wait until Jan. 20, 2009, the day he would take office, before weighing in with his own policy pronouncements. Indeed, presidents-elect going back many decades have honored that tradition.

What about that kind of behavior is lost on Trump? Why doesn’t this guy get it? Why can’t he resist the temptation to meddle in foreign policy before it’s his turn?

Trump has less than a month to go before he takes his oath of office, bids goodbye to his predecessor and then settles into the big chair in the Oval Office. This tweet storm he keeps launching is unbecoming of the office he is about to assume — and it damn sure is disrespectful of the man he is about to succeed.

Decorum and protocol, Mr. President-elect? You’ll learn soon enough how much it really matters.

national news, political news

Two picks: one works, the other one, well …

priebus-and-bannon

Donald J. Trump has made two of his first key picks for his presidential administration.

Reince Priebus will become the White House chief of staff. Good call there for the president-elect. Priebus is the Republican national chairman, a mainstream GOP guy, well-connected within the party.

Oh, but it gets weirder.

Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart News head, is going to assume the role of chief political adviser for the new president.

Why does this one cause alarm? Bannon ran an organization that published some pretty hateful dogma about Jews, about African-Americans, about gay people. When this guy took over as chief strategist for Trump’s campaign, a lot of folks — me included — became worried about the kind of rhetoric that would come out of Trump’s mouth.

Now he’s going to be advising the president on political strategy? The new president is going to bring this fellow into the White House, next to the Oval Office, place him at this right hand?

Oh, my.

My hope for the Trump administration is that the chief of staff assumes his rightful place as the second most powerful individual in the White House.

national news, political news

Smooth transition under way

President Obama met the man who will succeed him in the Oval Office and said something I found most interesting — and revealing.

The president turned to Donald J. Trump and offered his full support during the transition. “If you succeed, the country succeeds,” the president said.

Imagine that. The man who called Trump “unfit to be president” now is wishing him success as he prepares to seize the levers of power.

Holy cow, man!

Why is that worthy of comment? Consider the kind of things that many conservatives said in 2009 as Barack Obama succeeded George W. Bush as president.

A lot of them — namely many of them talk-radio blowhards — were actually urging failure for the president. They didn’t care about the consequences of failure. They failed to connect the nation’s fate with the president’s performance. They didn’t understand — or refused willfully to understand — that the nation suffers if the president fails.

The Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, declared that his No. 1 priority was to make Obama a one-term president. How does he do that? By ensuring failure at every step.

President Obama deserves high praise for insisting that Donald Trump’s success bodes well for the nation.

national news, political news

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.

national news, political news

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.

national news, political news

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.

national news, political news

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.

letter

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.

 

national news, political news

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 …

 

national news, political news

GOP’s presumed nominee is looking for love

ryan

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.

 

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Hey … about those Nigerian girls

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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.