Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Friday, April 28, 2017

What is Hopeful About Trump's Cluelessness

President Donald Trump on Thursday reflected on his first 100 days in office with a wistful look at his life before the White House.

"I loved my previous life. I had so many things going," Trump told Reuters in an interview. "This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier."
Maybe he's growing into the job, but I have my doubts. For one thing, this:
White House aides have figured out that it’s best not to present Trump with too many competing options when it comes to matters of policy or strategy. Instead, the way to win Trump over, they say, is to present him a single preferred course of action and then walk him through what the outcome could be – and especially how it will play in the press.

“You don’t walk in with a traditional presentation, like a binder or a PowerPoint. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t consume information that way,” said one senior administration official. “You go in and tell him the pros and cons, and what the media coverage is going to be like.”
Or, as was said in the 19th Century: "There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader." That isn't leadership, but craven political cowardice.

"How will it play in the press" is not the mark of any sort of leader. It is the mark, rather, of a narcissistic publicity whore. Trump would seem to prefer to be flattered and believe that the American people love him, rahter than provide any sort of leadership in perilous times.

This is also disturbing:
Midway through a discussion about Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president paused to hand out copies of what he said were the latest figures from the 2016 electoral map.

"Here, you can take that, that's the final map of the numbers," the Republican president said from his desk in the Oval Office, handing out maps of the United States with areas he won marked in red. "It’s pretty good, right? The red is obviously us." He had copies for each of the three Reuters reporters in the room.
Sore losers are pretty common, witness the South since 1866 (once the shock of losing wore off) and post-Great War Germany. Winners rarely feel a need to keep bragging about their victory (Patriots fans notwithstanding). People in the North rarely talk about their ancestors who marched off to crush those traitorous rebels 150 years ago.

But not Trump.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Y'know, we Patriots fans do NOT keep bragging about winning, except in years when we win the Super Bowl. Which is a lot of years.

But even our bragging makes more sense than Trumpie's.

CenterPuke88 said...

It's the insecurity that worries me. He has to pump up his results, he has to lie to himself, he has to say it's tougher than he thought. He's worried about the press about the result, not the result itself. There is no military solution to North Korea that doesn't involve a decimated South Korea and an irradiated portion of SE Asia that includes portions of the Koreas, Japan, China and Russia, to begin with. But if Donnie thinks it'll make him look strong in the press, he's willing to do it.

Stewart Dean said...

...and this from Kevin Drum:

But Trump still hasn't learned his lesson. I've dealt with lots of people who will regale you endlessly with tales of how complicated their own business is, but the less they know about some other business the easier they think it is to fix. For example:

Trump tells Reuters: I want to see peace with Israel & Palestinians. There is no reason there's not peace between them - none whatsoever
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) April 28, 2017

Sure, Donald. You can't even get Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon to stop squabbling, but the Middle East? Piece of cake. There's no reason to think this is a difficult problem that requires a lot of hard work. It's just that all the presidents before you have been really, really stupid.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/04/presidenting-hard
http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.786248

Comrade Misfit said...

Stewart, yeah, I saw that. I had a post half-done when I had to go do something. It's up, now.