Category: National

* He’s back. It’s beyond ironic that F.B.I. Director James Comey is prominently back in the news.

Recall that he became a last-minute difference-maker in the presidential election by re-inserting Private ServerGate back into the news–while disregarding Justice Department advice to do otherwise. Now he’s asking the Jim Sessions-compromised Justice Department to disregard President Donald Trump’s bold assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Trump’s phones before the election. Actually, “disregard” is a euphemism for reject and rebuke– unheard of stuff in the context of a sitting president.

Maybe it is more than ironic. Won’t Comey’s memoir make an interesting read? It’s likely that his resignation isn’t too far off.

* The bar remains low–more like subterranean–for Trump acting presidential. His recent State of the Union speech was a classic example. He addressed a joint session of Congress, used a Teleprompter and didn’t regress to either locker-room vulgarities or airplane-hangar pander language. He spoke in platitudes, although none of them actually mentioned “democracy.” He looked like a person reading the speech for the first time. But no one yelled: “You lie!”

This was no presidential “pivot.” This was the “Presidential Apprentice.” And as we know, he was back on Twitter within hours with more Russian-scandal diversions.

Most observers considered his honoring of the widow of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens as a moving highlight. It was. But it was also a heart-wrenching optic prop–at odds with real self-sacrificing patriotism as well as with the truth over who ultimately gave the Yemen-mission go-ahead and what useful intelligence actually resulted.

* Interesting pull quote that the Tampa Bay Times selected from “Why American Democracy Will Hold” by Robert Kuttner. He noted how strange it was for Americans, who by and large don’t love militarism, to now find solace in the three retired Marine Corps generals–Defense Secretary James Mattis, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly–who stand between Donald Trump and a hair-Twitter temperament with nuclear-code access.

“These are serious men, with the patriotism and self-respect to tell the president when he is blowing smoke,” says Kuttner. “He can’t fire them all.”

He can’t? There’s a reason why “Seven Days in May” is now back in the conversation.

* Re: Trump’s revised travel ban. Finally something to rally around:”Fewer flaws!”

* White House spokesman Sean Spicer (not Melissa McCarthy) addressed reports that the Obama Administration kept incriminating intelligence linking the Trump campaign and Russian officials. He said, “There continues to be no there, there.” That sound you just heard was Gertrude Stein doing a 360 in her grave.

* Donald Trump has made it clear that he will be donating his $400,000 annual presidential salary. And there’s precedent for other wealthy presidents, such as John Kennedy and Herbert Hoover, doing likewise. Trump says he’ll accept $1, which will likely underscore his “populist” appeal to his fan base. But, frankly, how about accepting the salary, but picking up the tab for what it costs to keep Melania and Barron in Trump Tower? One other point: Imagine being grossly overpaid at $1 per annum.

* Cuban President Raul Castro gave signed copies of a recent speech to a group of U.S. Congress members, including Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The speech reportedly noted Castro’s willingness to negotiate with President Trump. Ironically, Trump might look more comfortable in the company of the authoritarian, free-press fearing Cuban leader than Barack Obama did.

* Members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club include New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and former Florida Senate candidate Jeff Greene.

* While we’ve all been reflecting on dystopian novels and movies for what Trump could mean to American democracy, there is another fictional perspective. That of the media, per se, and what its gut response could conceivably be to bully-pulpit harangues and taunts.

In fact, the other night I thought I saw a precursor to Howard Beal in “Network” (1976) when Fox News’ Shepherd Smith went all diatribe about presidential attacks on the media by someone who’s hardly the avatar of accuracy. Smith did, however, stop short of Bealian rhetoric.

But it wouldn’t have been shocking, frankly, had he actually said: “Things have got to change. But first, you gotta get mad. You’ve got to say I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.”

*That’s where we are with a president whose ALL CAPS sound bites–from crowd sizes, the unemployment rate and white-nationalism code to Mexican rapists, NATO obsolescence and a Swedish terror incident–sound like last-call babble. That’s where we are with a truth-challenged president who insults and denigrates the non-Breitbart-Hannity-Ingraham-Coulter “scum” media as the unpatriotic opposition that produces “fake news.” That’s where we are with a commander-in-chief with a “life is a campaign” mantra and whose only allegiance is to his hero-worshipping fan base, his sycophantic inner circle and his pathologically-narcissistic ego.

* And that’s where we are with a commander-in-chief who, ironically, owes his presidency to the media, the same one he treats as a prop and a piñata. The same one that fawned all over him as a bombastic celebrity and reality-TV personality. The same one that kick-started his presidential campaign with nearly $2 billion in free media coverage–far exceeding anything that Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz or Hillary Clinton received.

