“THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH” ABOUT 21ST CENTURY AMERICAN POLITICS

By Edwin Cooney

Have you ever wondered what makes an issue a conservative Republican issue rather than a liberal Democratic issue or vice versa? The answer is very simple.

After nearly a lifetime of fascination with the American political scene, I’m as absolutely sure as I can be that I’ve discovered the key to our national discontent. It consists of a key as simple as the old brass skeleton key. Before I reveal it, here’s a bit of history.

Between Thursday, April 30th 1789, the day George Washington took his first presidential oath, and Saturday, September 14th 1901, the day Theodore Roosevelt took his oath to become America’s 26th President upon the death of President William McKinley, the major differences between American political parties were generally broad in their scope. They consisted of issues such as slavery versus abolition, states’ rights versus federal domain, agriculture versus industry, bankers versus small farmers and small business, and so forth. The consequences resulting from the struggles between these conflicted interests were for the most part beyond anything that immediately affected the lives of most people. Sure, war, specifically civil war, and economic depression resulted in the loss of life for several hundred thousand Americans. However, immediately following these struggles and conflicts, the lives of the vast numbers of Americans weren’t much altered.

Suddenly, almost overnight, there came onto the American scene a a brilliant, energetic, and pugnacious little gentleman named Theodore Roosevelt. In less than eight years, he brought to the American people an expectation that the government was theirs as much as it was J. P. Morgan’s or John D. Rockefeller’s. It was the beginning of the Progressive Era with its program of initiative, referendum and recall. This era gave people at the state level the idea that they could be the masters of their political and social fate which, up until then, was mostly the prerogative of state legislatures and Congress, people who were largely elected with the backing of big bankers, big railroads, big coal and big oil. Within three months after taking office, T.R. was telling Congress that while free enterprise was owed much gratitude for all it had accomplished, it was in many ways practicing policies that were hurtful to the public. Thus, between 1902 and 1909, bills were passed by Congress to purify food and drugs, regulate and in some cases destroy corporate trusts, and preserve the national environment. Eventually, Teddy (a name he despised) Roosevelt would even challenge the idea that the right to own property was our most precious right. For T.R. and many future presidents, human rights rather than property rights should reign supreme.

Thus, the Progressive Era between 1901 and 1917 was the major factor in altering the nature and intensity of public issues and politics. Early 20th Century Progressivism opened the gates to FDR’s New Deal, Harry Truman’s Square Deal, and even to Ronald Reagan’s modern concept of conservatism.

The old idea advanced by Grover Cleveland at his 1893 Inaugural that the people owed loyalty to the government and not the government to the people died with Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

As I see it, the key to this era of discontent resides in the political interests of every political party, major and minor, currently seeking the favor of the American people.

Even with the onset of the Progressive Era, the election of a president generally reflected the will of the people, even when it didn’t exactly represent the collective national preference. Hence, today political leaders seek to manipulate rather than to discern our national will thus increasing rather than dissipating our national anxieties. In short, our anxieties are essential to their efforts to keep the electorate small enough and thus sufficiently manipulable to their political and economic ends.

Additionally, I’m convinced that there’s less principle behind the political positions taken, especially by the two major parties, than there is pure political opportunism. Here’s an example:

The anti-abortion movement had its origin in the Democratic Party in 1976 as Ellen McCormack, a Massachusetts housewife, sought the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination on that issue. Ronald Reagan, who sought the GOP nomination  that same year, had been “pro-choice” as Governor of California in the late 1960s and early 70s. The only thing the Republican platform in 1976 had to say about abortion was that it was a states’ rights issue rather than a federal issue. As I see it, “pro-life”  is hardly a conservative principle born of morality. Anti-abortion or pro-life sentiment was adopted by Conservatives rather than being a natural child of Conservatism. 

In my view, professional Liberalism and Conservatism must be defanged. They’re neither informative nor do they provide political or social unity. They primarily serve to divide. Worst of all, they stir and reinforce preconceived fearful opinions much more than they encourage critical thinking!

