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If the nation is able to send Trumpism packing one way or the other, some of the damage will be harder to repair than other harm he caused. Regrettably, much may be permanent with consequences that will greatly hobble any strategies we employ to regain our global leadership credentials and international brand. One of those areas is the Middle East, specifically the Arab-Israeli conflict and both our role as an honest broker, as well as Israel’s position as a credible negotiating partner. It’s not hyperbole to say the destruction being done right now to both may be impossible to fix, while dooming Israel’s once vibrant democracy and permanently transforming it into a militarist national security state in full betrayal of the mission statement its creation was founded on.

The Likud Party was formed by religious hard liners, men like Begin and Shamir, former members of Irgun, a violent independence group. From the moment the Israeli Army secured possession of the West Bank, the men who would create the Likud had no intention of giving it back; after all, to them the land was sacred, Judea and Samaria…. Israel’s destiny.

Since its founding in 1973, with some interruption, Likud has greatly influenced both the Israeli political landscape and events in the region. While operating within the concept of land for peace, which forms the gist of the Arab-Israeli peace process, Likud leaders have encouraged aggressive Israeli settlement of West Bank lands. Though Gaza and the Sinai to the west were bargaining chips Likud was more than willing to toss into the pot, the West Bank was an entirely different matter.

The personal integrity of men like Begin, Shamir, even Sharon, was never at issue. These were, after all, founding fathers of their nation. Whatever mistakes they made, no matter how grievous the results, it was an article of faith their actions were taken in pursuit of Israel’s interests. Yet and still, their viewpoints were extreme on Judea and Samaria, and the unspoken goal all pursued was to settle the area enough to make it a political impossibility for any Israeli regime to bargain it away. The optics of uprooting Israeli citizens from their homes as part of some political agreement with those considered by many implacable enemies never aided approval ratings. Leave it to attrition, Likud has always believed, time and settlement will decide things.

Benjamin Netanyahu is a formidable man, with a sharp intellect and intimidating baritone voice that, matched with a straightforward charisma, makes ignoring his assertions impossible. Those are his personal features at odds with comparisons to the fully vapid Trump, but past those he checks off all the boxes as Israel’s version of the Donald. Forget Fifth Avenue, Netanyahu could run naked down Dizengoff Street squawking like a chicken and his bloc of voters would shrug and muse about the heat. Corruption? Israel’s attorney general has recommended indicting the Prime Minister on bribery, corruption and breach-of-trust charges. But where Netanyahu’s character frailties most substantially intersect with our soulless President is their shared willingness to pander at the expense of the national interest.

Trump thought nothing of ending decades of US policy continuity and moving our Embassy to Jerusalem. Since he gives no consideration at all to anything substantive, it was a no brainer, an easy bone to toss his wretched core as a “promise kept,” and gain Israeli acclamation. Ditto recognizing annexation of the Golan Heights. You can’t recognize damage to what you don’t understand or care about. Netanyahu on the other hand makes his deals with the devil with full cognition of the consequences, and, like Trump, he’ll go as low as he has to.

So in addition to tying himself at the hip to a man whose most ardent fans dismiss the holocaust as fake history, Netanyahu took no chances on election eve and made it official; he favored applying Israeli sovereignty to West Bank settlements, subtracting them permanently from the Arab-Israeli negotiating table. That most of the world’s nations hold to the position that the settlements are illegal and in conflict with basic premises underlying the peace process didn’t phase the Prime Minister as he finally gave voice to unspoken Likud ambitions, all for a few votes. Destroying whatever was left for Arab moderates to grasp a hold of didn’t seem to bother Bibi much either……. Trumpian to the core.

Coming on the heels of Netanyahu’s declaration that “Israel is the nation-state of Jews alone,” an unambiguous attack on the country’s Arab citizenry, it is now clear, like Trump, there is no floor to where Bibi will go for the sake of personal and political sustenance. In Trump, he has been gifted the perfect flunky for his purposes, a US President wholly unmoored from any responsibility to US national interest or geopolitical propriety, and a wretched core of supporters enamored with reactionary symbols of fealty to Israel the hucksters they adore have long touted in concert with anti-Muslim bigotry.

What are the longer-term consequences of this immoral abandonment of basic policy and principles? Nothing good. Arab moderates like Jordan’s Hussein and any Palestinian opponents of Hamas will have no position to fall back on. They will be between the rock of the Trump/Bibi boot and the hard place of Arab extremists proven correct that there is no longer anything left to negotiate for…. land for peace is dead. Fight or surrender.

Israel’s creation was based on an argument few people of conscience could refute after the holocaust’s horrors… Jews could not rely on other nations for their basic right to exist. With independence in 1948, a full panoply of Israeli leaders pledged that, while the right to exist was non-negotiable, Israel would value the rights of all its citizens and govern by a higher moral code. For decades hard choices have been made as a result of the tension between those two basic obligations, but few of Israel’s friends questioned the motivations of its leadership. Sadly, Netanyahu’s full embrace of Trump, and emulation of all his worst qualities, appears to have secured his re-election and ends those days, ushering in as dark a period for Israel as we are currently suffering here. Tragic. BC

At the top of my list of great movie musicals is Oliver! Seeing it on the big screen as a ten-year old boy was magical. Everything about it was larger than life and the exquisite romanticism for that particular Dickensian time and place stayed with me to this day. The other preeminent feeling it instilled was gratitude for a full stomach. From the classic first scene of the orphans sentenced to days on end of gruel, through Fagen’s moldy sausages, on through the great scenes of London’s underclass enjoying bowls of stew with mugs of gin, basic sustenance was never far from view.

One vivid scene takes place at the start as the pathetic waifs march in for yet another bowl of heinous gruel while singing “Food Glorious Food.” Meanwhile, the kitchen is bringing monstrous helpings of all things hot and fresh for the visiting politicos to feast on upstairs. Those servings include two heaping bowls of steaming carrots and brussel sprouts, both of which I had previously despised, that the boys stop to gaze at with lust while taking in the aroma. I remember like yesterday the epiphany of understanding right then and there life was a relative exercise and I was very fortunate. Next to endless gruel, even plants from the dirt would taste damn fine. I never looked at a carrot or sprout the same way again.