A Shorenstein Center report from the fall still resonates. Trump, it noted, was “arguably the first bona fide media-created presidential nominee.” Or as Republican strategist Rick Wilson observed: “Never forget. There was no movement. The media handed him this on a plate.”

Count on it. Nobody in the media is forgetting–both what Trump is saying and how he got into the position to say it.

* After a month of Trump, Bannon, Conway, Spicer and Miller, I miss Haldeman and Erlichman. I’m also recalling that, however dark and duplicitous, Richard Nixon was not unqualified to be president.

* A billionaire populist is the tip of the oxymoronic iceberg. Barely below the surface: what it’s costing taxpayers to support this hybrid Trump lifestyle that includes Secret Service security for presidential getaways to Mar-a-Lago, the Trump Tower residence of Melania Trump and globe-trotting overhead for the sons running the family business.

The biggest expense is moving the apparatus of the presidency to Palm Beach County. Often. The approximate cost, which includes having Coast Guard units patrol the exposed Mar-a-Lago shoreline, is $10 million so far for Trump’s first three post-inauguration visits. As for the First Lady’s Trump Tower digs, New York City is on the hook for $500,000 per day.

* We would be well advised to recall the words of President Teddy Roosevelt, who once observed that “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official.” But TR, of course, never proposed “Talking brashly and carrying a big shtick.”

* The Vlad Putin-Donald Trump bromance notwithstanding, Russia has seen fit to park a spy ship in technically international waters off the New England coast. It has also deployed West European-threatening, nuclear-capable cruise missiles at variance with the INF (Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty with the U.S.

Is this Putin sending a mob message to a dossier-haunted Trump or just Putin being Putin? It’s a given that with the Russian economy, which is oil-and-gas dependent and smaller than that of Canada, in the tank, he needs periodic distractions. Crimea’s not enough. He trades in conflict, especially if it weakens the European Union and reminds the U.S. that Russia is still a player.

And as for that psychological report the Russians are reportedly compiling on Trump, wouldn’t you like to see the details beyond “risk taker” and “naiveté?” You will.

And what are the odds that Trump won’t say something about Putin’s plastic surgery a few years ago?

* We can already see a key role being played by Vice President Mike Pence with his appearance at the Munich Security Conference. His mission was obviously two-fold. First, clean up after Trump and embrace NATO–albeit with a key, pay-your-way caveat. And, second, just look and sound, well, normal.

Later this month the Democrats will have themselves a new DNC chairperson. Nobody will be nostalgic for the divisive Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the pinch-hitting Donna Brazile. The various candidates have been sharing rationales in recapping what happened in November. It ranges from the flawed candidacy of Hillary Clinton to grass roots oversights and a lack of a 50-state strategy.

True, but there is also this.

Despite eight years of Republican obstructionism, it was still the Democrats’ race to lose–against a “populist” pop-culture charlatan–and they lost in 2016. Not bigly, but shockingly. And alarmingly. And embarrassingly.

Sure, there was the unforced error of Private-serverGate, the unlikely Vlad Putin-Julian Assange nexus and the meddlesome James Comey intrusion. But there was unassailably this: A Democratic electorate that somehow didn’t find the possibility of an outrageous, dangerously unprepared candidate assuming the presidency reason sufficient to get their progressive asses to the polls and vote for the alternative.

Hillary wasn’t Bernie. Hillary wasn’t Barack. Hillary wasn’t Elizabeth. Hell, Hillary wasn’t Bill back in the day. Yada, yada. So what? She wasn’t the existential threat that Trump was, is and will continue to be.

Trump has hit the ground stumbling–from staffing and nominee questions to constitutional farce and foreign-leader alienation. And it won’t get better because he can’t change his temperament, his values, his ethics, his aversion to briefings or his ALL-CAPS modus operandi.

For what it’s worth, I like the Dems’ and their somewhat-discredited “demographics-as-destiny” chances in 2020, but only as a visceral reaction to the unconscionable that never should have happened in the first place.

We now have the Resistance. Marches. Town hall push back. Emotion. Outrage. Moral high ground. And a provoked, motivated mainstream media. May we dodge the low-caliber, Trump bullet until the next election.

* How ironic that the South American leader with the friendliest relationship with Donald Trump also has the most notable immigration issue on his continent. Argentina President Mauricio Macri, who has known Trump since the 1980s and called him shortly after his presidential triumph, has issued his own immigration-curbing decree. Something about those arriving from poorer Latin American countries that can’t help bringing crime with them. Opinion polls have been supportive.

