January 23, 2020: President* Bullwinkle, Mr. Know-It-All, Nature of Wisdom

“A good moral character is the first essential in a man...It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor to not only be learned but virtuous”.

                -----George Washington

It should be obvious by now that our Caesar Disgustus is neither.

Learned? Please.

Let our self-obsessed “stable genius” describe himself:

“On campaign finance: 'I think nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do, because I'm the biggest contributor.'

On the Courts: 'I know more about courts than any human being on Earth.'

On trade: 'Nobody knows more about trade than me.'

On taxes: 'Nobody knows more about taxes than I do.'

On ISIS: 'I know more about ISIS than the generals do.'

On the US government: 'Nobody knows the system better than I do.'

On technology: 'Technology—nobody knows more about technology than me.'

On drone technology, specifically: 'I know more about drones than anybody. I know about every form of safety that you can have.” (1)

Yes, Bullwinkle, everyone in the room knows you're a very stable genius; a “Mr. Know-It-All”

“On the Contrary,” reports Anonymous, “I've seen the president fall flat on his face when trying to speak intelligently about most of these topics. You can see why behind closed doors his own top officials deride him as an 'idiot' and a 'moron' with the understanding of a 'fifth or sixth grader.' Folks have been forced to publicly deny those specific quotes, usually with non-denial denials. These are the tamest descriptions used internally to express exasperation with the commander in chief. People normally tack a string of expletives onto the front and back ends of their assessments.” (2)

One need look no further than the first of these boasts, and look upon his personal attorney rotting in prison for violating campaign finance law, a case in which Disgustus was cited as an unindicted co-conspirator. It was Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon-Mobile and Secretary of State, who called Bullwinkle a 'fucking moron.'

Seeking to define leadership qualities, Anonymous turned to the ancient Roman luminary Cicero. Citing Cicero's “On Duties”, Anonymous categorized the qualities the founding fathers would prescribe for the nation: wisdom, a sense of justice, courage, temperance. In these he found the forever adolescent, our Peter Pan, wholly lacking. Wisdom cannot come from one so ill-informed. Wisdom cannot emerge for one with no sense of justice. Wisdom requires a courage that transcends the daily polls and the passions of the mob. Wisdom, foremost, requires temperance: the ability to delay immediate gratification—that is, the ability to take the long view.

What marks maturity from immaturity is the ability to see beyond oneself.  To see beyond oneself is to, more often than not, delay gratification. Throwing temper tantrums at the least questioning a proposed action, or an action taken, is the hallmark of the adolescent: the infantile.  There is a reason that Disgustus will wilt in the presence of an alpha male (Putin), or careen like a pinball when shouted down by Limbaugh or Fox and Fiends:  He hasn't grown up; forever the adolescent, his balls haven't dropped. 

It is the praying mantis and the child whose attention is diverted by immediate gratification and bright shiny objects. Leaders the world over know that you approach our would-be Caesar the way one would approach Ann Coulter or the female praying mantis: with bright worthless objects in order to distract his attention long enough to have your way with him. And so the constant bowing and scraping, the constant flattery, the constant feeding of a very fragile ego in order to get one goddamn point across, in order to take one miserable step in the right direction.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Convict and Imprison.

________

1. Anonymous. “A Warning” page 63. I owe a debt of gratitude to Anonymous for the words o           George Washington quoted here. 
2. Ibid 63-64