Lately we’ve been presented with an analogous set of circumstances and forced to reassess what figuratively constitutes a carrot or brussel sprout when it comes to the the nation’s governance, indeed its prospects as a going democratic concern. . After a dizzying array of outrageous Trump appointments that made gruel seem substantial, our standards for optimism have been driven into the soil. After all, the first wave, which included the likes of DeVos, Price, Zinke, Pruitt and Carson illustrated clearly Trump campaign reassurances “the best people” would be on hand to provide checks on the President’s mercurial nature were less than dubious. Then came a wave of replacements like Kudlow, Bolton, Pompeo, and Mulvaney and fear became desperation as government by Fox/AM became a reality. The answer to whether it could actually get worse was resounding as Mathew Whitaker took over at DOJ, and Bill Shine entered the White House. Suddenly, Judge Janine as a Supreme Court nominee was no longer just an inane joke. Worse than gruel…..we’re talking assorted larvae.

All of this provided the context for a huge bipartisan sigh of relief that greeted Bill Barr’s selection to become Attorney General. Finally! A man with credentials that don’t include a paycheck with Rupert Murdoch’s signature. A real public servant! Someone who served a genuine President and wasn’t laughed out of town or reviled by all those he encountered! A serious selection!

Barr had actually served as senior Bush’s Attorney General from 1991-93. By all accounts, his confirmation hearing was a love fest. Senate Judiciary Chairman Joe Biden sung Barr’s praises for “candid responses” that included labeling Roe v Wade a travesty, but agreeing to respect the decision – in other words, obey the law – and declaring the key to curbing violent crime was more prison space. Conservative but honest. Never underestimate candor!

When George Sr. became a one-termer, Barr glided into private practice, but not before he headed an adhoc crime commission formed by then freshly minted Virginia law-and-order Governor George Allen. The group, after some exhaustive work, came up with the boldest and most daring idea for more effective criminal justice they could muster…… abolish parole! Barr was one tough lover!

Seems Barr came to Trump’s attention the way many lawyers meet him, as a possible member of his defense team. Well, wouldn’t you know, the two began chatting and sort of hit it off. As luck would have it, Barr supported the President’s firing of Comey and saw absolutely no issue of obstruction of justice! Moreover, Barr informed Trump how disgusted he was that some members of Robert Mueller’s team had made donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Small world! Finally, Barr apparently validated many a Trump tweetstorm by letting the President know Jennie Rhee and Bruce Ohr of the Special Counsel’s team were awash in conflicts of interest. Talk about kizmet! What luck….Trump happened to find a guy who agreed with him all the way down the line AND had integrity! Pure miracle.

Barr’s confirmation process went every bit as smooth as near 30 years earlier, and for many of the same reasons. No, he couldn’t promise to make the whole Mueller report public, but he was being honest. Congress and the people would see plenty…. trust me. Remember, I actually have gravitas….. Mr. straight shooter. You could have had Whitaker for God’s sake… don’t be ungrateful. I’m my own man; if I bury Mueller’s work it will be for the right reasons. Need I remind you everyone agrees I’m highly principled?!

And so here we sit with two years of top investigative work synopsized in a few paragraphs. After numerous indictments of members of the President’s campaign team, including the conviction on multiple counts of his campaign manager, Barr’s assessment that Trump is essentially free and clear is all we have. Meanwhile, Trump and his state media apparatus have more than enough to declare him both Sacco and Vanzetti, a martyr to the deep state’s nefarious whims.

Apparently, Barr is a very careful and deliberate reader. When, what or even if we see the Mueller report now seems anyone’s guess. Yet and still, the murmurs steadily growing from disgruntled Mueller team members that there is much more to their findings than Barr’s summary pretends, validates the obvious…. the Mueller Report must be released to the public yesterday or a cover up is in the works. There exist no good reasons for delay… zero.

Saying it too often doesn’t make it less true; this Presidency is ruining us nine ways to Sunday. The fact Barr was heralded as some salvationary nod to propriety from a White House utterly bereft of any only clarifies another consequence of the demolition of standards underway since that awful first Tuesday three Novembers ago. The silver lining should be understanding the lesson it provides…. the gruel Trumpism has foisted on us should never diminish the standards we demanded before it. We deserve much better and settle for less at our peril. BC

Back in 2015, when Trump was just starting to make noise about running for President, which most sensible people dismissed as just more hot air, a childhood friend posted a declaration on Facebook that the New York narcissist was exactly who the nation needed. My comments to him were incredulous and, with a fair level of sarcasm and disdain, I highlighted his Fox/AM proclivities and their knack for making regular consumers morons. Naturally, he took significant umbrage and messaged me how he didn’t appreciate being taken to task or having his academic bona fides challenged. After all, he had been mentored by the redoubtable Stephen Moore, who was already in the Trump corner. He was proud of that part of his background, and spoke of it like its very truth heartened both his and Trump’s credentials as formidable intellects. I saw no reason to up the ante on our conflict so I simply acknowledged his point tactfully and moved on even though, as one fully familiar with Moore’s snake oil economics, I was tempted to stridently doubt the wisdom of associating oneself so closely with such a fringe element.

Few federal mandates have given US taxpayers more bang for their buck than the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Enacted as a means to confront and prevent financial crises usually caused by public panic, the Fed’s role has steadily grown through the decades and now, not only focuses on maximizing employment while preventing inflation, but also includes research and planning geared to stabilizing financial markets while readying strategies to deal with crises that may occur. The Fed has determinedly attended to its political autonomy and strives to act solely in line with economic best practices.

It’s been at least tacitly accepted through administrations of both parties that politicizing the Fed is a no no. While not illegal, it’s been commonly regarded as bad form, a red flag of an undisciplined Presidency. Sure, some Fed Chairman embraced a public persona more than others, Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker come to mind, but the unwritten rule for Presidents has been to let them do their work outside the political news cycles. The exceptions to the rule have only helped to strengthen it. LBJ went ballistic when the Fed, alarmed by inflation pressures, tightened money supply just as our deepening quagmire in Vietnam crystallized an emerging guns vs. butter budget reality. He actually summoned the Fed Chairman, William McChesney Martin, to his ranch for a scolding. Martin later recalled he was initially shocked by Johnson’s bullying, but left more determined to follow his own inclinations. Reagan Chief-of-Staff James Baker actually demanded Paul Volcker not raise interest rates until after the 1984 Presidential election. Volcker was unswayed.