But the Macri government has taken pains to underscore that they don’t plan–as some right-wing politicians are advocating–on building any walls. That includes, most notably, along the Argentina-Bolivia border.

* Word has been leaking that President Trump is not overly comfortable with his White House life. As in, well, it’s a step down and kind of confining–especially for a non-reader. No surprise. The goal of a narcissistic billionaire celebrity was not to become president, but to win the presidency. Big difference. As we’ve been seeing.

* Every time I look in on a Sean Spicer–or is that Melissa McCarthy?–press conference, I’m reminded of a historical quote attributed to Benjamin Disraeli. “There are lies, damn lies and statistics.”

* Now that there’s Steve Bannon sitting at the alt-right hand of the president, there could be some revisionist thinking about previous White House influentials. Imagine, Dick Cheney never looking so good.

* By all accounts–straightforward and alternate–the largely unread, under-briefed president got through his extended visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe practically incident free. Just that flap over talking out of school at a Mar-a-Lago dinner about that North Korean missile launch. But we can imagine staff holding its collective breath about a transposition gaffe right out of a “Saturday Night Live” script. As in every time Trump referenced–especially when media lurked–the Japanese prime minister, whose name is not Honest Abe Shinzo.

* For obvious reasons we’ve been seeing allusions to dystopian novels such as “1984,” “It Can’t Happen Here” and “The Handmaid’s Tale.” “Citizen Kane,” understandably, has also been referenced. But if you want a tale–that isn’t dark, let alone dystopian–about a (spoiler alert) successful candidate utterly unprepared for his Washington role as a U.S. senator, rent “The Candidate.” It’s a comedy-drama from 1972 that stars Robert Redford as a long-shot California candidate during the Nixon years.

After a campaign against an establishment figure that provides insight into strategy and political machinations, the Redford candidate wins and then waxes reflective with a key handler at a victory party at the movie’s conclusion. It literally ends with: “Marvin, what do we do now?”

It’s not a rhetorical question.

* He’s an author, an academic and a resident scholar at the (conservative) American Enterprise Institute. In an era of over-the-top rhetoric and in-your-face attitudes, Norman Ornstein is a well-informed, evenly-modulated, respected centrist who knows enough not to need alternate facts. He’s nobody’s partisan puppet. Foreign Policy magazine named him to its list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers.

So when he says something that sounds like a line out of “The Manchurian Candidate” or “It Can’t Happen Here,” discerning readers take note. Ornstein is now advocating for Democrats to go obstructionist in their Congressional response to controversial Trump Administration moves not seen as in this country’s best interest–both at home and overseas.

“We don’t have a conventional president,” explains Ornstein. “We’re seeing behavior that could lead us right down the path to martial law or authoritarian rule.”

* As befits a belittling, hair-trigger Tweeter, President Donald Trump called federal Judge James Robart, the one who imposed that temporary restraining order on the targeted-immigrant ban, a “so-called judge.”  How classless. Meryl Streep, Sen. John McCain, Chief Justice John Roberts and the New York Times, among others, can identify with the insult-Tweet syndrome. But if anyone should be expected to traffic in such sophomoric put-downs, it should be a so-called president.

* Media relations, as we’ve all been witnessing, have been a cluster Trump so far.  But it’s not entirely fair to roll out those John F. Kennedy comparisons, where the lionized JFK could be disarmingly witty in response to unfriendly fire from the press corps.

True enough, Kennedy was articulate, quick and charismatic. And to his credit, he always acknowledged the primacy of the press in its free-society role. But let’s not forget: The rules–as well as the “media”–were different then. In pre-Watergate, pre-Gary Hart-Donna Rice America, there were untouchable areas of presidential scrutiny. Had the media been asking about the girlfriend, Judy Exner, that Kennedy shared with Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, Kennedy’s relationship with the media would have not been the same–inherent wit and charisma notwithstanding.

Comparing the disparate media eras is like comparing the benignly humorous JFK impressionist Vaughn Meader with the biting, spot-on Trump parody by Alec Baldwin.

* Speaking of, anyone else find watching SNL a bittersweet experience these days? There’s certainly a plethora of material–courtesy of Trump, Pence, Bannon, Spicer, Conway & Co.–and the skits are generally funny, especially Baldwin’s channeling of Trump. But at a certain point, we’re again reminded that beneath the satire is the real world of worrisome, embarrassing leadership. Going for the LOL jocular–without the geopolitical, national-security jugular–would be more fun.

