ET TU SOTU

 

 

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

Anonymous

 

Dear Friends,

 

As the clock strikes 9:00 p.m. EST, tonight, President Donald J. Trump will engage in the annual ritual known as the State of the Union Address, aka, SOTU. 

 

For reasons that seem logical inside the Beltway, much time and energy has been spent on trying to divine what the President will say, whether it will be a message of national unity, a call for bipartisanship, which special guests will be seated with First Lady, and what themes will be struck in this first official address to Congress, as stipulated in Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution: 

 

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; 

 

Tonight, I’ll join with those who have concluded that time spent listening to Donald Trump’s public pronouncements is time wasted.  And worse, that at some point taking his pronouncements and performances seriously is the definition of  . . . yes, insanity.

 

It’s been like this since January 20th, 2017 when President Trump took the oath of office and began lying about the weather and the size of the crowd.  

 

On the day after his “American carnage” address, the President made his way to the CIA and offered these thoughts in what can charitably be called a rambling oration:

 

“And the reason you’re my first stop is that, as you know, I have a running war with the media.  They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth. And they sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community.  And I just want to let you know, the reason you’re the number-one stop is exactly the opposite -- exactly.  And they understand that, too. 

 

“And I was explaining about the numbers.  We did a thing yesterday at the speech.  Did everybody like the speech?  I’ve been given good reviews.  But we had a massive field of people.  You saw them.  Packed.  I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field.  I say, wait a minute, I made a speech.  I looked out, the field was -- it looked like a million, million and a half people.  They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there.  And they said, Donald Trump did not draw well.  I said, it was almost raining, the rain should have scared them away, but God looked down and he said, we’re not going to let it rain on your speech. 

“In fact, when I first started, I said, oh, no.  The first line, I got hit by a couple of drops.  And I said, oh, this is too bad, but we’ll go right through it.  But the truth is that it stopped immediately.  It was amazing.  And then it became really sunny.  And then I walked off and it poured right after I left.  It poured.  But, you know, we have something that’s amazing because we had -- it looked -- honestly, it looked like a million and a half people.  Whatever it was, it was.  But it went all the way back to the Washington Monument.  And I turn on -- and by mistake I get this network, and it showed an empty field.  And it said we drew 250,000 people.  Now, that’s not bad, but it’s a lie.  We had 250,000 people literally around -- you know, in the little bowl that we constructed.  That was 250,000 people.  The rest of the 20-block area, all the way back to the Washington Monument, was packed.  So we caught them, and we caught them in a beauty.  And I think they’re going to pay a big price.” 

And over the course of the next twelve months, Donald Trump set the record for falsehoods uttered by any of his forty-four predecessors:

 

“With just 18 days before President Trump completes his first year as president, he is now on track to exceed 2,000 false or misleading claims, according to our database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.

“As of Monday, the total stood at 1,950 claims in 347 days, or an average of 5.6 claims a day.” (Washington Post, Fact Checker, 1/2/2018)

In a comprehensive review of the Trump falsehood phenomenon and its comparison to others, the New York Times made this report:

“We applied the same conservative standard to Obama and Trump, counting only demonstrably and substantially false statements. The result: Trump is unlike any other modern president. He seems virtually indifferent to reality, often saying whatever helps him make the case he’s trying to make.

 

“In his first 10 months in office, he has told 103 separate untruths, many of them repeatedly. Obama told 18 over his entire eight-year tenure. That’s an average of about two a year for Obama and about 124 a year for Trump.

 

“Trump is different [than George W. Bush and Barack Obama.] When he is caught lying, he will often try to discredit people telling the truth, be they judges, scientists, F.B.I. or C.I.A. officials, journalists or members of Congress. Trump is trying to make truth irrelevant. It is extremely damaging to democracy, and it’s not an accident. It’s core to his political strategy.” (New York Times, 12/14/2017)

 

And for those who thought Donald Trump might turn a new page with the opening of a new year, guess again.

 

In a White House meeting with Congressional leaders from both  parties, he made this public commitment about immigration legislation:

 

“If you want to take it that further step, I’ll take the heat,” Trump replied. “You are not that far away from comprehensive immigration reform.”  

 

And then, as Seinfeld would say, he folded faster than Superman on laundry day. Or Donald Trump on pay day

 

As if all this weren’t enough, in the moments leading up to Donald Trump’s inaugural SOTU, we have observed unprecedentedly dark behavior from him and his chief of staff in efforts to interfere in personnel and policy issues at the Department of Justice. 

 

Not coincidentally, Republicans in the House Select Committee on Intelligence, led by their once-recused Chair, Congressman Devin Nunes, are doing battle with DOJ career officials over a decision to release a classified document crafted by Republican staffers that will allege foul play in FBI investigations of Russian meddling in U. S. elections and other inquiries.  

 

And so it goes.

 

Ergo, sitting out tonight’s SOTU is neither an act of political pique nor  personal petulance. It’s simply a refusal to play a game with a man who delights in trespassing on the goodwill of the American people and trashing the institutions on which American democracy rests.

 

So, if you watch, take good notes. But take them in pencil. Then wait for the drumbeat of tweets reinforcing the case against the FBI, Robert Mueller, fake news, witch hunts, and all the other contrivances that this most deceitful of presidents has mastered. 

 

And that, dear readers, is the real state of the union on January 30 2018. No matter what Donald Trump tells you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Minnie Warburton]

"'The first step in liquidating a people,' said Hubl, 'is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster.'"

Milan Kundera, THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING

[Dee]

thanks Garry. Sad commentary, though true. Enjoy the rest of the week and keep those pithy writings comings; they're the best.
'