Here are my observations and opinions on items in the news.
“STUPID QUESTION” – That was President Trump’s appropriate response to ABC White House Reporter Jonathan Karl’s inquiry, “Are you considering a pardon for Michael Cohen?” Karl’s question came during a photo-op between the president and French President Emanuel Macron, when the media are generally given an opportunity to ask questions related to the dignitary’s visit.
Is Karl so ignorant that he believes the president would pardon Cohen, who has yet to be found guilty of anything? I understand that the president is considering a pardon for former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson, but an inquiry on that would also have been out of place, too.
It was the second inconsiderate and foolish question to be recorded in the less than two weeks. On April 12, 2018, you may recall CNN contributor April Ryan’s question whether the president was contemplating stepping down during the White House press briefing. That stupid question was termed “ridiculous” by White House press spokesperson Sarah Sanders.
MSNBC’S JOE SCARBOROUGH doesn’t ask stupid questions. He makes stupid statements, usually on the show he hosts, “Morning Joe.” But last week, in an op-ed published in the Washington Post, Scarborough stated that “It’s becoming clear that President Trump will not seek re-election in 2020.”
STUPID STATEMENTS AND QUESTIONS are not limited to the media. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) appears to have the corner on lawmakers who take to the microphone. Waters, who insists that charges of impeachment be brought against President Trump, recently stated that 70 percent of women want Trump impeached.
HOWEVER, the left leaning NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist Poll reveals that candidates pledging to impeach the president would backfire. Their survey finds that 47 percent of registered voters would definitely vote against a candidate who wants to remove Trump from office.
MORE INSIDE STUFF ON HILLARY is leaking out from those who have gotten their hands on New York Times journalist Amy Chozick’s book, “Chasing Hillary,” which I initially wrote about here on April 21, 2018, when I quoted her saying “They were never going to let me be president,” on election night.
While I have previously written about Hillary’s use of foul language, we now learn from Tom McCarthy of The Guardian, that she unleashed a “f**k-laced fusillade” during a 2016 debate prep session.
“You want authentic, here it is,” she yelled as her aides allowed her to vent in private, thinking it would help her to keep in all together onstage.
Chozick writes how Hillary grew weary of hearing pollsters report on her lagging favorability. “Oh, what’s the point? They’re never going to like me,” Hillary told a friend.
TRUMP IS NO THREAT TO DEMOCRACY, yet the Never-Trumpers continue to spew this nonsense to further their effort to bring down his presidency.
The latest comes from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who writes in her new book that President Trump is “the least democratic president of modern history,” and compares him to Mussolini. She was a dismal failure at secretary of state. Should we place any credence in her thoughts?
“Some detect in Mr. Trump’s brand of vituperation an assault on the values and virtues that democracy requires to thrive,” writes William McGurn in today’s Wall Street Journal, but he states that there is a willingness for those who know better to look the other way. “So which is more damaging to the American body politic – the schoolyard taunts and threats of Mr. Trump, or the anti-Trump opportunism of “polite” society?”
After citing a number of efforts by Deep State Obama holdovers to bring down the Trump presidency, McGurn asks, “Is it really unreasonable to ask whether this might be as much a threat to American democracy as anything Mr. Trump as said or done? His critics may be more corrupting to democracy an decency than he is.”
Writing of “Trump’s Threat to Democracy” in his New York Times column earlier this year, Nicholas Kristol, a Never-Trumper, appears to turn a blind eye to the corruption and scandals in the Obama holdover Washington – in the DOJ , the FBI, the intelligence community, the DNC – saying, unbelievably, that despite Trump’s frustration, these “American institutions have mostly passed the stress test with flying colors.”
Yet, Kristol warns that Trump’s “chipping away at the integrity of our institutions and norms does worry me.”
The integrity of our institutions, Mr. Kristol, is being chipped away by the likes of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Clapper and John Brennan, and others who will surely be named in Michael Horowitz’s IG report.
