Author: BC

The surging candidacy of Elizabeth Warren seems destined to become a referendum within the Democratic Party on whether to bet the house on the brightest, most adept candidate or play it safe and placate “conservative” – read white – men, who may be put off by her bossy irreverence toward regressive inclinations. The issue goes further than whether or not it is even worth the effort to solicit what was once the prize of national campaigns, or accept most are lost to Trumpist grievance and resentment. Now there is also some talk of Warren softening her edges so as not to “insult” or “needlessly incite” the goateed Ward Cleavers with paunches, lest it create a blowback that impacts other electoral tributaries like their wives perhaps. In other words, do your best not to bring out their worst. Why provoke them?

Exhibit A was an LGBTQ town hall CNN hosted Thursday, where Warren demonstrated why she has gained traction. Asked how she would respond to a voter who declared their strong belief that marriage is between one man and one woman, Warren was top notch, summoning her inner Molly Irvins. After asserting she’d assume it was a man she was dealing with, she flat-toned “I’m going to say… then just marry one woman. I’m cool with that.” Then, with perfect timing, she added: “…Assuming you can find one.”

At 70, Warren seems impossibly well preserved. Next to Biden and Sanders she looks to be a very attractive 50-something. And while age has an insidious way of dulling charisma, Warren showed Thursday that’s not a problem for her. Anybody who has watched her dismantle a petulant CEO in the hearing room appreciates her bona fides as a crusader for those without, or barely enough, or even with enough but doubtful the rules favor their interests. Ironically, it is Warren who suffers most as Trump impeachment takes center stage with Joe Biden an attached subplot, albeit with baggage to explain. As our President will be the first to tell you, even as he denounces “Pocahontas” at his rallies…. if you’re not part of the story, who are you?

Yet and still, it’s a marathon, and so far all Bernie has to show for his efforts is a new stent. Likewise, Biden has not been a world shaker. Dipping poll numbers and a son with no problem cashing in on connections in a very swampy way does not a winning campaign make. Meanwhile, Warren is thriving, gaining ground by the week where it counts, Iowa, New Hampshire, even down south. She is now the assumed heir to Bernie’s bloc, fully acceptable to their exacting anti-corporatism. It seems now only a question of when he will turn his holdings over. At that point, 25% becomes over 40 plus and that should get it done. But then what? What should Warren emerge as the nominee with to sell? And who are the qualified prospects she should be going after assuming Trump remains the nemesis?

The “horse race” crowd weighed in Friday to wonder aloud whether too much Warren is necessarily a good thing. Apparently, she needs to beware appearing too high and mighty. “It’s about telling people that don’t agree with you that they are backward,” warned one Democratic strategist. Her quip Thursday wasn’t so much evidence of her razor sharpness, but instead “a battle cry for men to turn out against Elizabeth Warren.” Better to finesse her response and adeptly ride the rail between what’s right (and the law!) and troglodyte sensitivities that may actually come around in November; but even if they don’t, why get them riled up? Honestly, with advice like that, who needs enemies!

What would be a more measured response? “Yes sir, I share your concern about the sacredness of the institution of marriage and understand your impulse to be selective as to who may enjoy its many blessings. However, perhaps we should expand our perception to possibly allow other more unconventional relationships to be sanctified. What do you say?” Newsflash… those obsessed with excluding gay couples from marriage are now devout Trumpies, far more inclined to yelling “Pocahontas!” and flipping Warren the bird than beseeching her to bless their bigotry.

Culture war nonsense is the flyover sweet spot. Warren isn’t winning Oklahoma no matter how well she behaves for misogyny-addled creationists. Ceding them the credibility of a voting bloc worth anything other than a good punchline is exactly how you turn genuine articles into fakes. Who could forget when the man entrusted to rid us of W, the guy who made his bones protesting senseless militarism, bounded up to the mic to accept his nomination with a ridiculous salute followed by “John Kerry reporting for duty!” There was a candidate only a Democratic strategist could love.

Plenty in the Warren bag of goods needs to be tightened up for next year, most prominently her penchant to come up with costly fixes for everything wrong with America. Campaigns are about establishing priorities and she needs to trim down hers. Moreover, she will need to move from bashing CEOs and corporate greed to calmly schooling voters on how dramatic reform will help everyone’s bottom line.

But most important to her general election candidacy will be Warren’s embodiment of how much better the US can do than what our shirked responsibility produced in 2016. A big part of that is being herself… sharp, dynamic, poised and empathetic…. always the smartest person in the room and never afraid to speak her truth. That includes telling white knuckle draggers they can come along or be left behind, but the ship will leave without them. If they want to use the Bible to pick on those simply trying to make their way in this world with the same milestones to look forward to as the rest of us, they will only marginalize themselves. Four years of going backward is way too long! BC

George Kennan, perhaps America’s greatest diplomat, was fond of saying why people were doing something concerned him less than how they were doing it. Within the tactful arena of old world diplomacy in which Kennan was schooled and operated, less was usually more, and if more was being offered that meant it was prudent to pay particularly close attention. Bluster and careless rants were the dead giveaway a rank amateur was in the house. Words mattered because they were employed with thoughtful purpose. A country whose emissaries were reckless with their language could hardly be relied upon as an ally, and was surely demonstrating weakness as an adversary.

American government is structured to give the Executive Branch wide latitude in representing our positions to the world. Time and again the Supreme Court has dismissed challenges to the President’s role as “the sole organ of American foreign policy.” Of course this is wise, both from a common sense stand point as well as operational necessity. Who else is going to do it? Senators, who foremost answer to the narrow parochial needs of their states? No, micromanaging foreign policy was never a role the founders intended for Congress. They could impose their collective will as a function of approving or rejecting specific funding requests, but as far as US messaging to the world is concerned, the buck stops with the President, who is supposed to lean on the professionals.

This established practice makes Secretary of State a preeminent cabinet position. Whoever oversees Foggy Bottom must enjoy, not only the President’s full confidence, but also complete access to decision making. After all, if foreign countries aren’t confident America’s chief messenger speaks for the White House, how can the message have any resonance? Indeed, it would seem a no brainer that any serious Secretary of State would be adamant such confidence that he/she is fully in the policy loop is essential, and anything less wholly unacceptable…. grounds for resignation.

All of which brings us yet again to current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, burdened with the debilitating onus of translating a sociopath’s rabid tweets for horrified foreign leaders attempting to make sense of dangerous gibberish. Yet and still, anybody bent toward empathizing with Pompeo should resist the urge and first examine the record….. it is ugly and getting uglier, a cautionary tale about servility’s circular trail of tears for those without the integrity to refuse its obligations.