Of course our current President demonstrates time and again his indifference to any manner of best practices or tradition. Moreover, rather than dealing directly with those he knows are his intellectual superiors, and current Fed Chairman Jay Powell certainly qualifies, Trump prefers the cowardice of AM tweetstorms. In fact, he has already signaled Powell out for just such treatment a couple of times as the markets faltered. Nobody should doubt, when Trumpenomic chickens come home to roost, the Federal Reserve will be scapegoat numero uno.

All of which brings us back to Moore, as sycophantic a Trump lackey as any in the current public sphere, and now a nominee for a slot on the Fed’s Board of Governors. There is quite literally no outrage the President has foisted, either during the 2016 campaign or after inauguration, that Moore has not spun with a reverential determination. Forget tariffs, previously a conservative taboo, or ballooning deficits, which Moore couldn’t go after Obama with enough fervor for, in his role as CNN contributor, the Heritage Foundation fellow has been glad to defend the slimiest of Trump behavior. Indeed, he has given Rick Santorum all he can handle in the “did he really frickin just say that” department.

As to his qualifications for a job heretofore deemed the pervue of accomplished economists with the intellectual gravitas necessary for bipartisan Senate approval, let’s just be charitable and say Moore’s resume is noticeably light. But don’t take my word for it, the reaction has been as lopsided as it’s been emphatic. Economics columnist Robert Samuelson is as dispassionate and apolitical as they come, but he wasn’t mincing words in a piece wholly devoted to the folly of Moore’s nomination. It isn’t so much Moore as merely one member of the Fed’s Board that Samuelson frets about, it’s the “terrifying” possibility his placement could lead him to become the Board’s Chairman, which would require a skill set he isn’t in the same zip code of possessing. The specter of a certified Trump yes man at the helm during a financial crisis his policies could create is fodder for nightmares.

Perhaps University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers captured the broad spectrum disdain for Moore’s nomination best when he asserted: “Call your favorite economist. Whether they’re left, right, libertarian or socialist, none of them will endorse Stephen Moore for the Fed. He’s manifestly unqualified.” Ouch! And Moore’s brand of economics? Think World Wrestling Federation. Instead of facts, data and principles, Moore provides, as International Economics Director at the Council on Foreign Relations Benn Steil notes, “relentlessly partisan, illogical and fact-fudged” analysis.

Whether it’s providing fact-free economic alarm regarding imaginary US financial obligations to global climate-change strategies, or near comical fabrications about how the recent Trump Tax Cuts will actually reduce federal deficits, Moore’s contentions are far more likely to produce eye rolls than nods of agreement. Often on CNN, he simply isn’t taken seriously, so baseless are his claims.

Of course it’s hardly a surprise that, in an ocean of economic thought and academic talent, Trump would land on the guy whose latest project was authoring a gushing tribute to his singular greatness. Sadly, the selection provides yet another opportunity for “thoughtful” Senate Republicans like Susan Collins, Lisa Markowski, and Lamar Alexander to illustrate how callow they are.

Confirming Moore for the Fed will be just one more stake in the heart of the long- held bipartisan demand that certain positions require quality at the expense of politics, competence instead of servility. Moore’s confirmation will assure, should the reckless policies of this White House hit the fan, the critical Fed response will have the added burden of one wholly unqualified and partisan voice gumming up the works… just another knife jammed into the machinery of our government as a result of 2016’s civic catastrophe. BC

It’s a heartache when autism renders your otherwise beautifully athletic, 6’5” 165 lb. son unable to compete at traditional sports. To compensate I’ve lived vicariously through the exploits of several close friends’ children, frequently joining my buddies in the stands to cheer on their kids’ best efforts. It’s wonderful, of course, but not quite the same. It has been particularly bittersweet recently, as Sue and I have regularly attended Marshall High School basketball games with Luke to root for a very competitive squad anchored by a couple kids we watched him grow up with. Often, we sit near their parents and absorb some of the thrill. None of this pity party means we’re not immensely proud of the accomplishments Luke doggedly pursues within his own parameters… it just is.

A debilitating deficit Luke deals with is an inability to carry over one experience to the next. That is, he can be bowling and roll a strike, react immediately to the achievement, and then seemingly fully discount it by the time we interact with him. I know he has recorded it in a file, but it’s most often stored away so fast we can’t enjoy the moment together…. he’s already pondering the next thing.

All of which made what happened several weeks ago unique and memorable. Luke plays on a Special Olympics basketball team at Marshall. They were invited to a local tournament held with hundreds of people in attendance, all enthusiastically cheering the players, restoring whatever chunk of my faith in community that may have frayed as part of our divided national condition.

When Luke’s game began he seemed particularly focused, loping from end to end and scoring repeatedly, to the point the mentors gently reminded him to pass off a bit more. Of course we were overjoyed in the stands, as a packed gymnasium cheered him on. When the game ended I headed to the bench to congratulate him, confident his response would be something like “now let’s go get chicken from Crispy and Juicy dad!” Instead he looked me in the eye and entreated “did you see it… I scored lots of points.” As astonishing as it was short-lived, the moment provided fleeting certainty of progress I grabbed a hold of. He may have simply been scripting a response he knew I wanted to hear, but I prefer the alternative explanation… the whole event excited him enough to break through his rigidities and express himself spontaneously. Around here we take our victories where we can get em, and thinking too much is just the way to give them back. Additionally, I was left to ponder how many other kids Special Olympics have hoisted out of their routines and inspired to another level, thrilling their parents. I doubt achievement is stingier with the exhuberance it provides the disabled versus typical kids.

Mick Mulvaney is a Tea Party creation with a brand steeped from the outset in the movement’s bitter pettiness. In 2011, buffeted by dark money and under the cloud of a financial scandal he has never adequately explained, Mulvaney came to Congress as a bean counter on a mission to take on wasteful Obama largesse. Whether it was lazy welfare queens or abortion mills like Planned Parenthood, Mulvaney was on the case, avenging beleaguered taxpayers and looking to whittle government down to size. As nasty and unempathetic as they came, John Kasich on meth, the idea of Mulvaney as OMB Director in 2012 was every bit as nightmare-evoking as Trump in the White House.

Now he wears three hats in a freak show of nihilist governance that cherishes nothing and holds even less sacred. And so it was that Betsy DeVos stared vapidly at incredulous House Members this week and shrugged her shoulders…. “we had to make some tough decisions,” she blankly acknowledged, taking responsibility for what had been initiated in the West Wing, but which she would be carrying the water for.

