Conservative columnist and former Republican George Will
has just published an opinion piece in The Washington Post, and
syndicated throughout the United States. Here is the summary of what
can be rightly called an appraisal of the careful assessment of what
is now left of established conservatism of the behavior of our very
own Caesar Disgustus. Here, in part, is Will's considered judgment:
“America's
child president”, writes Will,
“had a play date with a KGB alumnus, who surely enjoyed
providing day car. It was a useful, because illuminating, event: Now
we shall see how many Republicans retain a capacity for
embarrassment.
“What, precisely,
did President Trump say about the diametrically opposed statements by
U.S. Intelligence agencies (and the Senate Intelligence Committee)
and by Putin concerning Russia and the 2016 U.S. Elections?
Precision is not part of Trump's repertoire: He speaks English as
though it is a second language that he learned from someone who
learned English last week. So, it is usually difficult to sift
meanings from Trump's word salads. But in Helsinki he was, for him,
crystal clear about feeling no allegiance to the intelligence
institutions that work at his direction and under leaders he chose...
“Speaking of
Republicans incapable of blushing—those with the peculiar strength
that comes from being incapable of embarrassment—consider Sen.
Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), who for years enjoyed derivative gravitas
from his association with Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Graham tweeted
about Helsinki: 'Missed opportunity by President Trump to firmly hold
Russia accountable for 2016 meddling and deliver a strong warning
regarding future elections.' A 'missed opportunity' by a man who had
not acknowledged the meddling?
“Contrast
Graham's mush with this on Monday from McCain, still vinegary:
'Today's press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful
performances by and American president in memory.' Or this from
Arizona's other senator, Jeff Flake ®. 'I never thought I would see
the day when our American president would stand on the stage with the
Russian President and place blame on the United States for Russian
aggression.' Blame America only.
“Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly,
Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and others might
believe that they must stay in their positions lest there be no adult
supervision of the Oval playpen. This is a serious worry, but so is
this: Can those people do their jobs for someone who has neither
respect nor loyalty for them?
“Like the
purloined letter in Edgar Allan Poe's short story with that title,
collusion with Russia is hiding in plain sight. We shall learn from
special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation whether in 2016
there was collusion with Russia by members of the Trump campaign.
The world, however, saw in Helsinki something more grave—ongoing
collusion between Trump, now in power, and Russia. The collusion is
in what Trump says (refusing to back the United States' intelligence
agencies) and in what evidently went unsaid (such as: you ought to
stop disrupting Ukraine, downing civilian airliners, attempting to
assassinate people abroad using poisons, and so on, and on).
“Americans
elected a president who—this is a safe surmise—knew that he had
more to fear from making his tax returns public than from keeping
them secret. The most innocent inference is that for decades he has
depended on an American weakness, susceptibility to the tacky
charisma of wealth, which would evaporate when his tax returns
revealed that he has always lied about his wealth, too. A more
ominous explanation might be that his redundantly demonstrated
incompetence as a businessman tumbled him into unsavory financial
dependencies on Russians. A still more sinister explanation might be
that the Russians have something else, something worse, to keep him
compliant.
“The
explanation is in doubt; what needs to be explained—his
compliance—is not. Granted, Trump has a weak man's banal
fascination with strong men whose disdain for him is evidently
unimaginable to him. And, yes, he only perfunctorily pretends to
have priorities beyond personal aggrandizement. But just as
astronomers inferred, from anomalies in the orbits of the planet
Uranus, the existence of Neptune before actually seeing it, Mueller
might infer, and then find, still-hidden sources of behavior of this
sad, embarrassing wreck of a man” (1)
“'An
Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”
Impeach
and Imprison
___________________
- Will, George. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-sad-embarrassing-wreck-of-a-man/2018/07/17/
No comments:
Post a Comment