Before her appointment as Ambassador to Ukraine in May, 2016, Marie Yovanovitch had enjoyed what could be termed a brilliant career in the US foreign service. A graduate of Princeton, Yovanovitch was first posted in Ottawa. Assignments in Moscow, London and Mogadishu followed before she was tapped in 1998 for the prestigious slot of Deputy Director of the Russian Desk at State. In August of 2001 she became the Deputy Chief of Mission in Ukraine, and by August 2004 the Bush team thought enough of her to make Yovanovitch senior advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Safe to say, by the time she was appointed as Ukraine’s Ambassador by Obama, Yovanovitch was widely respected as the consummate foreign service professional she had become.

In Ukraine the prevailing issue was corruption, and the US Embassy worked closely with point man VP Joe Biden to make certain demands by both the US and NATO allies that the overt corruption of the country’s recently deposed previous leadership be addressed and rigid new standards be established were heard loud and clear. The US was approving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military aid for resisting Russian hegemony and it wanted guarantees its investment would not evaporate through rampant graft.

As the Obama era ended and Trump took office, progress had been made in Ukraine to create a judicial system with the teeth necessary to respond to government corruption and discourage its practice. By all accounts, Yovanovitch was aggressive in her efforts to push reform, enough so that she made an enemy of then prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko. Rudy Guiliani would later press Lutsenko to, not only discredit Mueller’s work, but also dig up dirt on Joe Biden’s son, Hunter and his relationship with Barisma, a Ukrainian energy company; this after the prosecutor had declared no impropriety had been uncovered.

From the start Trump was wary of government careerists, eventually lumping most into the “deep state” he maintained was ever out to get him. As he became more fixated on Ukraine as an epicenter of his persecution because of the prosecution of Paul Manafort, who had cashed in for plenty when it’s government was a cesspool, the President railed at the professionals within the US Embassy. His developing agenda to use Ukrainian sources to discredit the Mueller report was never going to fly with straight shooters like Yovanovitch; so he wanted her gone.

It is unclear exactly when Trump made his first demand that Yovanovitch be recalled, and it is equally unclear to what degree Pompeo, or perhaps his own staff, may have ignored the President’s initial impulses. After all, it had become common place for Administration officials to simply ignore unhinged West Wing edicts with the hope Trump would forget the whole thing. But regardless of when Yovanovitch first came into Trump’s crosshairs, as his obsession with putting the elbow on Ukraine’s leadership to do his dirty work grew, there was no doubt her days as ambassador were numbered. The central question became to what degree if any Pompeo had her back.

He didn’t. By May of this year, after a campaign of unsubstantiated innuendo that she was disloyal to the President and had actually been bad mouthing him abroad, which nobody within the State Department career ranks gave any credence to, Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled. On his now famous call July 25 to pressure incoming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump hissed that Yovanovitch was “bad news” and ominously assured she “would be going through some things.” At no time has Pompeo offered any public words of support for his employee. In fact, it’s come to light that, prior to Yovanovitch’s recall, Guiliani presented Pompeo with a report outlining outrageous charges that included she was in league with George Soros, but most shrilly whining that Yovanovitch was not adequately pressing the case to look into Hunter Biden. The math from that revelation is not difficult to perform.

The best we can now say about our Secretary of State is he leaves those he pledged to protect flapping in the wind, laid bare to the disgusting intrigues of Trump and his “personal lawyer.” The worst we can say is he takes an active role in development and pursuit of such schemes. Pathetically weak and fully out of the loop or wretchedly corrupt and an accomplice to purges against his own people? Pick your poison. When he replaced indifferent Rex Tillerson, a demoralized foreign service hoped Pompeo would live up to his job’s vivid history and the standards for autonomy it had set. Instead he has ushered in a new nadir for a critical American institution…. just another fitting footnote to the ruin Trumpism has produced. BC

Near the end of Ken Burns’ epic documentary on the Civil War there is a scene which catches the viewer by surprise and produces a torrent of emotion. After hours of storytelling illustrated only by pictures and interviews with commentators, suddenly there is some actual grainy video footage taken at a reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg many years later. Re-enacting Pickett’s Charge, a group of ancient grey-bearded men resemble kids playing in a field, enjoying the horrible glory their hatred for each other created. Now, many decades later they shared a bond only those with a personal knowledge of life’s most desperate moments can understand. The “charge” lasts only a couple minutes as exhausted old foes collapse into each other with hugs and affection. An indelible image for the ages.

One would prefer to believe southern survivors of a reckless battle strategy, educated by the wisdom staying alive teaches, fully comprehended the common humanity their collective exposure to war’s trials forced upon them, strong enough to consume what in retrospect they could view as self-destructive resentments. Yet and still, the tug of war’s glory, and the salve time applies to both emotional and physical wounds, makes it uncertain how they would respond to the simple question of “was it really worth it?” Most rebels had no skin in the game for slavery, in fact, the southern slave economy created a skewed labor structure that surely cost hard working whites income; after all, how can you compete against free? But at the end of the day, the grotesque adage “if you ain’t better than a n*****, who are you better than” subsumed logic and fed sedition, nobody was going to tell them who to treat as a fellow human being.

Fact is, despite the hindsight a lifetime of living provided, the rhetoric responsible for the conflict impacts history’s assessment of it and often furthers an impotent judgement, even for those most directly affected. Union men fought to preserve the nation secession imperiled. Rebs fought to preserve a way of life the North was intent on destroying. What choice did either have? Forget that industrialization was going to end slavery anyway, or that Republicans were only adamant about preventing its spread to western territories, and Lincoln was prepared to do most anything necessary to placate secessionists. Passions rarely bow to facts, and what they produce most often renders why they were stirred meaningless. Once they begin to carry the day, events become increasingly more difficult to control. Spectators were having picnics at the edge of battlefields as the conflict began, by the battle of Cold Harbor, three years later, thousands were dead within half an hour. What most thought would be over within a month or two, morphed into enduring calamity. Wars are like fires; once fed enough, they become impossible to control.

Today in America our President, fully abided by the GOP shaped to his liking, foments civil war without much thought to its consequences. Trump, like secessionists 160 years ago, relies on a victimology narrative to define his own fate as synonymous with that of the nation; he’s a martyr in the making. Should he fall to the tyranny of a deep state coup, all hope will be lost, markets will tumble, immigrant hordes will storm the southern border, and the US will generally collapse into lawless anarchy. Impeachment or even electoral defeat in 2020 equals ruin.

Of course, anybody who wants a good chuckle, before they sob, should read the speeches by various antebellum southern lawmakers intent on secession and compare them to Trump tweets and verbal blusterings. Henry Lewis Benning may have been a racist traitor, but he did at least offer complete sentences:

“ … It follows that there is not within the Union any remedy by which we can escape abolition, and therefore if we wish for a remedy, a remedy we must seek outside the Union. … I say that a separation from the North would be a complete remedy for the disease.”