One of my readers, a gentleman who probably has forgotten more history than I’ve ever known, recently reminded me in an email of the fact that in 2000 just five Supreme Court justices decided that election rather than allowing the citizens of Florida a second opportunity to vote their consciences. That election in combination with the outcome of the 2016 election is enough for him to challenge me to convince him to vote in 2020. For openers, I don’t think he can afford not to vote. However, that’s merely my opening argument. There will be more coming soon. Stay tuned!

In case you are wondering who’s at fault for this era of national discontent, it’s not Donald Trump — it’s you and me! Only you and I can make matters even worse!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED? - YA, ME TOO!

By Edwin Cooney

I think it was Fannie Lou Hamer, the lady who led the Freedom Democrat’s challenge to the all-white Mississippi delegation to the1964 Democratic National Convention, who once proclaimed, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired!”

That’s precisely how I feel about President Trump and his conduct with regard to both our domestic and international affairs. I’m more than happy to concede that I’d oppose almost any Republican or Conservative administration, but the problem runs deeper than ideology. Even worse, it actually defies ideology. I further concede that by winning the election, the GOP is entitled to lower taxes, increase the national debt (which they only think is dangerous when Democrats run up the tally) and even play nuclear “stick ‘em up” with North Korea. They have earned that right by achieving their executive and legislative majorities. If traditional Conservatism were their only sin, my opposition would be accompanied by my traditional respect for both the office and the person of the President of the United States.

President Trump is the sixth president I’ve opposed since I became an adult voter in 1968. Each of these presidents I found annoying and even offensive from time to time. However, with the exception of President Nixon, I wouldn’t have even considered any one of them a candidate for impeachment.

In 1980, I bitterly resented the national favor of Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter and, in 1988, I resented George Bush and his campaign managers Lee Atwater and Jim Baker’s campaign against Michael Dukakis. In 2000, the Supreme Court’s election of George W.  Bush over Al Gore could be called — at the least — “extra legal” and it was certainly hard to swallow. However, “Shrub” as some called Bush, conducted himself in office for the most part like a gentleman worthy of his dad George Herbert Walker Bush and his granddad, Prescott Bush, Senator from Connecticut.

Unfortunately, President Trump has lowered the quality of communication coming out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to an unheard of adolescent level. Can you imagine President Reagan referring to even his worst critic as an “untruthful slime ball” as President Trump did to the deposed FBI Director James Comey last Thursday? 

To make things even more ridiculous, it’s being reported that a major GOP strategy to fire up the Trumpian base this fall is to warn Trump voters to re-elect a Republican House in order to prevent sure impeachment proceedings against President Trump. (Perhaps these GOP strategists know more about the president’s vulnerability than we do!) Can you imagine the 1982 National Senate or House Democratic Campaign Committees even considering such a strategy against President Reagan?

Of course, part of the explanation for 21st Century political squalor has to do with the advent of professional Liberalism and Conservatism. Voters and office holders used to be either liberal or conservative-minded. Today, too many Americans are utter slaves to political ideology. Political ideology used to be a guideline of principled application for viewing the answers to political problem areas. Today, they tend to master our thoughts and beliefs rather than being mere tools for the consideration and potential solving of national and even international issues. This all precedes Donald J. Trump’s ascendancy to national prominence, but Mr. Trump has cleverly utilized the tools of divide and conquer to the point that not even ideological Conservatives in both the House and Senate can comfortably apply their dearest principles to national and international problem solving. Thus is it any wonder that House Speaker Paul Ryan decided last week to become the 19th Republican incumbent to pack up his bat and ball and go home?

As for whether or not it would be wise to impeach President Trump if the Democrats were to achieve sufficient majorities in both houses of Congress, the answer to that will depend on the outcome of the Mueller investigation and the degree of the president’s involvement in the questionable activities of his private attorney Michael Cohen, just to name two areas of concern. As of now, I believe that it is more than likely that President Trump will serve his full 1,461 days as President of the United States of America.

