Tag Archives: sumo match

Optics, Mr. POTUS … optics!

I cannot take credit for this, as I got it from a social media friend.

But the picture of Donald Trump yukking it up with a sumo wrestler, in Japan, on Memorial Day weekend sums up quite nicely this president’s utter lack of understanding of what this memory is meant to commemorate.

My social media friend wonders whether it would have been better for Trump to visit, oh, a Japanese military cemetery or perhaps visit Hiroshima or Nagasaki, two Japanese cities to suffer the only two atomic attacks ever launched during wartime.

Oh, no! Instead, the former reality TV celebrity and real estate mogul decided to attend a sumo match in the land of our former mortal enemy (and current important ally) on a weekend intended to honor the memory of Americans who died in battle, thousands of whom died at the hands of Japanese fighters.

Yes, the president and first lady went to Arlington National Cemetery the other day to lay flowers on graves of American service personnel. I appreciate that gesture.

But . . . we set aside this weekend to pay somber tribute to those who died fighting for our way of life, for our freedom, and against tyranny and the tyrants who seek to assert it.

Is there irony, given this current president’s relationships with strongmen? Yeah. I think so.