Today’s nihilist discontents set the bar very low indeed for nourishing their sedition with oratory. Trump’s tweets have trouble even qualifying as legible screeds. It’s a certainty old Jeff Davis wouldn’t allow the Donald onto his doorstep. But make no mistake, Trump delivers the goods on a near hourly basis to unhinged malcontents. Whether it’s libeling Joe Biden or retweeting American Taliban Robert Jeffress’ declaration that impeachment will result in civil war, labeling freshman Democratic congresswomen as Stalinist wannabes or the press as “the enemy of the people,” this President leaves little to the imagination as to what road he’s chosen as impeachment heats up. The only question that appears to still be unanswered is whether America is ready to get the ball rolling. Can we even imagine what civil war would look like?

Adam Kinzinger, an otherwise reliable House GOP Trump appendage from Illinois, knows something of what civil conflict can do to a country. An Air Force pilot with several tours of Iraq to inform him, Kinzinger made clear there is nothing good about it as he took Trump to task for waxing seditious. “I have visited nations ravaged by civil war,” the veteran asserted, “I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant.” It appears Kinzinger’s criticism will have to do as far as GOP lawmakers go, literally nobody else from either chamber had a thing to say about a POTUS fomenting bloodshed.

But what of the good guys in this national dissolution? We can see hourly evidence that Trump and his wretched core are fully radicalized, capable of ruining America’s good thing. What are we willing to abide before our patience has been exhausted and pitchforks look appealing? Four more years of Trump is unfathomable. After W beat John Kerry back in 2004, he smugly held forth on his new mandate. “I’ve got political capital,” Bush declared, “and I plan to use it.” How do we suppose Trump will digest a new term? Like all other nasty people, and he’s the nastiest, the only thing worse than Trump losing is Trump winning. Any other job in the world and our President wouldn’t have lasted a week. Chewing through a $500 million inheritance and President of the United States are the only two positions he’s been capable of keeping, and after three years of his worst, the US may re-sign him. Go figure.

What kind of blows will round two of Trump deliver? Well, millions of undocumented people will rightly fear deportations to countries they are no more familiar with than I am with Ireland. Round ups may very well go into high gear with daily images of cruelty and heartache. Bigotry as legitimate political thought will become the norm. Allies will immediately move to abandon us, no longer willing to wait out our civic madness. Climate Change initiatives will suffer full American opposition. The US will become isolated on all international fronts. The able government careerists who also tried to outlast Trumpism will leave or be purged, precipitating and across-the-board competence crisis here at home. RBG will step down from the Supreme Court, replaced by another young Trumpie. Steven Breyer is not getting any younger; if he were to retire it would be 7-2. Nuff said there. The list is as long as it is horrifying, but the worst thing of all will be an unquestionable desertion of the rule of law Trump’s re-election will consummate. No doubt Trump will be emboldened to ad lib his second Inauguration speech with rally gibberish, but this time there will be no speculation of hopeful “best case scenarios” for his approach to decision making.

The Chuck Todds and Amy Walters of the world enjoy viewing Trumpism as a game, imbuing his constant meltdowns and GOP servility to him as simply one side of Decision 2020’s discussion. Some of us are quite certain this is no game, Trumpism – defined as the all out fight for his rabid political survival and overt corruption – is totalitarian in nature and knows no limits to the means justified to achieving its ends. That’s not alarmist, it’s simply diligent observation. If civil war requires two to tango, it’s now certain one of the partners is ready to boogie. What the rest of us should at least begin to consider is what it will take to get us on the dance floor. BC

“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

HL Mencken

It’s impossible to overstate how dangerous things are for our nation at this moment. And sadly it’s very hard to be optimistic about whether a solution to our predicament is possible. There is no silver bullet available to quell the seditious satisfaction millions derive from a rabidly unhinged President they demand lead them further into the abyss his incompetence and immorality always descends to. However bad he was yesterday won’t be as awful as tomorrow, and tomorrow will always be better than the next day it becomes. Regardless, the wretched core will never harbor second thoughts; MAGA, like any other totalitarian steamroller, only accelerates and never reconsiders. Every day we allow it to move forward is scorched-earth yardage we will have to replant. Five more years is the whole ball game.

All that said, merely replacing a moron with a far more functional and accomplished brain farter, or one far less corrupt opportunist, is certainly not the campaign mission statement one wants to see next November as we fight to save the republic. Perhaps we should demand our best to clean up the mess our worst has made? Shouldn’t we at least aspire to refreshing excellence instead of a stale track record. This is no time for mediocrity and moral ambiguity.

Joe Biden has seen more than his share of both luck and triumph, misfortune and tragedy. If nobody in Hollywood would consider Trump’s self-parody and reality outrageousness as the basis for a serious movie script, a narrative of Biden’s life story would surely get green-lighted. Elected to the US Senate at the preposterously young age of 30, Biden has been front and center for near every seminal event since Watergate. Perhaps no living pol possesses more stature than Delaware’s finest, who served loyally for eight years as our first black President’s VP.

Yet and still, Biden has endured searing tragedy. In 1972 his entire young family was involved in an auto accident that killed both his wife and daughter, leaving him a widower with two young boys. In 1988 Biden came as close as one can to early death himself as doctors successfully caught a brain aneurysm in the nick of time. Just several years ago he again buried one of his children, this time his eldest son Beau from cancer.

Through it all Biden has straddled the line between populist hyperbole and savvy statesmanship, fierce allegiance to the little guy and comfortable lunches at the Palm with donors surely picking up the tab. In short, despite a lifetime of most often admirable public service, he is a target-rich environment for Fox/AM character assassination. He, like Hillary Clinton, provides more than enough for the signature false equivalence of Sean Hannity or Rushbo to equate. The current Ukraine imbroglio involving his son, Hunter is example A.

Mykola Zlochevsky served two stints as a top Ukrainian public servant, both in the embattled country’s energy sector. His most recent post was as ecology minister under the kleptocracy of Russian puppet Victor Yanukovych, who was swept out by reformists in early 2014. During Zlochevsky’s tenure as ecology minister a plethora of energy companies were granted license approvals critical to their activities. Most would become spokes in Bursima, a company Zlochevsky later established, which became the country’s largest energy producer, making its owner a multi-millionaire. One hardly need be a conspiracist to connect those dots.