Tea Partiers have always equated the Department of Education with lib schemes to impose federal brainwashing on their children; they want it gone. Like most of Trump’s Cabinet, DeVos is a rabid fox guarding the henhouse, undermining the enterprise she heads. She’s certainly not doing battle with the West Wing to spare her department budget wreckage. Regardless, whether actually doing away with funding for Special Olympics originated with Mulvaney – he never met a set of numbers he didn’t want to crunch – or DeVos, seeking to subsidize as much charter school encroachment as possible, each had to know it would be both controversial and doomed to failure. Yet neither seemed to mind much, particularly DeVos, who appeared energized declaring Special Olympics, like other godsends for the disabled community, are a philanthropic not taxpayer responsibility. As a measuring stick for the true chaotic despicability of this regime, her casual cruelty clarified our worst impressions. As for Trump, he almost certainly was uninformed. But does he even care one way or the other? Clown question.

Not a day goes by during this Presidency we don’t witness what we’ve been fortunate enough to never have endured before it. That doesn’t make it any more palatable. Sometimes they really step in it, like this week, and touch a nerve not yet bisected by Fox talk tracks. After all, MAGAites have disabled children, too. Should we take heart that some corridors remain off limits, preventing Trumpie devoids from staggering through destroying all they can just because…. Obama? Perhaps. Moreover, taken together with another Mulvaney brainchild, a renewed idiotic determination to wreck the ACA, it seems a safe bet there will be more gifts coming the Democrats way as 2020 nears, so our horror can be tempered with increased opportunity to vanquish its malevolent creators. Yet and still, this wretched tribe targets our most vulnerable without second thoughts; that should cost decent people sleep. All of our children deserve much better. BC

“To be courageous, these stories make clear, requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all. Politics merely furnishes one arena which imposes special tests of courage. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follow his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow.”

JFK – from Profiles In Courage

JFK is perhaps the closest thing that exists to a 20th Century bipartisan icon in today’s fully polarized body politic. Fox/AM often trots out liberalism’s martyred prince to illustrate “how far left the Democrats have gone.” That many observers do the same with Reagan to highlight how reactionary the GOP has become doesn’t account for the chutzpa the Hannitys and Carlsons show when claiming Kennedy would now “probably be a Republican.” Nevertheless, JFK’s Pulitzer Prize winning collection of essays provides a wholly relevant point of departure to consider what kind of candidate we should hope for to confront the worst President ever to seek re-election.

Of course anybody with a pulse and not reliant on lithium to stay out of jail represents an improvement. Yet and still, why not seek the best we can hope for, not necessarily from a policy point of view, but from the standpoint of character. After all, the menace Trump poses stems from his ugly wretchedness as a human being. The extreme policies he embraces have more to do with his reckless desire to hold close a base of nihilists than any ambition to convey an enduring ideological stamp. Considering Trump in any other way normalizes his pestilence, which makes more likely its ability to survive him.

In surveying the growing Democratic field it’s gratifying to see that some of its most serious contenders are women. This clarifies Democrats ignored the rubbish put forth by too many that Hillary’s electoral ills were more about her sex than her imperviousness as a candidate. Indeed, as we witness the degradations a genuine misogynist foists on the office he never wanted, and certainly feels no urgency to promote the standing of our society’s better half while within, it is reassuring to witness a full quorum of qualified women prepared to mount serious candidacies. Yet and still, and quite obviously, that doesn’t mean they should be judged by different criteria, or receive passes based on gender. Where they’ve been, and how they got here, are as fair game as the storylines of their male opponents.

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has thrown her hat in the ring and is a formidable contender for the nomination. In a field increasingly moving leftward, she may very well be able to stake out a significant chunk of moderate ground. Her contributions in the Senate have been solid; she has amassed a body of work with many impressive aspects which bolster her qualifications for high office.

That said, from the standpoint of the courage and character this cycle’s Democratic nominee should possess in heaps, a review of her past raises concerns. Klobuchar made her bones as a county prosecutor two decades ago during a period where voters, particularly white voters in suburban Minnesota, were demanding law and order as crime rates spiked. After being elected by a razor thin margin, the new county attorney was glad to oblige, actually embracing the Rudy Giuliani approach of aggressively prosecuting lesser crimes as a strategy to address more serious offenses. Trouble was, in Minnesota, just like New York City, minorities were disproportionately run in and handed sentences often out of whack with either fairness or common sense.

Nothing in the record shows Klobuchar as anything but glad to play along; indeed, after winning her first term by a 1 % margin, voters rewarded her get-tough approach with a lopsided reelection win. Meanwhile, jails in the state filled to capacity, many minority inmates serving stiff sentences for relatively minor crimes. Looking back from today’s vantage point, with sensibilities informed by a different standard more concerned with empathy for those whose basic civil rights suffered at the foot of policies catering to white fear, Klobuchar has some explaining to do. Her answers have left much to be desired.

Rather than owning up to the political expedience another time demanded, and simply acknowledge it may have been a mistake that she has now learned from, Klobuchar knee-jerked her inner swamp denizen and revised her past. Her tenure as the county attorney actually saw a general reduction in inmate populations, declared the Senator, citing statistics of an obscure liberal think tank that would not survive even a cursory double take. In fact, when the Washington Post’s fact checker, who has become any concerned citizen’s bestest buddy in the age of Trump, dissected her proposition, he was compelled to give her four Pinocchios…. a liar’s rating. Called to address the falsehoods she had promoted, a Klobuchar staffer spewed weasel inanities that are always employed when the gig is up and the goal is simply moving on to another issue and news cycle.

To be fair, Klobuchar is no outlier when it comes to a past checkered by that time’s political winds. Joe Biden ran a campaign punctuated by his resistance to busing in a state now defined by inequities its shoddy public education system creates. Cory Booker has been a sponge for special interest campaign cash, and way too good a friend to Big Pharma. Kamala Harris weathered a genuine scandal as a DA, resulting in the dismissal of hundreds of cases. And so on…. But Klobuchar is distinguished by her current response…. one that, stripped of its profunctory claims toward good faith, roughly equates with a typical Trump whopper. No thanks!

Surviving the Trump abyss in tact as a going democratic concern will require some overcompensation in certain areas. One of those, to my eyes, is a demand his successor lean heavily on some basic qualities our Chief Executive does not possess… integrity, courage, empathy, and an abiding adherence to transparency. Simply relegating the Democratic nomination to a contest of policy positions, a referendum on where the pendulum has swung, doesn’t cut it. To paraphrase JFK, we should be concerned about the path each has followed, and perhaps reward those who took a more difficult road less traveled. Klobuchar’s recent piss poor defense of flitting along the 90s’ “get tough on crime” jet stream badly fails to fill that requirement. BC

“Little Mickey, get in here!”