* President Trump was at MacDill AFB on Monday to receive briefings from Central Command and Special Operations Command. He was notably accompanied by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford. No less notably, he wasn’t accompanied by alt-right wingman Steve Bannon, who now has a full seat on the National Security Council’s “principals committee,” its primary policy-making mechanism. Bannon, unconscionably, has the seat vacated by Gen. Dunford, who was downgraded. It could have been worse, but it still had to be an awkward day for Dunford.

* For those who seemed indifferent to–or enamored of–the concept of a billionaire populist, two words: Dodd-Frank.

* Should the Great Mexican Border Wall be built–a formidable, concrete one, not something overly reliant on fencing, drones, cameras and sensors–there could be some bigly irony involved. “If this wall gets built in Texas, there is a high likelihood that a significant bit of the work force will be undocumented,” notes Jose P. Garza, executive director of the Workers Defense Project, which supports low-income workers.

* I recently re-read an op-ed piece penned by USF St. Petersburg history professor Raymond Arsenault a couple of days before the election. He was reflecting on Orson Welles’ 1941 classic “Citizen Kane.” He compared the hubris and megalomania of Charles Foster Kane–a thinly fictionalized send-up of William Hearst–to Donald Trump.

The parallels, Arsenault reminded, are eerie. The president didn’t fare well. “Kane,” he noted, “is arrogant without being ignorant.”

Is there hope? Maybe, speculated Arsenault, if Trump has his own “Rosebud,” available for retrieval before it’s too late.

I ran into Arsenault at a Super Bowl party. He’s no longer speculating.

Here’s hoping that those who were hypercritical about the rollout of the Affordable Care Act are reflecting on what we–and the rest of the world–have been witnessing as the Trump Administration rolled out immigration-policy changes. Donald Trump’s executive order reverberated globally and chaos, outrage and panic were the order of the day.

Ready, fire, aim. Call it a cluster Trump, even if the fan base doesn’t agree or care. Confusion and legal limbo would be an upgrade.

It’s what happens when doing something right away takes priority over doing something the right way. No one advocates sloppy vetting or naiveté about the world’s more likely incubators of terrorists. But this is what happens when a campaign-rally rant turns into carelessly drafted, democracy-defacing, presidential policy.

The Administration has frozen refugee admissions and temporarily blocked people from seven majority-Muslim nations from entering the U.S.–even with valid visas. Those countries are Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Syria. Notably not included: Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, whose connections with 9/11 are forever seared into the American psyche. And how about all those problematic, Muslim-majority “stans”? Or maybe Indonesia, which is only the most populous Muslim country in the world? Or how about those from France and Belgium who don’t meet our, uh, definition of “real” French or Belgians?

Among those recently impacted, if not angry, scared, alienated or moved to action: American university foreign students, State Department officers and diplomats, green card holders returning from overseas funerals or vacations, Iraqi translators for the U.S. military, religious leaders, humanitarian advocates, global high-tech executives, academics, public officials and international airport security personnel.

And this just in: Also affected was acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who was fired for not playing along with Trump’s constitutionally questionable executive order.

Among those viscerally fired up: the very radical Islamic terrorists we’re supposed to be targeting. This was worldwide, anti-Muslim, recruiting propaganda right in their infidel-hating, Koran-cherry-picking wheelhouse. “If the president wants to empower jihadists, this is the way to do it,” underscored U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa.

Among those not encouraged to further help Homeland Security: American Muslims, who we count on to be the insider eyes and ears of their communities.

* When Donald Trump appointed Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist, it seemed ominous. Nothing has changed; in fact, it’s worse. (Bannon, who spent seven years in the Navy, has been elevated to full membership in a reorganized National Security Council–at the expense of the downgraded director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.) The man who Andrew Breitbart once called the “Leni Reifenstahl” (Hitler documentarian) of the Tea Party Movement is now a one-man, alt-Reich inner circle when it comes to the media.

“The media has zero integrity, zero intelligence and no hard work,” states Bannon, who could be quoting from a Trump campaign playbook. “The media here is the opposition party.”

Bannon embodies the Trump game plan of targeting the mainstream media as high-profile foil and easy scapegoat. It’s an anti-elitist strategy designed to divert attention from legitimate opposition and pander to a fan base that doesn’t need much beyond Breitbart News, Sean Hannity, Administration-sanctioned “alternate facts” and improvised, presidential-belief tweets.

Trump always manipulated the media when he was a billionaire celebrity. He now misses the promotional puffery as only a pathological narcissist can miss it. It can only get worse.

*The Trump presidency has sparked noteworthy, resonating revivals in two books–neither of which is “The Art of the Deal.”

A current popular choice among book clubs is Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here.” Meanwhile, Amazon.com reports that a top-5 seller is none other than George Orwell’s classic “1984.” The former is a fictitious look at the rise of a populist-fascist, presidential candidate who targets a lying mainstream press. The latter is a dystopian tale where facts are distorted or suppressed into the iconic “newspeak” at the Ministry of Truth. Sobering.