After the thoroughly corrupt Yanukovych was ousted, with confronting Russia’s incursion into the Crimea the top priority, NATO allies were adamant that any program to furnish the new regime in Kiev with economic and military resources start and end with the confidence that Ukrainian government was no longer the cesspool it became under the previous leadership. To this end, US Vice-President Joe Biden was tasked to put the elbow on the nation’s legal apparatus, which he did with enthusiasm, later boasting of using pending Western aid as a hammer to promote reform. At the end of the day most all agreed, while what replaced Yanukovych was far from perfect, it was a night and day improvement.

Under such circumstances it made perfect sense for any Ukrainian business facing such scrutiny to make cultivating ties to significant US players a priority. Rather than simply wait passively to be put under the microscope, get proactive and enlist those who can provide luster to your defense, credibility to your enterprise. It’s doubtful anyone would serve such a strategy better than the son of the point man for the entire inquisition!

By all accounts Hunter Biden has struggled to make his mark. Addiction, financial and emotional challenges have dotted his adult life with frailties responsible for many a failure. And while his father was inarguably one of America’s most powerful and connected, until he hit the lecture circuit etc. after leaving office in 2017, he was by no means wealthy enough to provide his son with financial certainty. Hunter needed to make his own living., and he was never much concerned about the optics created by his career path. A stint as a K Street lobbyist here, as a “counsel” for a New York law firm there. One has to put food on the table, no?

Most recently, Hunter Biden was a business partner of Chris Heinz, heir to his family’s ketchup fortune and John Kerry’s stepson, who does have the financial wherewithal to be a bit more choosey about where to work and who to work for. When Hunter Biden accepted an invitation to sit on Bursima’s board of directors, Heinz was immediate and adamant in his opposition to the idea. In fact, when Hunter Biden ignored Heinz’s objections and accepted the slot, it ended their business relationship. And while the Bidens have implied there were other reasons for the dissolution, Heinz spokesman Chris Bastardi left no room for doubt, declaring that working for Bursima was “unacceptable” and “a lack of judgement in this matter was a major catalyst” for Heinz ending the partnership. Hunter Biden’s father never raised such concerns, the total sum of his reservations expressed in a passing “I hope you know what you’re doing” admonishment to his son. This despite the pressing concern by his own staffers, understandably worried about appearances.

It can be argued that, years ago as the new Secretary of State was setting up her operation for overseeing Foggy Bottom, had a White House staffer looked her dead in the eyes and called her a foolish diva for insisting her business emails proceed through a server at her home, providing careless fodder for GOP muckrakers, we would all be sleeping better. Now we have a leading candidate for the most important Presidential nomination in our history with a very similar scenario brewing on his stove. Whether either is “fair” is irrelevant; the Fox/AM weaponization of false equivalence is the bedrock of its nihilism, providing them bullets is no longer an option.

Assessing the Biden candidacy already requires one to issue a number of passes for resume hiccups and stumbles his assets presumably outweigh. Moreover, he would be 86 years old at the end of his second term. Now his inexplicable failure to take his son to task when it mattered most will be a constant counter-narrative to the vital business of impeaching the worst blight on our system we have yet experienced. Unlike, most of the slop Trump and his Fox/AM line cooks toss at the wall, this clump has more than enough truth to it to make for a sticky mess. Food for thought. BC

The autism spectrum is a very broad and diverse measure of an epidemic nobody understands. Quantified as a 1 to 10 continuum, the range includes kids unable to care for themselves in any meaningful way, or communicate whatsoever, up to and including those who are fully functional members of society yet possess mannerisms and deficits they themselves can’t recognize to address but are often tormented by.

One of the best friends I ever had was a golden boy. We met as part of the same youth football team; he was the quarterback, I was the center. Even then, one could recognize he was outside the normal mold, as painfully shy as he was talented. Handsome, athletic, incredibly intelligent, practically a musical prodigy, he could have been any kind, in any field of endeavor. But his stilted ability to engage with others and a tendency toward obsessive-compulsiveness meant to fully thrive and make the most of his gifts he required structure, a constructive routine he could embrace. He never got it.

Instead he got me and the rest of our gang, and the idle hours of skateboarding and self-medication that only sabotaged his development. Understand, we loved him and accepted him for exactly who he was, but provided nothing to help him grow. When, living in Ocean City, he contracted an infection from a skateboard injury that turned his leg into a watermelon. I brought him fried chicken from my job down the street, and all were quick to share whatever substances could be acquired to dull the pain. Eventually, I believe, we got him a ride home with somebody and his parents got him the medical attention that literally saved his leg…. that was the extent of what we were good for.

Truth is we were all caught up in our own situations, encumbered by our own frailties and limitations. Each of us had his own narrative, which my pal was only a part of. Had he had the Asperger’s diagnosis back then, perhaps the parents who loved him would have found the intervention he required to reach his limitless potential. But 40 years ago there was no such understanding, and my buddy was on his own.

At his funeral four years ago, the mood was very somber. His passing from alcoholism was not really shocking. Those closest to him were reconciled that his story could end prematurely. He was married to a woman he loved, but few thought him content, and fewer still believed he ended up in a place that suited his God-given attributes. We celebrated who he was, and appreciated everything about him, but all who knew him best saw his story as more cautionary tale than anything else. He didn’t require much, yet the nothing he received was not near enough.

Anybody who has carefully watched Greta Thunberg through the filter of autism awareness quickly recognizes she is on the spectrum. Her cadence is rigid, her statements terse and declarative. When she was testifying before a House committee, the efforts of members to engage her in jocular give and take usually created awkwardness as she struggled a bit with inflections and implied understanding.

Yet and still, her Aspergers and young age don’t prevent her from pursuing the mission she rises and sleeps by. Her singular focus imparts Climate Change with the deadly seriousness it deserves. After sailing across the Atlantic to join the fray in a country that has fully lost its way, Greta Thunberg is exactly who we need to listen to, with exactly the right traits for the task. Her utter indifference to herself as anything more than a messenger with a dire tale to tell couldn’t be more refreshing, even as reason’s arch nemesis shames his country by regurgitating nihilist talking points… mindless throwaway labels like “hoax” and “fraud”. But if Trump is every reason to be pessimistic about our present, Greta is all we need to be optimistic about our future.

Perhaps Greta at her finest was on display when she was testifying before the House Committee on Natural Resources. GOP Rep. Garrett Graves of Louisiana, figuring he’d get cute pushing the climate denial trope that the US is foolish to limit its own carbon footprint when others like China and India lag behind with an analogy a little girl could grasp, asked Greta how she’d feel in her boat on the ocean if every time she picked up one piece of trash other mariners discarded five pieces. Greta was at first puzzled by the question, her Aspergers foisting a literal comprehension as she digested it. So she said simply she was going too fast to pick anything up out of the water. After Graves laughed off that response, she declared she’d simply continue her task while asking the others to stop littering. But after she was given another minute to consider the matter as other witnesses jumped in, she was devastating. I should tell you, she admonished Graves, that in my country others say exactly that about the US, “so you should know that is being turned around against you.” Game Over! Graves had nothing to rejoin with…. thoroughly owned by a 16-year old force of nature.

