BLOGGER’S NOTE: The direction and content of many of the posts on this site begin with the title. As you know by now, I am always looking for a play on words which compel the reader to ask, “Where the hell is he going with this one?” My task is then to put together the facts which support the premise or suggest we need to take a second look into what at first seems obvious. The original subject line for today’s entry was, “Rat Place, Rat Time.” Why? Because I’m sitting in a row house in Baltimore, Maryland What better location to reflect on the quickly evolving events which will determine the future for Donald Trump, than the place he described as a “rodent and rat infested mess.” But as I was organizing my thoughts, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, announced the committee would be working through the two-week recess scheduled to begin today with hopes that the panel could provide the Judiciary Committee with corroborated evidence to support articles of impeachment, if warranted, by Thanksgiving.
Much is being made of comparable situations in American history as Donald Trump faces the increasing momentum toward impeachment. I must admit, I wondered, “How does this compare to the cases involving Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton?” I intentionally chose to omit Andrew Johnson from any such inquiry for two reasons. First, he had never been elected president, ascending to the position following Abraham Lincoln’s assassination thus the issue never involved overturning a voter referendum. Second, the forces behind his impeachment were members of his own political party who disapproved of his plans to quickly repatriate the confederate states with minimal punishment.
However, insight does not come from jumping to answers, but by asking better questions. And the question I realized had not been asked was, “To fully grasp the scope and import of current events, why would anyone limit comparisons only to two chief executives of the United States? What about the other 42 predecessors who held the office prior to January 20, 2017?” That is how my thoughts shifted from WHO and WHAT to WHEN? And one answer emerged when New York Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney suggested, with the documentation already at hand, Americans have a pretty good idea of WHO was involved and WHAT happened between Trump and the newly elected president of Ukraine and which closets hold the skeletons. All that is left to do is corroborate and verify actions by Trump, his accomplices and his enablers. He closed by suggesting Congress should be able to complete the task by Thanksgiving.
Imagine, the fate and legacy of a president of the United States being determined by Thanksgiving of the third year of his first term. What are the odds of that happening twice out of 45 opportunities or within the span of 56 years? According to Representative Maloney, more likely than anyone could have contemplated a month ago.
I know what you’re thinking. Dr. ESP, surely you’re not going to suggest there is any resemblance between Trump and John Kennedy. Of course I am. But not solely due to the coincidence in time in office before their fate is sealed. Nor does it have anything to do with the ironic and eerie coincidence the names Kellyanne Conway and Lee Harvey Oswald both contain 15 letters.
Writers of fiction and non-fiction write best when they know their subject matters. And, as many of you know, I am currently drafting a political novel which offers a different and highly improbable twist on the Kennedy assassination. My focus is on the still unanswered question, what was the motive for killing Kennedy. To make the incredible just a bit more plausible, I have spent the past two years researching every aspect of the lives of JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby and other true-life individuals tangential to the story before injecting my fictional characters. It has been an educational and highly enjoyable exercise in the art of manufacturing a conspiracy by finding the dots to fill in the manufactured connections.
In the end, both my novel and the real time saga of the Trump/Ukraine affair are not about conspiracy. They are about legacy. Having pored through every one of Evelyn Lincoln’s entries in Kennedy’s appointment calendar from December 1962 to November 22, 1963, one obtains a clear understanding of the interests and priorities of our 35th president. And, in a limited number of cases, an appointment or a gap in time raises suspicions Kennedy’s closet may not have been skeleton-less. I wish I could tell you more, but you’ll just have to read the book when it comes out.
So, this morning I wondered if I could gain a similar understanding of the 45th occupant of the oval office if I had equal access to his appointment calendar. That assumes, of course, it has not yet been transferred to a code-word protected server. The value of real-time observation in the age of 24/7 presidential news coverage is you no longer need to scour the archives of a presidential library to follow the chief executive’s movement. Cameras document how he foregoes a trip to Poland on the premise of staying home to oversee the federal response to a pending Category 5 hurricane, bearing down on the Florida coast, but spends the majority of those days golfing. You watch a man who has violated every one of the ten commandments leave a United Nations session on climate change to discuss religious freedom with evangelical christian leaders who oppose secular freedom for those who adhere to any religion but their own.
Bottom line? One’s fate can seal one’s legacy. Sometimes, it takes an individual’s complete life time to grasp who they are and solidify their place in history. In other cases, it only takes a thousand days. And I will leave it to an historian as talented as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to publish a sequel to his 1965 tribute to a fallen president, perhaps titled, “A Thousand Days Later.”
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP
Prosecutors appreciate the fact that a jury will be confused by a multitude of charges – and may acquit because of over complexity. Robert Mueller laid out a multitude of felony type offenses, including treason. Since many can’t or won’t read for content and retain, his report fell on deaf ears. This is simple and straightforward, now. Trump sold out our nation – in a series of conversations with a foreign government -to gain dirt from that government on a perceived personal enemy, covered it up, and lied about it. And used “extortion” by communicating threats to withhold military funding that had already been approved, as leverage. He is a common thug, and mobster. Impeach, it’s time to draw out the real character of his “GOP” Senate enablers in Congress in a public vote, in front of the nation – and see what happens.