Tag Archives: G-7 Summit

political news

‘Beclowned’ becomes newest cool word

Steve Schmidt clearly is a “never Trump” Republican.

He once worked for U.S. Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. He is a close personal friend of the stricken senator and no doubt has taken personally the insults that Donald J. Trump has tossed at Sen. McCain while the senator is battling a life-threatening illness.

Schmidt has coined perhaps the most interesting verb in recent political discourse. In a tweet, he wrote that the president has “beclowned” himself.

Beclowned? Yep. That’s the verb. Here is Schmidt’s entire tweet:

TRUMP disgraced the Presidency and the United States at the G-7 summit. From his slovenly appearance to his unpreparedness, ignorance and arrogance, he beclowned himself. The Republican majority is filled with cowards who are servile supplicants to the most unfit POTUS ever

I’ve never heard the term before. Let me know if you have.

My point here is that when you have a serious Republican saying such things about an ostensibly Republican president, then the target of these epithets would seem to have a problem. Except that such criticism not only rolls off Trump, it doesn’t register with those who continue to support this individual’s world view … such as it is!

Schmidt isn’t the world’s perfect political operative. He had a hand, after all, in persuading Sen. McCain to select Sarah Palin as his 2008 vice-presidential running mate. To his credit, Schmidt has owned up to the mistake he made.

However, Schmidt is making no mistake in asserting Donald Trump’s profound unfitness for the job he currently occupies.

International news, military news

No ‘complete strategy’ against Islamic State?

President Barack Obama landed in Germany and then dropped this startling admission on the laps of the worldwide media.

“We don’t yet have a complete strategy,” the president said in describing the U.S.-led effort to fight the Islamic State.

I make no apologies for my support of President Obama, but this one floors me.

Nine months into the campaign to defeat ISIL, the president today acknowledged that he’s been winging it.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/244272-obama-we-dont-yet-have-a-compete-strategy-against-isis

My advice to the president — are you paying attention, young man? — is that you need to finish working on that strategy in a serious hurry.

I don’t believe you need to mobilize The Big Red One, or the Screaming Eagles, or a Marine division to — pardon that hideous euphemism — put “boots on the ground.”

But there needs to be a “complete strategy” to fight these monstrous terrorists.

The president is in Germany attending the G-7 summit and has pledged to speed up training and arming of Iraqi forces, which have been all but cowering in the face of ISIL advances on major cities and military installations. Yes, the Iraqi military has made some gains in recent days, but they keep getting pushed back.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently said the Iraqis lack the “will to fight” ISIL. They’d better find the will if they intend to defend their own country.

As for the complete strategy that the president said is coming, time is not our friend.

Let’s get busy.