Who is to say what is and isn’t a strength or weakness? Life is situational and people are different. My friend did the best he could on his own, within the context he wouldn’t leave behind. He became a great skateboarder, pioneering vertical riding on the east coast, pushing the limits until his body rebelled, becoming a bit of a legend to those who came after him. When he passed he was missed by many, and nobody could be found to disparage him. Maybe that’s enough? ……. Maybe not.

Yet right here and right now, as our planet faces destruction due to equal parts of corporate greed, willful ignorance and the notion comfort zones should not be adjusted, there has perhaps emerged precisely the right person with just the traits required to make an impact. Greta embraces her autism as a “superpower.” Who could argue? At the UN yesterday she towered over the forum for climate action, fully eclipsing our whiner-in-chief, wholly unimpressed by his narcissism. Her direct and uncompromising pursuit of something as basic as her generation’s survival calls for nothing flashy, only focused refusal to accept less than full cooperation. Greta offers no tolerance or forgiveness for the double-tongues, and a personal example that should shame deniers into reconsideration. I’m with her! BC

There’s a climactic scene in A Perfect Storm, the otherwise woefully inadequate screen translation of Sebastian Junger’s fantastic book, that may accurately encapsulate even our most favorable governmental prospects. After struggling through frightening swells to get his fishing boat out of a monstrous storm system it appears George Clooney and his crew have finally found high pressure and the calm seas it promises. For a moment they celebrate, but then Clooney scans the horizon and drops his head. “It’s not going to let us out,” he sadly surrenders, just before a mountain of water capsizes the vessel.

As Decision 2020 approaches, most consider trouncing Trump the grail to be seized. Such an outcome, the conventional wisdom holds, will get us back on track to some sort of normalcy, where the news cycle is not one long ticker tape of outrageous incompetence, lies and corruption. A place where productive government can at least be pursued without constant sabotage from the White House and its posse of Hill nihilists committed to carrying as much water as Trump sloshes their way. A new day, when we are no longer held hostage by an unhinged sociopath slumped on an antique couch, remote in one hand and an unsecured IPhone in the other. A glorious deliverance from a mad king. Certainly not happily ever after, but at least saved from the clutches of ruin. Right? Not so fast.

It becomes more clear every day this crisis won’t be over even if we succeed in sending Trump back to his gilded tower. Anyone spending part of their life they won’t get back watching Congressional hearings on ANY subject, from election security to reforms of police procedures to DC statehood can detect a terrible trend.

Back in 2009, when Sarah Palin sought with feverish indiscretion to cash in on her 15 minutes by diving headlong into Fox/AM’s shit river, conservative pundit David Brooks dismissed her as a “show horse” with little to offer the national discussion. Brooks did his usual nervous laugh thing as he predicted a short run for the budding reality TV regular, while lecturing that political parties require more than simply hissing grievance and resentment 24/7, they demand substance, actual lawmaking. A decade later Brooks is a man without a political home, as the GOP has descended to nihilist depths even Palin couldn’t conjure up as she embraced every ounce of her nastiness.

On Facebook, House Intelligence ranking member Devin Dunes seeks contributions with an ad post calling on all Trumpies to fight back against fake news. Only approved sources, like Nunes’ own print and on-line publications he finances directly can be trusted. Nunes, who has taken to calling Democrats the Democratic/socialist party on Twitter, accuses them of being “under the thumb” of “tech oligarchs” even as he enjoys as prodigious a presence on social media as any member of either caucus, fully mimicking the irreverent shorthand of the tweeter-in-chief. And make no mistake, collaboration on a resolution praising National Cheeseburger Day is as far as Nunes’ bipartisan inclinations extend, whether on matters within or past the water’s edge. Nunes appears content in his niche slot as a constant inhibiter of investigations into Trump malfeasance and ubiquitous presence on the Fox prime-time lineup. Issues and process take a back seat to providing official luster to Hannity fever dreams about the deep state.

Such back benching is no longer an outlier but the norm in today’s GOP. Tuning into a House hearing on how changes to police procedure may decrease the number of unarmed people shot to death during otherwise minor encounters that escalate out of control seemed at first encouraging. Granted, Al Sharpton had been invited to testify, but Reverend Al’s remarks were not controversial, and his tone was constructive, right in line with his remade persona as an MSNBC host. Thoughtful exchanges on topics such as perhaps training recruits coming out of the military to shed their previous predispositions to viewing encounters as dangerous confrontations were constructive, the atmosphere almost convivial. Until Florida Republican Matt Gaetz was allotted his five minutes.

Uninterested in anything other than picking a fight with Sharpton, Gaetz began to read from a resolution none other than Joe Scarborough had introduced years before to condemn Reverend Al for his role in the Crown Heights riots. Of course arguing with bigots is Sharpton’s wheelhouse and what was a pretty decent give and take on an important issue went right off the rails, exactly where Gaetz wanted it. Whatever Sharpton was then or is now meant nothing to Gaetz past providing an opportunity to preen for, first Trump, then Fox/AM. Whether it’s the audience of one in the East Wing or the wretched core, the last thing Gaetz cares about is governing. Later that evening, Tucker Carlson rewarded Gaetz with a special shout out and promised viewers the whole ugly exchange would be uploaded to the show’s page. The “substance” Brooks once demanded is nowhere to be found within the House GOP; instead they are rotten schoolboys, and every day provides a another substitute teacher to torment.

Ditto, it now appears, the Senate Republican leadership, who demonstrate no interest to find consensus for any response to threats to America’s elections, now routine mass shootings, the continued disgrace of family separations at the southern border, or anything else for that matter. They are, however, available to echo their House counterparts and denounce Democrats as socialists…. and the media as fake, albeit in a more reserved and structured manner. Rather than permit votes on legislation, McConnell preferred taking to the Senate floor last week and denouncing the Democrats’ “embrace of one half-baked socialist proposal after another.”

In both national chambers, not to mention flyover state legislatures, the new GOP brand is open disdain for governance, a full redefinition of their job descriptions to focus exclusively on mocking the democratic process, completely in line with their President. Sedition in unapologetically plain view. If this is how they act when they are in a position to actually get laws passed, how do you suppose they will behave with a, say, President Warren? Joe Biden promises he can get things done across the aisle. Not with this bunch. Does anybody really think, were the GOP still to control the Senate in 2021, that Moscow Mitch won’t pull a Garland if Clarence Thomas retires? The wretched core will demand nothing less.