The truth of the matter is that since 1968 both Liberals and Conservatives have been tearing at the fabric of our national social and political structure. Until that time, the differences between Republicans and Democrats had more to do with principled application to problem solving than it did with the moral significance of political and social issues. It was the divisive issue of life versus death during the Vietnam War and the morality of our traditional treatment of minorities that transformed political issues   from matters of politics to matters of personal and national morality. This is exactly what worried George Washington in 1796 when he warned the young nation against the advent of political parties. What he either forgot to do or simply was incapable of doing was to suggest another method of selecting candidates for high public office.

So, it has come to this point where an increasingly large proportion of American voters are simply “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” The question is can we afford to indulge this understandable status of political pique by merely staying away from the polls next November?

I think not. It was former Democratic Governor Alfred E. Smith, the first Democrat and Roman Catholic to seek the presidency, who once observed, “All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.” We can afford to be neither paralyzed by our righteous disgust nor can we ignore the legitimacy of President Trump’s right to be where he is in the absence of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

In other words, we can’t afford merely to be “sick and tired of being sick and tired!”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY 

THEY’RE READY TO FIGHT — BUT FOR WHAT GAIN?

By Edwin Cooney

Okay, President Trump almost has his foreign policy hawks in alignment. His proposed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will soon face the United States Senate for confirmation and John Bolton takes his office on this very day as National Security Advisor. (That office needs no Senate confirmation.) Thus, the above question.

Both Pompeo and Bolton have chided previous presidents about being too weak when it comes to dealing with our most outspoken enemies including North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and, of course, Isis. Now Messrs. Pompeo, Bolton and Trump stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of not only our democratic principles but our very lives. Since the first challenge is likely to be North Korea and since Kim Jong-un possesses nuclear weapons (as do his Chinese allies), what can Pompeo, Bolton and Trump do that both fulfills their ambitions and yet preserves humanity on a livable earth?

The answer to that for me is not very much. Both men appear to be determined to end North Korea’s existence as a nuclear threat even though North Korea appears to have something like 50 or 60 intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads. It’s even been suggested that President Trump may well employ a preventative strike to settle the matter. I can’t see how that could be anything less than a nuclear strike with all of the international political and worldwide environmental ramifications.

Back on March 12th in a column I titled “President Donald Trump Thinks He Can,” I suggested that the only realistic outcome of the upcoming Trump/Kim meeting would be that we agree to urge South Korea to recognize Kim’s government as legitimate. One of my readers, a very good friend of mine, chided me for that view insisting that I obviously fail to take Marxism very seriously. Being the scholar that he is, he sent me a speech by a very learned Canadian professor Jordan Peterson in which the good professor reminded us all of how evil Marxism was — more evil even than Nazism. It was a rather interesting lecture and I found myself interested in what Professor Peterson had to say. However, both my friend’s observation and Professor Peterson’s totally miss the point. I fear that President Trump’s Secretary of State Pompeo (that is, if he is confirmed!) and National Security Advisor Bolton’s outlook are just as beyond the point as that of my friend and Dr. Peterson.

Suppose President Trump does launch a strike on North Korea. Let us assume that North Korea turns out to be too weak to respond in kind, thereby enabling the President and Pompeo and Bolton to declare a military victory. Do they really think the rest of the world will cheer and that they will be heroes? Do they believe that there would be no appreciable environmental damage? Would our South Korean allies be unscathed by atomic fallout or by residual military destruction? Is it likely that the world wouldn’t insist that the American taxpayer, at the very least, clean up the atomic mess? What would that cost the increasingly hungry American taxpayer? How anxious would other governments and peoples be to trade with us? Might we face a severe dose of enforced economic, political and moral isolationism by becoming both the first and second nation in history to use nuclear weapons? Would that taxpayer be enthusiastic about paying to rebuild North Korea even though the territory would likely be a nuclear wasteland? I made reference to that in my March 12th column when I quoted President Kennedy’s observation during the October 1962 Cuban Missile crisis that “…even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth.” All of the above is only a best-case scenario.

