Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? One whole day of “Papa Trump” before that nasty “Russian Connection” began to rear its ugly head once more, its rancid scent rising to the point that even FBI Director James Comey—“No Nose Jim”, as I like to call him—might be moved to say, “Now, what the heck is that?” I mean, so what if Trump’s now thankfully former national security advisor took, you know, a cash payment from the Russian news outfit Russia Today before attending a banquet held by Russia Today and sat at the same table as muscle boy Vladimir Putin. A guy’s gotta make a living, doesn’t he? And eat!
And the same with Donald, Jr. So what if he took fifty grand from some Franco-Russian friendship outfit? What’s he supposed to do, leave the money lyin’ on the table? Don’t be a sucker, chump! Ethics are for sissies!
Well, “ethics are for sissies” is definitely how the Donald likes to roll. It’s “amusing” that one of the “explanations” for Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ legal troubles is that he didn’t answer Minnesota Senator Al Franken’s question in a sufficiently lawyerly manner. See, when Franken asked Sessions “what will you do” if, as attorney general, he learns that someone involved in Trump’s campaign had been in contact with the Russian government, Sessions should have said “I will certainly take the appropriate action, senator,” instead of, you know, volunteering information, to wit: “I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have—did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.” So, it’s like, since he didn’t have to say that, it’s almost the same as if he didn’t say that.
Well, volunteering information is ever the mark of a chump, and if Trump decides to dump the chump, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving, hey, let’s go back to the fifties when everything was nice prick like Jeff Sessions, the red neck from J. Press. Virtually every opinion Sessions has is noxious, which is why Trump likes him so much. And so ninety percent of the bounce Trump got from his “look ma no spittle” address has gone away, and good riddance, for the substance if not the manner was pure Trump—a vicious core of xenophobia wrapped in windy and self-contradictory platitudes and promises, “sanctified” by the blood of a martyr, the necessity of whose death only a traitor would question. The Washington Post’s Radley Balko exposes the manifold corruptions of Trump’s “vision” in a piece aptly titled “Trump’s speech was a broadside attack on the values of a free society”. On the right, it’s “interesting” that, by my admittedly cursory inspection, Ramesh Ponnuru was almost alone in noticing/pouting that Trump “didn’t even pay lip service to social conservatism, or to cutting total federal spending”. Because nobody gives a damn, Ramesh?
Afterwords
I have formulated the theory, after watching a dozen YouTube clips, that 46% of the American electorate voted for Tony Soprano for president in 2016. They don’t want a president who negotiates; they want a president who beats people to death with a baseball bat. So far, it doesn’t look like Big Tony is exactly great shakes as an administrator. Take away his baseball bat, and he doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself.