“Yes Sir! Although I am surely not worthy, how can I at least attempt to meet your needs?”

“Listen Mickey, this Twitter blackout is killing me. These fingers need to move! The deplorables want me declaring victory over that deep-state scum, Mueller!”

“Sir, I know you’re anxious, but we need to wait. It’s still not a slam dunk. Granted, no indictments is promising, but Barr used the word “comprehensive” to describe the report. A lot of ground was covered, and you faced loads of liability.”

“Don’t give me that, you little rat, it was a witch hunt! Whose side are you on anyway?!”

Your greatness, it cuts me to the quick you could ever question my loyalty. I’d not only take a bullet for you, I’d take one for Uda… Er, I mean Don Jr. I’m all about MAGA! But listen, this thing has many aspects; Mueller’s team opened plenty of cans with lots of worms…. uh, for no good reason of course.”

“It’s all bullshit, Mickey. Powerful men like me and Vlad won’t be leashed. My people want me to keep my promises. That’s what I’m doing and then some… like that hill in Israel… what’s it called again?”

“The Golan Heights, Sir.”

“Yea, the Golem Heights. Hey, cool, named after that little freak in The Lord of the Rings, huh? Loved those movies. Actually sat through most of them. Tyler’s daughter is hot.., with the Spock ears. Loved her. Anyway, I’m an ally you can count on. Bibi said jump, I said how high! That is MAGA foreign policy right there! Now that I’m not going to jail we can really start delivering. But, damn it Mickey, I need to tweet!”

“I understand best of all mankind, it’s got to be hard, but just hang tough for a bit longer. Remember, Mueller isn’t the only witch hunter out there. The Southern District of New York can act on his findings. That would be trouble.”

“Screw those assholes, they’re weak. I own New York. They’ve never laid a glove on me. That rat bastard Cohen did his best and Sean says Mueller’s got nothing. That’s good enough for me. I want to send out some warnings and let Chuckie and Nancy know they better be careful. The Sons of Anarchy love me!!”

“Well, your highest of all IQs, he did pretty much prove you lied, er, embellished, from start to finish with that floozy. Those checks are very bad sir.”

“Why… you little scab! I’ve had it with you! He did that all on his own, I didn’t know anything about it. Bad enough I have fake news to worry about, my own Chief of Staff/Budget Director/Head of Consumer Protection stabs me in the back! You’re history, Mulvaney!”

“My deepest apologies, oh hair that’s the most natural, it wasn’t my intention to anger you. I’d carry your golf bag on the hottest day, and look the other way any time you sought a better lie, sir. It’s simply that Congress is now in the Democrats’ hands and, whatever Mueller’s Report concludes, Schiff is going to keep at it.”

“Let him try! Sean and Tucker already promised they have my back! Shiftless will be public enemy number 1 now that Mueller only proved I lied at every conceivable opportunity. Fair is fair. My people understand the difference between the law and politics. They want to move forward and focus on that rotten Federal Reserve trying to ruin my economic miracle. The brilliant, er, who’s that great economist I’m appointing again?”

“Stephen Moore, oh most virile of all men.”

“Yea, Moore… he’ll shake things up over there! Love how all the snowflakes are crying he doesn’t have any credentials. Who do they expect me to pick? Some lib?! Love driving them crazy. Besides, Kudlow says he’s the best. I like him, too… even if he is a stuttering son of a bitch… hee hee. Hell, he’s more of a weasel than you, Mick!”

“Uh, thank you most decisive. I think. Anyway, please promise to stay off the Twitterverse for a while longer. Let’s make sure it’s a done deal before taking a victory lap. Go get in another round sir. Better yet, I believe the Greg Gutfeld show comes on soon. You know how much you love that little imp…”

“Yea, he kills me. Hilarious, but loyal! Ok, Mickey. But this type of discipline is tough. Trump does as he pleases, when he pleases. Just call Barr and remind him who he works for! I don’t want any of this integrity bullshit with him. Get me a copy of that report with plenty of cliff notes! Got it! Meanwhile, I’ll call Pudgy Pompeo and conference in Bibi. That election is going to be close. He sure is going to owe me!…..”. BC

George Kennan was perhaps the greatest American diplomat. An East European expert, it was Kennan who slapped American policy makers out of their obtuseness toward the emerging threat Stalin’s Soviet Union posed to the West. Kennan was the architect of Containment Strategy, initially designed as a delicate balance between discouraging Soviet aggression while avoiding World War III, which most understood to be in nobody’s interest.

Underwriting the entire franchise, particularly during the dangerously fluid years immediately following WWII was the fine art of US-European diplomacy, dedicated to the consolidation of NATO and the establishment of a global system of trade. Diplomacy was key because the US had emerged as preeminent and would need to demand many things of many people and countries. They couldn’t be ordered, but rather had to be tactfully instructed on the benefits of multilateral relationships subordinate to an overall vision of collective security. Nothing could be taken for granted, and the contributions of all had to be appreciated, each to his unique capabilities.

It’s worth noting how successful those diplomatic efforts were. Seventy-five years later, Europe remains at peace and the trade system underwritten by the Marshall Plan produced relative prosperity throughout the decades. And Kennan’s Containment paradigm? Despite plenty of mistakes it’s open-endedness surely encouraged, Vietnam chief among them, it resulted in the collapse of Soviet power while sparing the world another global military catastrophe.

Of course moving forward within today’s disparate geopolitical systems and augmenting many outdated elements of European collective security was always going to require a deft touch and bold, intelligent diplomacy. Tragically, those qualities are slim and none at Foggy Bottom these days…. and slim blew town a while back. Exhibit A of the dearth of this Administration’s diplomatic talent is Richard Grenell, our preposterous Ambassador to Germany.

While the President’s bafoonery in Britain, France, Brussels and Helsinki inevitably garnered most of the headlines, Grenell’s day in and day out tactlessness has been impossible to ignore. As recklessly prolific a tweeter as Trump, Grenell was literally hours into his new assignment when he tweeted German companies still doing business in Iran better close up shop. It was stunningly inappropriate and earned him immediate scorn which he has done nothing to mollify.