It doesn’t take into consideration how either the Chinese or the Russians would likely feel obligated to respond to this anti-Marxian gesture on the part of “capitalist imperialistic America.” Nor does it take into adequate account how the rest of the world might well feel about us or about our leadership. Might the American president become an international criminal, a status not even the notoriously evil Joseph Stalin achieved? (Of course, Stalin ultimately richly deserved that designation.) Keep in mind that Ambassador Bolton and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld were just sure we would be welcomed by flower-throwing Iraqi crowds once we had freed the people of Saddam Hussein.

I regard all of the following “isms” to be essentially evil: Marxism or Communism, Nazism or Fascism, Isis-ism, even gangsterism. Radical “anything” is at the very least an obsession which is thereby unrealistic or unhealthy. As I see it, even unregulated democracy or capitalism is unhealthy. It might be observed that Soviet leaders, since they lacked the Christian assuredness of life after death, were ultimately unwilling to pull the nuclear trigger. On the other hand, radical Christianity or Islam may be lethal since the religious often believe they are headed for paradise.

Keep in mind all of the above assumes a minimal cost. Perhaps North Korea will respond by dropping nuclear weapons on our west coast. Perhaps if they don’t or can’t,  China may assume that it is in its national interest to do so. We then would be forced to widen the conflict.

All of this is possible but it doesn’t have to be a reality. Armageddon, the ultimate biblical struggle, lacks the two essential opponents at this time: “the all good” against “the all evil.”

As I see it, up to this date the reality is that we have yet to recognize and legitimatize all of the good in the world. Until we’ve accomplished that, we’re hardly in a position to assuredly identify all that’s truly evil in the world.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

A GAME OF CHARACTER AND OF CHARACTERS!

By Edwin Cooney

Last Thursday, March 29th, 2018, the 150th year of professional baseball’s age began. What hasn’t changed is that hope in the breast of every teams’ fans that October will bring a prideful victory. What has definitely changed from1869, the year professional baseball was born, to 2018 is who plays the game.

Neither time nor space enables me to fully address the many differences in the backgrounds and culture of nearly 150 years. However, I thought it would be fun to share the personalities of a few players whose names you might not know.

If you’re interested in both baseball and politics as I am, you may know Jim Bunning, probably the most successful combination of ballplayer and politician. After all, Bunning was elected to the United States Senate from Kentucky and to the Baseball Hall of Fame via the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Phillies.  

However, I think that Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell is more intriguing. Although he was born in Leakesville, Mississippi on Thursday, August 13th, 1930, he was raised in Vinegar Bend, an Alabama hamlet about 75 miles northeast of Mobile. In the summer of 1948, he attended a two-day camp in Biloxi, Mississippi which was held by the St. Louis Cardinals. He was the last pitcher to work that first day and he proceeded to strike out three men on just nine pitches. The Cardinals were impressed. However, what Mizell remembered most was the terrific storm that swept over the area the following day which forced the Cardinals to cancel the second day of the tryout. “If I hadn’t been able to pitch on that first day,” Mizell mused in later years, “I’d have never joined the Cardinals.”  Mizell, a left-hander, pitched for 13 major league seasons. His most successful year was 1960 when he went 13-5 thus “pitching” the Pirates into the World Series. The Yankees bombed him in the third game at Yankee Stadium, but he finished his career two years later with a winning record of 90-88. After his career was over, he moved to North Carolina where he first worked in sales management for the Pepsi Cola Corporation. Almost simultaneously, Mizell entered GOP politics and was rewarded with his election to Congress in 1966. He remained in Congress until 1974 when, like many of his fellow Republicans,  he was unseated by the Watergate scandal. Even more impressive was his ultimate appointment to high executive office by Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush. Vinegar Bend Mizell died of a heart attack on Sunday, February 21st, 1999 in Kerrville, Texas. A fine pitcher, a good and useful citizen, and a splendid gentleman, Mizell was part of what Tom Brokaw has called “The Greatest Generation.”

When it was all over, Wilmer Mizell left his name in the record book and his hometown on the map. 