* Combatively divisive, constitutionally suspect, geopolitically-worrisome political theater isn’t governing. It’s posturing, masquerading and neglecting responsibility.

If President Trump’s alarming first week is a harbinger of what’s to come, there could be a President Pence, co-opted by a panicky GOP establishment that will give him enough evangelical cover to finish it out.

I watched the inauguration of Donald Trump for the same reason I glance at an intersection accident as I drive by. Can’t help it.

Also, as someone who in previous incarnations has written speeches for others, there was also a professional curiosity.

Whether it’s the president of USF or the president of the USA, there are basics to consider. There’s the occasion. The audience. The speaker’s agenda. Usually in that order. And some well-turned, alliterative phrases for publication, if not posterity.

In the case of the inaugural speech of any incoming president, nothing transcends the priority of the occasion. It’s sacrosanct. And the words should reflect the moment. Aspirational, visionary, conciliatory. Soaring rhetoric. If not now, then when?

Last Friday, it was apparent that no one has replaced Ted Sorensen. “Ask not …” has given way to “… this American carnage.” There’s a stark difference between inaugural eloquence and confrontational, campaign rally rants. We shouldn’t be reminded so soon after the swearing in.

It spoke volumes.

Trump is Trump. He doesn’t practice with a Teleprompter, even though he needs to. He didn’t need to double down on America first nationalism and isolationism, but he did. He didn’t need to deride previous leadership with four ex-presidents and first ladies in polite attendance, but he did. In short, he needed to remember that he’s a minority–not even a plurality–president. Being elected by a quarter of the eligible electorate is not a mandate. It underscores that he has a fan base.

This was his potential unifying moment–there are no mulligans on inaugurals–to try and connect with everyone who didn’t channel him as a cult-figure savior. He missed it. Big league.

* The inauguration speech, CIA drop-in and overall POTUS deportment confirmed what we already knew. We’ve replaced a presidential president with a narcissistic brand. We do deserve better.

* Those periodic shots of Michelle Obama during the Trump inauguration seemed telling. She had that look of: “God, Barack’s so good at this. Grace under pressure. Me, I just want to get away from these imposters. I hope it isn’t too obvious.”

* America is no banana republic, but we do have a Banana Republican for president.

* How does a “dishonest” press cover a lying, duplicitous, bombastic president who practices malleable truth? Double down on well-sourced information–not grandstanding opposition. The former is your raison d’être, the latter your ticket to tabloid damnation. Stay skeptical–not cynical.

* Peter Wehner, a Republican and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, poses a pertinent question for the GOP establishment. “They need to ask themselves a simple, searching question: ‘If Barack Obama did this very thing, what would I be saying and doing now?’–and then say and do it.”

* Last Saturday’s women’s march in Washington didn’t disappoint. From massive, indeed factual, turnout–to inspired signage. Speaking of the latter, they ranged from “Viva la Vulva” and “Support a Utopia For Our Fallopia” to “Super Callous Fascist Racist Extra Braggadocious” and “American Taliban: Trump, Pence, Price, Ryan.” Plus, “We Shall Overcomb” and even “Adolph Twittler.” And my personal favorite: “Now You’ve Pissed Off Granny.”

If you can’t laugh, you only make it worse.

* It can’t be a good sign when the public is familiar with the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

* Newly-elected President Trump wasted no time in announcing that the U.S. was pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The economic and geopolitical issues–and bilateral relations with TPP members and China–will remain scenarios in flux and ripe for debate. The decision is certainly grist for the criticism mill, but we need to remember this. Hillary Clinton was not in favor of TPP either–although she once characterized it as the “gold standard” of trade deals.

* It’s only an anecdotal reference, but it’s still telling about the times we’re entering. The Sunday after the inauguration, the Rev. Roger Fritts of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota spoke to his congregants of his hope that President Trump would be impeached. It came in the context of his “Narcissism and Leadership” sermon.

Barack Obama, the first African-American president, didn’t usher in post-racial America. That was always a long shot. What was truly disappointing and disillusioning was that at a time of evolving demographics and multiple generations removed from Jim Crow, the ultimate act of democratic inclusion didn’t make, seemingly, any positive difference at all. Instead, it became a catalyst for a perfect, polarizing political storm.

Future historians will see a bigger picture, one that will underscore the roles of Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama, Cory Booker and others. Their vantage point will be of a different America with a “minority” majority and leadership that reflects that reality. But that’s not very consoling right now.