Whether it’s been cheering on right wing opponents of the Merkel government or threatening sanctions for German companies participating in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, which Trump seems to oppose more as a means to counter charges he shills for Putin than any substantive reasons, Grenell has been condemned by both sides of Germany’s political aisle for “outrageous” conduct that has actually violated established diplomatic principles. A paid contributor at Fox News and frequent guest of Tucker Carlson, Grenell has responded to the widespread criticism by simply labeling it “fake news,” and claiming he is attacked because of progressive disdain for current US policy.

In fact, Der Spegiel, a prominent German weekly, published a profile of Grenell in January based on a wide plethora of sources in and out of the government. The picture it painted was of an isolated Trumpie, more alt right provocateur than emissary, a brittle, thin-skinned narcissist with no support anywhere other than the far right fringes he openly flirts with.

It’s not hyperbolic to say the US Ambassador to perhaps our most important ally is detested by all except neo-facsists. And what does Trump have to say about his man in Berlin’s job performance, even as a growing bipartisan group of German politicians actually call for his expulsion? Three words… United Nations Ambassador. With Foxette Heather Neuart pulling the plug on her appointment – apparently the result of an undocumented nanny – Grenell is said to be near the top of Trump’s list to replace her. That would be a promotion Grenell has hardly earned, unless the criteria is merely mimicking the boss.

Those less than alarmed when Trump was elected swore whatever frailties he suffered as a statesman would be countered by qualified people who would be appointed to carry out the nuts and bolts of policy. James Mattis, HR McMaster, Nicky Haley, etc. were pointed to as examples of this protective backstop. They’re now long gone, and Trumpie Mike Pompeo’s State Department is tearing at the seams. This week’s conference call for the “faith-based”media only seemed directly out of an SNL cold open, hysterical if it wasn’t such a tangible symbol of yet another American institution being decimated by Trumpism’s regressive termites.

Grenell’s sorry performance in the heart of Europe clarifies the wretchedness is indeed a global malady. George Kennan was fond of saying he was less concerned about why people were doing things than how they were doing them. Our man in Germany fails at both ends of that equation. Kennan would have been a very very harsh critic of Richard Grenell. BC

“Drain the swamp” is of course a ubiquitous term, different things to different people. That DC had come to support a status quo of pay-to-play access to decisionmaking by the lead up to Decision 2016 was simply a given. Few believed that money wasn’t critical to a place at the table inside the beltway, or in most all state capitals for that matter. Yet and still, the Trump campaign, and the full Fox/AM delivery system supporting it 24/7, employed a significantly more ominous definition of the “swamp,” imbuing it with monolithic nefariousness, centrally controlled by the Clintons and devoted to nothing less than totalitarianism geared to stripping all but their cadre of apparatchiks of anything other than toil and hardship.

In late October of 2016, as Election Day neared and he was all but conceding defeat, candidate Trump equated the swamp with “a rigged system” that was busy undermining his chances. “Either we win this election, or we lose the country,” warned the Donald in between hissing that the fix was in for Hillary. And while the Trump campaign put forward a generic list of policy prescriptions to address revolving door public service/lobbying practices, to Trumpism’s wretched core the DC establishment covered everything from Alex Jones’ pizza parlor pedophilia to Benghazi cover ups, Planned Parenthood infanticide to Vince Foster murder theories. The swamp was limited only by the imaginations of the Fox/AM “personalities,” all of whom were now echoing Trump’s dire warnings that electing HRC would surely constitute the end of days.

Looney right wing fever dreams aside, anyone who wants to get a bird’s eye view of what overt corruption looks like can begin with Trump’s Inauguration Committee. Headed by one of his very few actual friends, investment huckster Thomas Barrack, the enterprise was a sludge magnet from the start, literally viewed worldwide as the open door to access, not to just Trump Administration policy, but the now fertile landscape of government contract possibilities. Millions immediately began to flow in unabated, presumably for inaugural festivities, but with a subtext nobody needed their reading glasses to grasp.

Well over a $100 million poured into the committee, whose bookkeeping was Enron-like in its diligence to detailed transparency. Typical of the events the money underwrote was the opulent “Chairman’s Global Dinner,” the idea of Barrack, himself. The Washington Post provided an in depth look at how the shindig came together, and its distinct smarminess.

Originally not even slated to have the President-elect in attendance – he opted to attend at the last minute – the soirée was designed to bring together influencers from near and far, particularly the Middle East, Barrack’s networking comfort zone, with a stated emphasis on diplomacy. Billed as a start toward consensus and reassurance of Middle Eastern diplomats unnerved by Trump’s nasty campaign rhetoric, what it amounted to was a line-the-trough chance to gain the ear of incoming VP Pence and a host of Administration officials. Rick Gates, who later would be indicted on multiple felony counts and become a Mueller asset, was in charge of the dinner, which would ultimately cost $4.3 million for providing 550 guests the choice between filet mignon or black cod. Paul Manafort was also front and center, pressing flesh and surely taking requests.

Entertainment was a problem since no actual stars wanted anything to do with Trump. Finally, country band Alabama and Steve Wynn’s Showstoppers, a Vegas fixture, were lined up. But what really made one pause was the cash coming into the Committee, which made sure the guest list to the invite-only spectacle exuded the proper gratitude. Middle Eastern businessmen, who sent in donations starting at 500K were not forgotten, rewarded with a setting at one of the tables…. and a chance to chat with Rex Tillerson or incoming Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Right wing ATM Sheldon Adelson ponied up $5 million to the group and earned prime gala real estate to lay out his wish list, at the top of which was moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. And so it went.

The optics of a large group of incoming Administration officials dining away with a pack of deep pocketed donors looking for an edge did not escape many. Greg Jenkins, former director of W’s inaugural committee, no barebones operation by any stretch, was incredulous…. “This just doesn’t look good,” he observed, …” it just invites criticism.” Perhaps, but who was going to report on it, “fake news”?

Turns out there were other interested parties. Last month, federal prosecutors in New York issued a subpoena to the Inaugural committee seeking information on all of its donors and vendors. Another federal probe is looking into money laundering, conspiracy and false statements. Barrack himself has been asked to turn over documents, which he says he will be glad to do, no doubt bucked up by confidence that the pardon card will be available if needed. Elliott Broidy, a top RNC bundler, has been under investigation by the DOJ for outright selling White House access to China and other Asian interests. He, too, surely will bank on the President’s good graces… never the wisest of strategies.