From the days of its infancy up until the time Jackie Robinson broke the “color barrier,” most ball players were basically white Anglo-Saxon “dirt farmers” and blue collar workers. Baseball may have been their careers, but most players had to work for a living during the off season.

One such player was Louis Norman “Bobo” Newsom. He really was a character! Born Sunday, August 11th, 1907 in Hartsville, South Carolina,  Newsom was called “Bobo”  because that’s what he called himself and everybody else. He played ball in the big leagues for 20 years — winning 211 games and losing 222. Three times in his career, he won 20 or more games in a season. Three times he also lost 20 or more games. His best season was 1940 when he won 21 and lost only 5 for the pennant-winning Detroit Tigers. After beating the Red’s ace starting pitcher Paul Derringer in Game One of the 1940 World Series, Bobo’s father died of a heart attack at their Cincinnati hotel. His family took the body back to South Carolina for burial, but Bobo stayed with the team. Before the 5th game, he announced that he would dedicate that day’s victory to his father. He did win that game. Two days later as he prepared to pitch Game 7, he was asked if he’d also dedicate that victory to his dad. “Why no,” he said. “I think I’ll dedicate this victory to myself.” The victory didn’t happen:  he lost the game two to one.

American League Umpire Red Jones used to tell the story about the time Bobo called his third baseman Eddie Yost over to the mound for a chat: “Hey, Bobo,” said Bobo. “I wish you’d play a little deeper on guys trying to bunt. You’re so young and fast, you’re beating my fastball to the plate. It’s embarrassing, Bobo!” exclaimed Bobo.

While driving to spring training in 1932, he accidentally drove his car over a huge cliff and miraculously survived the crash with only a broken leg. As he recuperated, he kept writing to Cubs owner P. K. Wrigley to point out what a fine pitcher he’d acquired when he got Bobo. Then, when he was mostly recovered, Bobo attended a mule auction and managed to get kicked in that same leg by one of the animals. Bobo had to heal all over again.

Then, there was that season opener Bobo pitched in Washington D.C. with President Franklin Roosevelt in attendance. Early in the game he was struck in the jaw by a throw from third baseman Ossie Bluege and broke his jaw in two places. He then refused to leave the game saying through clenched teeth, “When the President comes out to see Ol’ Bobo pitch, Ol’ Bobo ain’t gonna let him down.” He remained in the game and beat the Yankees one to nothing on a four hit shutout. No pitcher had either more luck or more lack of luck.  Newsom was friendly, funny, and exasperating. He is one of the few pitchers to have a losing record and yet to remain long enough in “the Bigs” for twenty seasons. Bobo Newsom died on Friday, December 7th, 1962 in Orlando, Florida. Don’t you wish you’d at least met him?

Today’s players are better conditioned, better paid, and much more secure than Vinegar Bend Mizell, Bobo Newsom, or even Jim Bunning, for that matter. However, in the tradition of their “dirt farming” coal or zinc-mining forebears, the game owns their hearts as much as it does their investments and accounts. After all, they’ve inherited America’s national pastime!

Oh, by the way, don’t let anyone tell you that no player has ever stolen first base, because it’s not true. Perhaps that’ll be a story for next opening day!

RESPECTFULLY SIBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

HAPPY OR GREAT - WHICH WOULD YOU PREFER AMERICA TO BE?

By Edwin Cooney

A fortnight or so ago, Maggie Astor reported in the New York Times that the 

United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network listed Finland as the “happiest” country in the world. The survey was conducted by distinguished professors from Columbia University, The Canadian Institute for Advanced Studies, and The Well Being Program at The London School of Economics and Economic Performance. The ten happiest countries are Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia. The United States ranks 18th of 156 countries studied. It is the least happy of the advanced industrial countries. What interests me are these two questions: since  President Trump was elected on a pledge to “make America great again,” isn’t it time for him to define what elements constitute a “great” nation? And can a great nation also be a happy nation?

The World Happiness Report lists the elements of a happy nation. They are a high GDP per capita, a high life expectancy, adequate social support to sustain and hopefully uplift the national standard of living, the freedom of minorities to make choices they believe will improve their lives, and an atmosphere of social tolerance and even generosity.