It’s the old chicken before the egg question. Back in the primaries of 2016, the GOP had a stage full of the best talent it could muster…. and Trump. The Donald demonstrated how little power the party possessed to control the mob created by dependency on Roger Ailes for its messaging. The resulting chaos has distracted even those who paid attention to what their game plan was, carried out in full view during the Obama years. Forced after another trouncing in 2012 to choose which way to go as the road forked, a bigger tent or the inferno, Republicans headed south. Today that march continues, Trump has merely forced them to move at the double step, like Patton heading to Bastogne, only this trek leads not to glory in defense of freedom, but shame in pursuit of power. It’s doubtful a new President will be enough to force a turnaround. BC

Turns out there may be dim hopes for us yet! Well on our way to rendering our current planet uninhabitable, we can now at least fantasize about a new destination available for colonization once the gig is up here. Planet K2-18b is only 110 light years away, and strong evidence suggests there is “water in its skies,” a must for habitation by humans. Now, K12-18b possesses “powerful gravity” that would make walking tricky, but at near twice the size of Earth, there would be plenty of room to move. Of course, oxygen is in very very short supply on the planet’s surface, but the way we’re going here, that’s a problem we appear confident can be overcome. Anyway, it’s better than nothing, right? A glimmer of hope on space’s frontier.

Of all the frustrating inconsistencies Trump’s adoring evangelical bloc exhibit, the most puzzling is their near complete shoulder shrug about his ghoulish assault on the environment. If the great I AM created our world and man in his image, and granted us stewardship of his pet project, while constantly forgiving our sins, isn’t it a tad ungrateful to destroy it all? If it was two by two into the ark and all of that, shouldn’t extinction of any of the creatures God carefully inventoried be viewed with concern? Apparently not.

When Scott Pruitt, perhaps the worst fox ever to be selected to guard a federal department’s hen house, resigned from the EPA, he was unapologetic about his near constant abasements of the agency’s mission, not to mention personal corruption that made even Trump wince. Pruitt’s goodbye note predictably blamed the press for his troubles, and took pride in his predations on the natural resources he attacked rather than protected. But in closing, Pruitt waxed reverential and made clear the constituency both he and the President were beholden to. “I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence,” intoned Pruitt. Seems God doesn’t much mind a bit of chlorpyrifos testing the bounds of healthy fetal development, and 1986 clean water standards suit the almighty just fine.

The disconnect between evangelical Trump adoration and environmental subversion so outrageous even notorious polluters like big oil and utilities have blushed, fearful of eventual blowback when responsible executive guidance is restored, can be comprehended several different ways. First and foremost is the pro-life paradigm. Trump’s dogged pursuit of anti-abortion zealotry renders all else insignificant. Taking on the baby killers is first, second and last when it comes to priorities. Arctic refuge tracts sold off for oil and gas drilling is white noise. Eye on the ball and all that.

Next, like most all of the wretched core, and the President himself, Christian America relies exclusively on Fox/AM for information. “What Would Jesus Do” doesn’t stand a chance against “what do Stuart Varney or Lou Dobbs say?” In the main, evangelicals appear content to categorize the environment as a government policy issue, not a biblical concern. If anything, it falls into “render unto Caesar” territory, merely another talking point in the overall Fox/AM narrative that always divides things into camps. Who wants to have whacked out eco-lefties on a mission as fellow travelers? Single minded fanaticism is only acceptable when saving babies, not baby seals. Exxon not Greenpeace!

Finally, and perhaps most odious, there is the conscious skewing of frontal ecological assaults to bring them in line with a prosperity gospel view. After all, God wants us happy and thriving right? A sub compact could cause an embolism on an extended journey, better to play it safe with an SUV. Happy campers sin less; that’s a fact. Besides, do you really think he wants us dependent on Sunnis for our gas? We actually trespass against his will when we reap less due to fears satan allows our imaginations to conjure up. Climate change is his work; ours is to resist hysterics and trust in God. After all, judgement day is coming at some point… who knows how. Don’t worry, be happy!

The destructive legacies of even one Trump term will be many, but none will require more urgent attention and immediate counter measures than the environmental protections and international eco-cooperation he has laid waste to. It’s a good bet whoever succeeds Trump as the wretched core’s leader will lean heavily on flyover Christians to cement his relevancy, while continuing to sell Trump’s hideous environmental agenda as both a line in the sand against attacks on our sovereignty and a key to economic prosperity. The power evangelicals have in shaping those priorities will be as significant then as it is now. Were they to understand ecological degradation as a trespass against God, and express any degree of tangible concern about retrograde sensibilities that pits the GOP squarely against virtually the rest of humanity, its approach would surely change. They don’t and it won’t, at least not anytime soon.

Yet and still, although it is impossible right now not to see evangelicals as a flock far more aligned with Dallas snake oil pastor and Trump favorite Robert Jeffress than less craven and materially guided alternatives, there are K2-18b’s within the Christian galaxy. Progressive theologians like Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones and Brian McLaren provide at least the glimmer of possibility that voices focused more on WWJD concerns like poverty, immigration and the environment are growing in reaction to rampant hypocrisy foisted in their name. A growing student rebellion at Liberty University challenging Jerry Falwell Jr’s overt corruption and totalitarian efforts to bring all in his realm to heel speaks better of born-again America’s kids than its parents.

Such outliers should be supported and nurtured, encouraged to repel the ugliness they feel alienated from, not simply thrown out with the bath water. After all, it would be a sin to give up on so many currently lost in a forest of resentment and grievance due to sermons that betrayed them. That would be analogous to throwing in the towel and accepting the inevitability of Earth’s surrender to plastics and uncontrolled carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, Christian sensibilities and the planet’s survival should go hand in hand. What’s more, K2-18bs simply do not seem in plentiful supply right now. BC

Calling North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore a “staunch conservative” is one of those casual misnomers our political lexicon permits that sacrifices accuracy for the sake of general categorization. In fact, there is nothing conservative about Moore; he does nothing for the purpose of cautious protection of established precedent, which defines the term in most dictionaries. No, Moore is reckless in his agenda, his means of pursuing it, and the overt graft he seems to expect as a natural perk of his public office. In other words, Moore is precisely the type of low life who informs our worst cynicism about American politics.

Elected to the NC House in 2002 with campaign contributions totaling $45,000, Moore’s cake walk victory in 2016 was accompanied by a war chest of more the $1.7 million. And whether it’s been directly intervening to spare a company he co-owns both late fees for failing to comply with state regulators and fines associated with violating pollution standards, or earmarking millions of dollars for projects within his district to benefit contributors, Moore has never been shy about using his position for personal benefit. Why would he be? Ethics oversight has been fully controlled by the GOP for years.