The Trump Inaugural Committee, and its Chairman’s Global Dinner, were just the introduction to the torrent of slime imported from Mar-A-Lago to the nation’s centerpiece. Turns out this Administration has neither the will nor wherewithal to place any sort of checks or reconsiderations on its dirty dealings. From emolument outrages to porn star payoffs to census shenanigans to cabinet secretaries with a taste for high living on the tax payer’s dime, the list doesn’t seem to end, and worse, doesn’t seem to concern anybody throughout its entire grubby food chain. Why should it? The base of support they hang their hats on has been convinced they are doing nothing more than has always been done. It’s no biggie. At least they’re not pimping out little boys from pizzerias, or carrying out suitcases of cash on tarmacs to Mullahs! Those are outrages! You don’t see Trump eating popcorn while our people are being slaughtered in Bhengazi, do you?! Now that’s the swamp!

Trump lied near every sentence on the campaign stump and has spewed near 10,000 more zingers since taking office. Much of his fiction is dedicated to creating an alternate reality he and Alex Jones claim existed before he came to town. Fox/AM has fully embraced that narrative and continues to spin lies for no other purpose than providing the false equivalence it’s criminal champion requires to seem….. normal. Viewed from the lens of Sean Hannity’s imagination, the unsexiness of mere bribes for favors seems downright pedestrian. After all, didn’t you hear Rush thinks the New Zealand massacre may be a false flag orchestrated by Democrats?! Now that’s what needs to be drained!! BC

My son Luke doesn’t really know how to lie. The whole concept is something autism won’t permit him to employ. Luke Carey for President! There will be many awful legacies we will have to deal with should the nation survive Trump as a going democratic concern. Very high on the list will be reestablishing at least an abiding demand for the truth. Trump lies as he breathes and that doesn’t seem to be an issue any longer. “Hey, that’s just him” is being put forward now even by otherwise voracious critics. Instead of a horrified gasp, we now get knowing chuckles across our political spectrum.

The President clearly lied about having business interests in Russia. He definitely lied about knowing Don Jr. met with Russian agents promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. It has been proven beyond question he lied about paying off Stormy Daniels as the general election approached in 2016. Of course,, he’s continued to hold ridiculously tight to the lie/delusion his inauguration crowd was the second coming. With the latest monstrosity of a White House budget, it’s clear he flat out lied about his determination to protect Medicare and Medicaid from deep cuts. The list is endless, and in fact, the Washington Post Fact Checker, probably journalism’s most important cottage industry right now, has cataloged near 10,000 flat out lies from the President’s yap since Inauguration Day. Needless to say, this is a practice that simply can’t survive his vile tenure if we are to continue as a pluralist republic.

Howard Schultz, the man who convinced us paying near $10 for a cup of joe is reasonable, wants to run for President. Yet and still, the Starbuck’s founder can’t be bothered with any party affiliation or, more importantly, the cumbersome nomination process such ties entail. So, like those of his 1/2 % ilk are prone to do, Schultz plans to use his money to forego such drudgery and run as his own entity. What does he have to offer? I suppose it can be called “common sense plutocracy,” gleaned from his “rags to riches” personal story. A filthy rich moderate with a heart; he’s one of us…. look at his bio.

Indeed, Schultz has created a personal brand that leans heavily on Horacio Alger to assure all he has the bona fides to empathize with struggles Americans at even the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder confront. He may be a billionaire now, but unlike the gilded devoid we currently suffer, his roots are true and assure a just perspective.

Schultz has claimed a tough-as-nails upbringing in the Brooklyn projects, a hell few but the most focused and determined could escape. According to Schultz, he hails from “literally the wrong side of the tracks.” Fights were commonplace, Schultz has recalled, only the relative scarcity of guns compared to today kept them from ending much worse…. but, stresses Schultz, “they were tough in their own way.” Yes, to hear Schultz tell it, the Bayview public housing project he was forced to endure stacked the deck against any hopes for achievement and future prosperity. Only his tenacious resolve, and a football scholarship to a midwest university his on-field feats earned him, separated Schultz from his destitute peers, who surely suffered as adults the same fate their deprived childhoods ensured. Not so fast.

Some excellent, very in-depth reporting by the Washington Post clarifies a much different picture. Turns out the Bayview housing project was more Rockwellian than dystopian, more middle-class than poverty ridden. Schultz’s peers laugh and then grow irate at his claims they all grew up in desperation. Apparently, Bayview was designed and continually administered to make sure the poor and destitute were actually excluded! Residents had to demonstrate they were on the way up, not down.

Former Schultz running mates describe a working-class, white, largely Jewish enclave, complete with playgrounds, basketball courts… even an elementary school. It seems residents attended to hunger pangs by visiting two wonderful kosher delis just across the street, and sunset walks to bordering Jamaica Bay relieved the stress of the day’s toil. One former resident put it succinctly: Bayview was “…a shiny, wonderful world… Everything was brand spanking new.” Schultz called Bayview “an urban melting pot.” Data from the mid-60s pegs the demographic makeup at almost 95 percent white. Turns out the pot actually contained one big solid chunk of Caucasian.

And the football scholarship Schultz earned that provided his ticket out off the mean streets? Er, not quite. In a 2007 interview, Schultz confirmed “a football scholarship” to Northern Michigan University got him out of Brooklyn. Since then the story has changed. Its current incarnation is that the impressionable youngster “misunderstood” and “convinced” himself he had a scholarship. Really?! According to the latest version of past reality, Schultz left home certain he had a scholarship, but quickly realized he wasn’t college ball material and ended up scraping by financially on a myriad of jobs he worked to pay tuition. Blah blah blah.

While there is little doubt Howard Schultz is a self-made man, indeed an astonishing success story, to coin the well-trod maxim: it’s the lying stupid. That Schultz has, throughout his adult life, seen fit to, not embellish, but lie about his narrative is disqualifying. Trump’s ascension to high office was fully dependent on the fiction he turned a one-time $1 million, promptly-paid-back loan into gold. Similar reporting by the New York Times proved conclusively the Donald instead failed constantly and was bailed out by his father to the tune of more than $400 million in today’s dollars. Just another obnoxiously coddled rich kid acting badly time and again. Of course Trump, fully aided by Fox/AM, long ago convinced his wretched core the NYT was “fake news,” except when it reports a story he likes. Such BS needs to end yesterday. Whatever Schultz’s spinners put out won’t do…. it’s fiction. Period!