It’s easier to guess what President Trump might consider to be the elements of a great nation than it is to guess what he believes would make America a happy land once again. (I’m not very confident that the word “happy” is even in President Trump’s lexicon!) Here are the elements I’m guessing President Trump believes would “make America great again.” They are an impregnable national defense, minimal taxes for productive individuals and corporations, balanced national budget legislation which includes a line item veto, absolute acceptance of the concept that property rights outweigh human rights, the return of prayer to the public schools and public institutions, ironclad sustainment of the Second Amendment that guarantees gun ownership sales and rights, and rigid law and order provisions to his interpretation of the Constitution.

As I have pointed out a number of times throughout these weekly musings, I believe there have been at least two periods of American “happiness.”

The first period was just after the War of 1812, between 1817 and 1825, when James Monroe resided in the executive mansion. The country was expanding westward. There was but one political party, the National Democratic Party, which had grown out of the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party. The South generally admitted that slavery, although a “necessary evil,”  was more a question of economics than evil. With the passage of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery became an economic issue for the South and a moral issue for the North.  Then, good feelings became contentious issues on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The second era of good feeling began on the raw afternoon of March 4, 1933 when FDR launched his New Deal. The era began to unravel on November 22, 1963, but totally came apart in the wake of the election of 1968.

Of course, happy times aren’t totally absent of political or social contention. FDR certainly had more than his share of enemies. In fact, during his final address of the 1936 presidential campaign, he openly and even (it seemed) happily welcomed the hatred of his political foes. However, that era lasted from 1933 and 1969 and was generally a time when far more boats were floated than were sunk! Although many of Roosevelt’s opponents insist that the Depression didn’t really end until World War II, they never tell students in their FDR-bashing seminars that New Deal financing and administration actually enriched private enterprise enough to win World War II. 

There are several historical realities that made the two eras of good feeling stand out. History has generally been the province of the wealthy.  America was created and united not because the poor rebelled against George the Third, but because the aristocrats (planters, merchants, bankers and westward land speculators) were inconvenienced. They felt harassed by Britain’s demand that the colonists pay her back for the men and money she invested to save men like George  Washington, and Benjamin Franklin from the warlike French and indians between 1756 and 1763.

The rich have indeed done much to create our nation, but moneymaking isn’t necessarily socially or morally sustaining. Hence, another reality of a truly great people is their sense of contentment or happiness. Today we’re urged by the discontent to love our country but hate our government. No people encouraged to hate its government can ever expect to be a happy people especially if the government really and truly is “by, for, and of the whole people” — both poor and rich.

Ideally, both greatness and happiness should be our choice as well as our lot. However, great nations are seldom recognized as being great during their struggles.

While I was growing up, I often wondered if the people of Eastern Europe felt as continuously downtrodden as they were usually portrayed to be by our leadership. In other words, is happiness a product of a national ideology? Of course, it can be affected by repression, but happiness begins with you and me.

Okay, here I come leaping off the proverbial fence. Right now, I’m ready for a nice dose of happiness. I’m convinced that a happy people are in a much better position than a resentful and an angry people to launch and nurture a “great America.” 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

PRESIDENT DONALD THINKS HE CAN! THE WORLD HOLDS ITS BREATH.

By Edwin Cooney

Okay, here it is! According to a headline I just read, President Trump thinks he can accomplish what no other president ever has been able to do  —  specifically, negotiate to America’s advantage with a leader of North Korea. After all, no other president has ever been named Donald John Trump! What I’m wondering is, what are President Trump and Premier Kim going to talk about? Up to this point, all that either man has ever done is bloviate at each other.

Historically, every president since Franklin Roosevelt has been very cautious before meeting an adversary at “the summit.” This meeting appears to have about as much preparation as did confrontations at high noon during American frontier days. 