As for his position on the issues, Moore is a Fox/AM culture war caricature with venom to spare on must every pertinent, and more importantly, non-pertinent issue of the day. Obsessed with the LGBT community, Moore makes it his business to make their life in the Tar Heel State hard. The leading force behind legislation to make it a crime for a transgender person to use the bathroom they identify with, which put NC among the national leaders of ugly LBGT reactionaries, Moore wears his bigotry toward any non repressed, guilt-ridden heterosexual like a badge of courage. Indeed, he never met any group other than white, wealthy, Christian intolerants he didn’t want to marginalize.

SB 359 is a classic Moore pet. The measure makes it a murder rap to intentionally carry out or attempt “to perform an overt act that kills a child born alive” during an abortion procedure. Additionally, any health-care practitioner who fails to provide the appropriate degree of care to a child born alive would face felony charges.” In other words, the .000000001 % of evil abortionists who somehow botch a late-term procedure and then snuff the infant’s life out on the operating table could get the needle.

The rhetoric that accompanied the measure was similarly scurrilous as the national GOP talk track, flat out lying that late-term abortion was common, while implying it was the preferred avenue of women too lazy to address their pregnancy earlier. The proposed law really had only two purposes: to permit GOP bible thumpers to check off the box established by the Trump-adopted talking point fiction that abortionists across the nation are zealously murdering fully developed babies; and intimidating staff at family planning clinics. When General Assembly Republicans failed to override Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the legislation, it brought home the reality that, after years of veto-proof majorities, slow and steady gains by Democrats now necessitated more creative thinking in order to ram their schemes through the statehouse.

Moore and the caucus he leads have one overall maxim when it comes to budgetary matters….money talks and the poor can take a walk. Tax breaks for business, read contributors, always come first and last. Indeed, tax relief and social spending austerity are the peas and carrots of Moore’s budget stewardship. Of course, outliers of largesse can be found, like the 82K provided for a special position created for a former fiancé of Moore, whose resume was the only one his office forwarded to fill the special job vacancy. But spending white upper bracket tax money on priorities like education, aid programs for the poor, even infrastructure not earmarked for GOP districts? Not so much.

All of this converged Wednesday morning as most American politicos commemorated 9/11. Moore got the bright idea he could lie to Democrats’ faces and assure them no votes would be taken that morning and then, while the saps were out being patriots, override Governor Cooper’s veto of a contentious budget package they had earlier passed, free of GOP anathemas like Medicaid expansion and money for education. So Moore’s idea of creativity was simple shamelessness and authoritarian kabuki. Nice! Look your fellow elected officials in the eye and lie. Hey, whatever works! As the few Democrats who were present in the chamber called out Moore’s idiocy for the outrage it was, he had their microphones disabled. One Democratic member had to be surrounded by colleagues to avoid being physically confronted by security as she denounced the charade. Nice touch, Himmler.

There is the famous saying by Winston Churchill that democracy is the worst system there is except for all the others. He may have reconsidered that observation had he witnessed the disgusting display in NC this week. At the end of the day democracy, no matter how rough and tumble, requires a modicum of honor and civility. Moore and his caucus now offer neither. Whatever other systems are out there, it’s doubtful their curs are any lower than Moore and his crew. The Speaker claims he texted members to be present, which of course, Democrats ignored as the status of the session’s most important legislation was at stake. Perfectly reasonable!

When bad faith is all one side has to offer, there is no accommodation possible. Since 2010 that has been the case in the North Carolina state legislature. Wednesday it finally reach its logical conclusion; there is nothing left to the imagination. Our President has not yet weighed in on the matter; I have a 401K to bet on whether or not he will support Moore’s deceit. Limbaugh and Levin will surely be speaking of the move as a model for other legislatures.

Optimists have declared Moore stepped over the line and cooked his party’s goose for the upcoming election cycle. It would be nice to have confidence in that assessment. Any takers? Another shade of ruin. BC

A little more than a century ago, after radically changing the course of US foreign policy, Woodrow Wilson left New York City escorted by an armada of naval vessels to become the first American President to visit Europe. His mission was clear: negotiate the terms for peace with the vanquished German leadership, defining a post-war world America now would fully engage with rather than simply watch from the safety advantageous geography had always granted.

Wilson’s reception in France and England was like nothing anyone had ever received anywhere or anytime before. Millions coming out to cheer the man they credited with turning the tide of history’s most devastating conflagration. Everywhere were grateful throngs fighting for a glimpse of the man all appeared happy to follow into a future they were certain couldn’t be worse than their recent past.

How wrong they were would start coming fully to light on September 1, 1939 when Nazi tanks rolled into Poland, but the seeds were planted in Versailles when French Premier Clemenceau got the blood from a stone his nation demanded, forcing Germany to endure the national shame and futility its democracy failed to survive. The lesson history would teach is that policy by emotion, particularly the dark recesses of vengeful bitterness and petty abasement creates a canvas for catastrophe. Allowed to fill in with the predictable elements our worst inclinations contribute, such a landscape will surely produce events that coalesce and quickly cascade at a pace beyond anyone’s best efforts to control.

Near one hundred and two years after Wilson’s triumphant arrival, VP Mike Pence couldn’t pay anyone enough to turn out and wave along the Irish countryside. Literally nobody was interested in bidding our second in command anything more than an international negative salute. The servile shadow of a President who has presented European democracies with the exact same ugliness they adopted to guide their post-WWI diplomacy arrived in Ireland with a forced smile and bad faith, and was welcomed accordingly. Earlier this year, Trump received much the same in London, his fabrications aside.

When Wilson came to Europe he had the creation of a League of Nations as his primary focus. The aim was to provide a forum for proactive diplomacy meant to head off the disastrous miscalculations that sparked WWI’s carnage. He limped home less convinced such idealism was possible after “a just and stable peace” suffered the same unbridled animosity he took in as a southern boy during Reconstruction, Germany was going to pay, come what may…. just like Dixie of Wilson’s youth. Ultimately, America rejected The League of Nations as well, opting for “normalcy” and retrenching back into isolationism only FDR’s full array of political talents, and a “day of infamy” succeeded in casting aside.

What we have now, reflected in the arbitrary and capricious spurts of an anti-statesman, is the same toxic stew of fear, ignorance and complacency that festered for two decades before exploding into catastrophe in Europe and Asia 80-odd years ago. We learned then what many thoughtful people are afraid we will learn again… the modern world does not grant a pass to idiocy for very long. When the planet’s leader shakes allies down, and blusters inanities at regimes who don’t play, dominoes will begin to fall.

Kashmir, Hong Kong, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, Iran, Syria, Brazil, Great Britain, for God’s sake. Our Earth is a fluid place, a dynamic host of variables that will not sit still for nonsense. Moronic tweets usually composed of American exceptionalist gibberish injure US interests and waste time we will not get back, all the while destroying a national brand still reeling from post 9/11 folly.