The most ruinous legacy of Trump will be the absurd scale of his misdeeds we accepted. All followers will succeed a man who set standards for ugly malfeasance no one else’s worst can come near. Thus, the temptation will be to allow a Trump grading curve that forgives far more than we should, in effect obliterating where the bar was before Trump came on the scene. It’s easy to hear the argument now: “well, if we crush Schultz, where does it stop? Everyone has peccadillos!” That’s true, and each case is different. Perhaps the test should be whether or not they are capable of owning up to their frailties, coming clean. That’s a metric Trump fails on the hour. Judging from the tongue-tied spin coming from Schultz flacks, it’s a standard he doesn’t appear concerned about meeting, either. Enough! BC

In Arthur Miller’s timeless Death Of A Salesman, Willy Loman suffers within the throes of dementia as his life circles the bottom of the bowl. Loman can no longer escape accountability for character flaws responsible for the wreckage of his most important relationships. Despite trying to delude a brighter picture, Willy faces his own failure, as well as his adult sons’ dysfunction, and is shattered by the reckoning. The moral is clear: the world’s agenda is often merciless, and not subject to alteration by the spin we attempt to apply… no matter how often we try to do so. Reality is not the servant of our imaginations, it’s consequences foist themselves on us whether or not we wish away their coming.

Since we suffer our own Willy Loman in the White House, constantly spinning his own facts in a relentless attempt to sell America an image of his Presidency that has little to do with reality, it’s prudent to remind ourselves that normalizing the crisis such fantasy represents is ruinous to our future prospects. Trump fatigue simply means accepting his lies because we’re tired of hearing them. Yea, whatever you say pop, time for bed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came out yesterday and announced impeaching Trump was not an option she favored. “He’s not worth it,” said Pelosi, admitting the exercise would be more trouble than certain Senate aquittal could justify, unless startling new revelations come forward. Say what?! Almost 10,000 public lies in two years, including denying payoffs to a porn star mistress weeks before he was elected, repeated assurances he never would have picked his first Attorney General if he knew he wouldn’t obstruct justice for him, and certainty he lied about knowing his son met with a Russian agent claiming to be in possession of damaging intel on Hillary Clinton, just for starters, isn’t a basis for seriously considering impeachment? What is, then? My Lord.

Pelosi suggests we just wash Trump away in an electoral landslide instead. Sadly, that’s easier mused than done. The Speaker seems to have her own issues with wishing the best in an addled fog. After all, Trump got elected in 2016 after literally trying to lose. Now he already has $100 million in the bank and all the benefits incumbency bestows. Moreover, unhinged campaign rallies are the one Presidential activity he actually likes to do. After haphazard wack-a-mole forays in 2016, Trump/Pence 2020 is sure to have its act much tighter.

Trump 2020 is promising the most comprehensive data mining operation ever to uncover hidden coal within the GOP base to be shined into general election votes. And the message? Nothing new. Trump spinners call it “raw populism” put forward in “frank terms” by the “combative” President. Calling Trump “combative” is like calling a nuclear bomb “disruptive.” The GOP has normalized the worst civic crisis in our history and plans a campaign designed simply to further deaden the senses of the rest of America.

Brad Pascale, Trump 2020’s Campaign Manager, claims “on every metric” the new operation outpaces 2016 “by many multiples.” The campaign will proceed on three levels. First, uncover new votes from wretched core acolytes heretofore unwilling to get out of the recliner in swing states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan. Of course, the subtext to any GOP voter outreach is the compliment of parallel voter suppression efforts at the state level. In Florida, Trumpie Governor Ron DeSantis continues his best efforts to undo the will of 2/3 of the state’s electorate and slow roll voter rights for convicted felons. In Wisconsin some of the harshest voter ID standards will couple with strategically underserving various polling stations to help stack the deck.

Next will certainly be an unhinged effort to fully smear whoever emerges from the crowded Democratic primary field. Everything possible will be thrown at the wall to see what sticks. Fox/AM will go full 24/7 to create and push this cycle’s email server and Bhengazi sagas. Frank Luntz will have his focus groups busy explaining why whatever peccadillo is selected threatens the future of US sovereignty. Like the cyborg miscreants of The Terminator, Fox’s prime time lineup simply will not stop until Trump’s opponent is rebranded as the enemy of all that is white Christian.

Finally, there will be Trump himself. Fully disenchanted with the work required by the job he will again seek, the President is in a rabid lather to get Air Force One in the air and hit the campaign trail. The CPAC monstrosity clarified “off script” is the only way Trump plans to go in 2020. It’s going to be full Jim Morrison day in and day out until November. How awful it will get is anybody’s guess… nothing will surprise. But it’s a sure bet everybody but those who actually want to hear his drivel will emphatically tune him out. That could very well mean talk will instead focus on Joe Biden as a retread, or Amy Klobuchar’s treatment of staff, Bernie’s commie leanings…. anything but the inferno blazing right in front of us.

Trump and his co-conspirators want nothing more than Election 2020 to become part of just another horse race paradigm. Hey, some colts act up in the gate, what can you do? Let’s get down to some serious polling and focus on the numbers. Newsflash! This is not a normal situation! Already Trump and his Capitol Hill minions are equating Mueller’s work and any other efforts to hold his corruption to account as efforts to rig 2020 results. Delegitimating the process will surely become a big part of his stump ugliness. Perhaps the most important quality we can look for in a Democratic standardbearer is a determination to circle the White House with troops loyal to democracy and show the ex-POTUS off the White House grounds after his inevitable refusal to accept results he doesn’t like.

Talk to anyone raised in a dysfunctional household and you’re likely to hear at some point they simply went numb and got tired of the conflict, acceding to the madness they couldn’t escape. Happy and Biff Loman ever humored Willy’s delusions to avoid his rage and rancor. Two years into the worst Administration ever given White House keys, the most important portion of American voters and politicians appear affected by a similar level of skittishness. Trump isn’t just the elephant in the room, he’s the Ebola on the fork at our national place setting. Ignoring his hourly menace in favor of tailoring messages that “reassure” the voters who foisted him on us in the first place their concerns “won’t be ignored” plays right into his grubby little hands. It also clarifies one thing above all else: the GOP and its base aren’t the only ones given to normalizing a pestilence far more concerned with surviving its own seditious corruption than any service to the national interest. Pretending otherwise, like his boss Howard’s refusal to keep Willy on as the firm’s “New England man,” won’t set our table. BC