Actually, they have a lot to talk about. Kim Jong-un might well open by reminding President Trump that technically his country is still at war with the United Nations. The document signed at PanMunJom on Monday, July 27th, 1953 which halted the conflict between North and South Korea was a truce, not a peace. He might add that President Trump’s fellow Republicans have been mislabeling it as a peace ever since the ink dried on the document. Thus, his country has been denied sufficient respect for nearly 65 years. Additionally, some 60,000 forces from the United Nations and United States have been pointing some of the world’s most modern weapons at his little homeland since before he was even born.

President Trump might respond that North Korea has deliberately isolated itself by not participating in major conferences which have been held in East Asia ever since the Eisenhower Administration. In addition, President Trump is likely to remind Premier Kim of a series of hostile acts over the years — specifically, the capture of the U.S.S. Pueblo in late December of 1967 and the humiliating treatment of Captain Lloyd Bucher and his crew throughout all of1968.

Getting into the substance of things, Kim is likely to chide President Trump for his outrage over North Korea’s right to build a nuclear weapon’s system. After all, he may point out, North Korea is a sovereign nation which is free to act just like the United States, China or Russia.

President Trump may well respond that America has a special responsibility of leading a great alliance of nations since the end of World War II and has demonstrated over and over again that it has practiced diplomatic restraint despite countless broken promises and acts of aggression on the part of Russia, China and North Korea itself.

The two combatants are next likely to trade accusations as to who brought about each of these crises whereupon Kim will remind the President that the United States of America remains, after 73 years, the only nation to fire a nuclear weapon in anger. This observation is likely to lead once again into Kim’s justification for arming North Korea with weaponry many nations believe it is too poor to responsibly afford.

Once again, President Trump will surely remind Kim that his nuclear button is not only bigger than Kim’s but that it really works. Kim is likely to remind President Trump that North Korea is not alone in the world and that American “fire and fury,” even in the event of victory, will cost America’s taxpayers more than they can possibly imagine. He may well quote President Kennedy who observed during the November 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis address that “…even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth.”

The conversation might then degenerate into who has the greatest trust of the Russian and Chinese leadership. However, should their talk end there, the venture will surely be the bust most people expect it to be. If not, there may actually be some substance taken from this most unlikely meeting.

This meeting apparently requires two things. First, Kim must not interfere with military games which the United States and South Korea are scheduled to conduct in the next few weeks. Second, between now and the time of the meeting, Kim must keep his word not to conduct nuclear tests.

There is speculation even within the Trump administration that this meeting may never take place. After all, if there is to be no substantial result expected from the meeting, there will be little point to it. On the other hand, how much can either Trump or Kim afford to accomplish?

Might President Trump put sufficient pressure on South Korea to recognize North Korea? Were he to do that, how would that play in “Republican Peoria?” If President Trump actually recognizes the legitimacy of the North Korean government, what may he be compelled to do in the way of bilateral cooperation between the “land of the free” and one of the world’s “terrorist nations?”

This is an opportunity equal to President Obama’s strike against Osama bin Laden in May 2011, George W. Bush’s “shock and awe” strike against Saddam Hussein in March 2003, and Jimmy Carter’s Camp David venture in 1978 with Egypt’s Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. It may well be as dramatic as President Nixon’s visit to China in February 1972.

Ventures like the one President Trump announced shortly after 7 p.m. Thursday night is the dramatic stuff that historically justifies a presidency.

With either hope or trepidation (and perhaps some of both), we all wonder what this most bizarre of American presidents is up to. Back on Inauguration Day 2017, our newly minted Chief Executive pledged that he would ultimately be the best of all our presidents combined. Millions of us laughed with the derision such a pronouncement surely deserved. After all, outgoing President Obama had warned President-elect Trump that a peaceful resolution of the crisis with North Korea would be his greatest challenge. Even in the face of this warning, Donald Trump appears confident that because he is who he is, he will be the one to successfully fix this relationship and, thus, sometime during the next two months he will meet and confront Kim Jong-un.

If he extracts a stabler peace from this venture, he’ll be a hero. If he fails to be who he says he is, the rest of us will profoundly wish he’d never tried!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

IS PRESIDENT TRUMP A BULLY OR MERELY A LEADER WITHOUT A COMPASS?