Forget fixing things, now we are the problem. A cruel and petty country, more interested in indulging xenophobia than providing any kind of safe harbor for anyone. Jordan has refugee camps that span as far as the eye can see. The latest proposal this Administration may or may not honor is 15,000 refugees, worldwide. Total! Bahamians, who survived obliteration are not welcome. Think about that.

American foreign policy is now based fully on MAGA sensibilities. That is, we suffer ungrateful allies, who are only interested in fleecing us, and enemies we have always been outsmarted by. In other words, a set of propositions only a sociopath, or millions of Fox/AM consumers, could love. But at the end of the day the cornerstones really aren’t too different from the Post WWI mindsets that kicked Woodrow Wilson in the teeth, even as he was accorded the welcome of a Roman conquerer. What’s critical is what it led to then, and what it will lead to now if we don’t reset STAT. To paraphrase one of the titles of Churchill’s masterful trilogy of memoirs that captured post-WWI’s consequences…. “a storm is coming.”BC

First it was the Republican establishment. Then it was the party leadership. Then it was…. any notable Republican. Then it was Robert Mueller. Now it’s former Defense Secretary James Mattis a callowed nation hopes can do the trick. Somebody with stature please pummel our bully and his gang of stooges for us. It’s just awful to keep having our lunch money taken in front of everybody. Shameful, degrading, a daily trauma. It’s like Back to The Future; Biff needs a fateful roundhouse to reshape our destiny. But can we rely on Mattis to deliver the blow that the others have refused to throw? That’s doubtful.

After a stretch of hibernation since resigning with less than an exclamation point as leader of the Pentagon, Mattis has a book on the way, Call Sign Chaos, which is to say he will be hitting the talk circuit to promote it. Since it’s doubtful the tome’s publishers were interested in paying seven figures for a tribute to Trump abasements, there exists a presumption the author is going to be taking el jefe to task. However, if an excerpt from the book, offered as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal the other day, is any indication, Mad Dog’s bark won’t be much bigger than the nibble he was barely able to muster when Trump paraded him around as one of “my Generals.” At this rate he may not even earn a PM mention on the insulter-in-chief’s Twitter feed, let alone an AM tweet storm reserved for enemies du jour.

In fact, it’s fair to wonder whether Trump won’t thank Mattis for his observations, which ultimately merely offer up the false equivalence trope of emerging US tribalism without even a mention of the President by name. “We are dividing into hostile tribes,” bemoans Mattis, “cheering against each other, fueled by emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future, instead of rediscovering our common ground and finding solutions.” Both sides do it. Really?! We can get that from Hugh Hewitt.

No doubt, like so many of those who could give Trump a black eye, Mattis feels a brawl with President low road is beneath his station. Moreover, it’s clear from the self-congratulations the General lays on with a ladle rather than a brush – after all, he could have stayed retired with a family he had long neglected… but for duty blah, blah, blah – that he feels no guilt whatsoever for signing on with a boss who was fundamentally at odds with his entire worldview. Mattis assures us a good Marine does his homework, but apparently the general moved right past Trump’s MAGA stump gibberish before accepting his Cabinet position. Even a cursory glance at the Trump campaign’s trail of fears would have promoted the conclusion carrying out his Sec./Def. duties required complete refutation of his employer’s positions. The record shows Mattis succeeded too well for too long to be viewed as much more than just another ship jumper looking to proactively aerate a reputation tarnished by Trump…. as all inevitably are.

Trump’s ventures abroad for meetings with NATO allies have been one embarrassment after the other from the start. Everything from siding with Putin in Helsinki to a constant and shrill fixation on “unfair” imbalances in defense spending has framed the US less as a leader than an obstacle to Western collective security. Trump being Trump, Mattis was dragged into many an incident as window dressing for outrages he surely abhorred, but said little publicly, and even less privately if the reporting is accurate. When it counted, as the damage was happening, Mattis was keeping his head down, apparently figuring there were bigger fish to fry. Now we expect him to make a stand?

When history looks back at this dark passage and identifies Trump’s enablers, no picture will speak more words than a conference table occupied almost entirely by white male sycophants dutifully absorbing the nonsensical “achievements” he endlessly extols. And seated next to his greatness for the first two plus years, like a prized Christmas ornament, was his favorite general. Granted, Mattis looked like he had swallowed paint thinner throughout the charades, but his seat assignment never changed. Moreover, when he could have offered some candid frankness in a froth of disgusting servile repetition, he took a pass. The image, however, will endure.

Finally, there is perhaps nothing worse in the always expanding litany of Trump outrages than his seditiously overt efforts to recruit the armed services into his wretched core, turning what once was America’s pride and joy symbol of enduring civilian control of our military into ominous red flags any democrat should worry about. The Commander-In-Chief’s transformation of morale boosts for the troops into MAGA rallies has been going on from the start. Navy, Air Force, Army…. Boy Scouts…. no group has been exempted.

Whether it be caustic and dishonest criticisms of his predecessors, or lies about his role in securing advanced weaponry, Trump has only had one gear when addressing those in uniform… self-serving. Mattis never made much of a public peep about it, though most all confirm he was not happy and made clear within the Pentagon, from the top down, partisanship within the ranks would not be tolerated. Yet and still, as far as confronting Trump with the unacceptability of his behavior, or using his platform to accentuate how out of line the president was acting, the record shows Mattis wanting.

To be fair, and accurate, Mattis’ career has been exemplary; he is respected and admired by virtually all who have dealt with him as a modest, intelligent and honorable straight shooter. Moreover, there is unquestioned validity to the argument that, in democracies the military must always err on the side of the elected, even if they undermine such deference. Indeed, it may be that Mattis is a crucible to the crossroads we reached long ago and still ponder.

Further, it may not be fair to expect him to abandon a set of principles that views Trumpism more as a test of our system’s fortitude than an imminent threat to it. One could even be convinced to admire Mattis for eating Trump’s crap sandwich for as long as he did out of duty he felt for his nation. But let’s be clear about one thing the intelligent and clear-eyed have known since January of 2017, this President is a hideous aberration, a detestable outlier of incompetence and indifference to the most minimum of obligations his office requires. That includes his duties as Commander-In-Chief. There were plenty of very “honorable” German Generals within the Reich, who prosecuted unfathomable calamity.

At the end of the day, history will issue it’s own opinion about the reticence of Mattis to confront Trump directly, with all the ugliness that entails. Like they’re saying right now down in Florida as Dorian churns away, hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Or put a slightly darker way: the road to ruin contains too many bystanders who could help direct traffic. Who knows, maybe even the stray mad dog. BC