By Edwin Cooney

A week or so ago, I read a commentary strongly suggesting that President Trump would really be dangerous if he were “smart.”

That observation reminds me of several presidential self-assessments. 

FDR used to say that he never let his right hand know what his left hand was doing. Richard Nixon thoroughly enjoyed the possibility that North Vietnamese and other Communist leaders might well consider him unpredictable or even “mad.” President Carter reveled in his reputation as “a political outsider” but it was ultimately to his political disadvantage. Finally, President Reagan willingly encouraged supporters to publicly proclaim his loose management style — which ultimately led  to Iran-Contra-gate.

Of course, presidential assets (intelligence, intellectual prowess, integrity, and patriotism) and presidential liabilities (dishonesty, ill temperament, indecisiveness, and incompetence) have traditionally been the way Americans measure presidential conduct.

As for presidential “smartness,” that’s quite another matter! This particular commentator suggests that if President Trump were “smart,” he would be more thoughtful and thorough in his thinking. In other words, he would be more ideological and predictable thus insuring the likelihood of a smoother legislative process with Congress. A smoother legislative process would have enabled a Republican President and a Republican Congress to actually eliminate “Obamacare” last year rather than to merely cripple it. Beyond that, this critic insists that President Trump would be much more successful in his efforts to “drain the swamp” if he were a more serious student of American political and social history.

This criticism, as I see it, is more to the point. Donald Trump has serious flaws as a communicator and as a moral leader. He preaches morality even as documented evidence points to a lack of “traditional morality” in his personal behavior. He preaches loyalty but practices very little himself either to our traditional allies or even to his Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He implies that Americans are traditionally suspicious of Russia, but so far shows little concern regarding the obvious threat of Vladimir Putin’s anti-democratic imperial foreign policy toward the people of a free Ukraine or a free Syria.

Then, beyond the questions of legitimacy or loyalty, there’s the reality that good people have no monopoly on “smarts.” Adolf Hitler was, in the assessment of most people, an “evil genius” - if not merely a sick one! One of the most constant threads in American history is our increasing tendency to grant all favorable attributes to our social and political friends and allies and assess our political opponents as having almost a monopoly on all things stupid, mean, and/or evil. Both of these tendencies are extreme and unrealistic.

What’s most disturbing about President Trump is his personal conduct in office. There’s his inconsistency in political negotiating, be the subject DACA or his promises to the National Riffle Association when he’s under pressure. Finally, and most sadly, his apparent incapacity to grant political opponents any degree of logical, political or social legitimacy makes it almost impossible for men and women of conscience to reach common ground when it comes to responsible governing.

Back in November 2016, millions of Americans convinced themselves that their choice was between a hardened and corrupt politician — Hillary Clinton — and a tough but realistic businessman named Donald Trump. Their assessment of budgeting was the business budget (the goal of which is not to spend more than it takes in) versus a civic budget (much of which is about investment in human affairs). In the popular mind, politicians primarily wheel and deal at the taxpayers’ expense. The businessman or woman on the other hand invests profits in business expansion which creates jobs at nobody’s expense. What this popular assessment leaves out are two vital realities. Number one, over expenditures by business results in increased costs to consumers. Number two, competition among business entities can be extremely fierce. Businessmen and women often succeed by destroying the competition when they are allowed. Thus, we have Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is a bully both by training and, even worse, personal instinct. (Obviously, not all business people are bullies!) However, since Mr. Trump entered politics, he has functioned as an autocratic businessman rather than as an effective and conscientious  public servant. It’s his way or the highway! His social strategy calls for political and legal dominance over opponents, conditions and circumstances.

Whether or not President Trump is perceived as smart or stupid depends on the outcome of his presidency. If business deregulation, business tax cuts, and protective tariffs bring about Trump’s promised prosperity, he could be a cinch for re-election in spite of his permanent state of petulance.

Try this conclusion on: success will be President Donald John Trump’s triumph. Failure will be our fault — not his! How could it possibly be otherwise?!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

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