There is more than enough evidence Donald Trump’s behavior since January 20th is “unpresidented.”  However, there is one important departure from past history which seems to have alluded the mainstream media.  Of the 44 individuals who have sat behind the desk in the oval office, James K. Polk and Trump are the only incumbents without canine or feline companionship.  From George Washington’s American Staghounds (Sweetlips, Scentwell and Vulcan) to Barack Obama’s Portuguese Water Dogs (Bo and Sunny), every previous president. with these two exceptions, has sought the counsel of four-legged advisers.

Some White House pets have become best-selling authors as in the case of Millie’s Book, co-written by First Lady Barbara Bush.  Others have been called upon as political cover for their masters, the most famous incident involving the Nixon family’s Cocker Spaniel Checkers.  Lesser known was the September 23, 1944 Fala speech, during which President Franklin Roosevelt channeled his Scottish Terrier to undercut charges of malfeasance by his political opponents.

These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family don’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I’d left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him—at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars—his Scotch soul was furious.

While the majority of fauna residing at 1600 Pennsylvania or at the chief executive’s personal residence are canine or feline, there are exceptions.  Consider the following.

• Thomas Jefferson had two bear cubs.
• John Quincy Adams had a pet alligator, a gift from the Maquis de Lafayette.
• James Buchanan had a pet eagle.
• Andrew Johnson continually cared for white mice he found in his bedroom.
• Benjamin Harrison kept two opossums (Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection).
• Theodore Roosevelt, not surprisingly, included a lizard, garter snake, small bear, barn owl, hyena and a one-legged rooster in his personal menagerie.
• Calvin Coolidge also maintained the equivalent of a private zoo which housed a tiger, bobcat, pygmy hippopotamus, wallaby, antelope and black bear.
• Not to be outdone by John Quincy Adams, Herbert Hoover included TWO alligators among his pets.

With the arrival of son Barron at the White House, some Trump watchers have speculated a four-legged addition to the executive mansion might be in the offing.  Which of course has lit up social media.  Will the Trumps select a dog, a cat or a more exotic species?  New York Times columnist Alex Beam suggests people often choose a pet that best reflects the owner’s personality.  Beam wonders if a ferret might be most appropriate in this case. (Source: New York Times, April 15, 2017)

My bet is the White House will remain a sanctuary reserved for homo sapiens.  After all, His Orangeness is a known germaphobe.  Dog hair or cat dander seems like an unwelcome intrusion on his sterilized space.  But what about Barron?  Fear not.  He will surely be surrounded by human playmates.  In fact, Barron BFF is rumored to be Sean Spicer’s next job title.

Spoiler: Fake News Alert

According to several unnamed sources, some who were Trump’s classmates at the New York Military Academy, the future oval office occupant’s aversion to household pets stems from an incident during his junior year on the Cornwall, New York campus.  During the morning assembly, the young Donald was attacked and bitten by the school’s mascot, a Siberian husky named Sergei.

LITTLE KNOWN UPDATE: Following the incident, Sergei had to be treated for rabies.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Carl Jung was whispering to me again last night, “Synchronicity.  Look for the coincidences.  They are there if only you look.”  My attention then turned to a discussion on cable news.  The pundits, as they have for several weeks, were comparing the current political situation to Watergate.  Not surprisingly, the debate turned to the speed in which events were unfolding.  At that point, one panelist suggested the timing feels more like late 1972, months after the break-in at Democratic headquarters, than August 8, 1974 when Richard Nixon eventually departed the White House.

Of course, 1972.  What else happened in 1972?  A terrorist attack at the Berlin Olympic games.  Nixon travels to China.  Britain takes direct control over Northern Ireland.  The first SALT agreement.  I failed to see any obvious connection.  Fortunately, however, Jung’s apparition had company.  The ghost of Oscar Wilde reminded me, “Art imitates life more than life imitates art.”

And there it was.  March 24, 1972.  The release date of Francis Ford Coppola’s academy award winning motion picture The Godfather.  It was the scene in Vito Corleone’s (Marlon Brando) garden, days before the elder Don’s death, when he shares his regret that favored son Michael (Al Pacino) has succeeded him as head of the family.

I knew that Santino (James Caan) was going to have to go through all this.  And Fredo (John Cazale)…well…Fredo was…well.  But I never…I never wanted this for you.  I worked my whole life, I don’t apologize, to take care of my family.  And I refused to be a fool dancing on the string, held by all those big shots.  I don’t apologize that’s my life but I thought that…that when it was your time that…that you wold be the one to hold the strings.  Senator Corleone.  Governor Corleone, or something…

Although Michael comforts his father by replying, “Another pezzonovante,” he already knows there are too many skeletons in the Corleone closet which might be disclosed in the heat of a political campaign.  [NOTE:  “Pezzonovante” is literally translated as “.95 caliber,” but is also Sicilan slang for “big shot.”]  Michael’s future is set.  His primary imperative is to protect the family and its businesses.

Which brings us to the legacy of Frederick Christ Trump, the godfather of his own family business.  Like Vito Corleone, the elder Trump was under constant legal scrutiny including charges of profiteering from federal contracts and violations of the Fair Housing Act.  But like Mario Puzzo’s godfather, he too dreamed at least some of his offspring would bring a level of honor and legitimacy to the Trump name.  And in the case of his oldest daughter  Maryanne Trump Barry, his hope was fulfilled.  Barry received a law degree from Hofstra University and served as both a district judge in New Jersey and on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals until her retirement in 2011.

But there was also a Fredo except his nickname was Freddy.  (Yes Dr. Jung.  I know.  I know.) Frederick Trump, Jr., like Fredo, did not fit the family mold.  He sought refuge outside the family circle, for example, joining a Jewish fraternity at Lehigh University.  Unable to deal with his father’s demand for perfection, Freddy became a pilot for Trans World Airlines until his continuing bout with alcoholism became a safety issue.  Freddy died in 1981 at the age of 43, but not before his father posthumously signaled his disdain for a son he considered weak and irresponsible.

Then came the unveiling of Fred Sr.’s will, which Donald had helped draft. It divided the bulk of the inheritance, at least $20 million, among his children and their descendants, “other than my son Fred C. Trump Jr.” (Source, New York Times, January 2, 2016)

Which brings us to the Santino or “Sonny” on the Trump family tree, none other than “Donny” himself.  Consider the following excerpts from Sonny’s character biography on IMDB.

Sonny is the most impulsive and violent of Vito’s children and, before Michael’s rise to power, the most involved in his father’s criminal operations.

Although Sonny has a wife, Sandra, and four children, he frequently cheats on Sandra with other women. At the time of the film, he has carried on a long-running affair with Lucy Mancini, who served as one of his sister’s bridesmaids.

In the original Godfather saga, if Sonny had survived, the future of the Corleone family might have paralleled that of Trump’s up until June 16, 2015, the day Donny launched his campaign for president.  No doubt, Sonny would have fancied himself as a self-made man (despite being handed the keys to the family Mercedes) and as irresistible to women.  Here is where the stories diverge.  Sonny would have accepted his destiny, the next head of the family enterprise.  More legitimate career pursuits were not in his future.  That would be left to siblings.

Too bad Frederick Trump, Sr.,  a man whose middle name was “Christ” did not impress upon his son Donald the advice of his namesake.  “Render under Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and to the Family the things that are the Family’s.”  If he had done so, the Trump family, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, would have been free to continue selling clothing made in China and making real estate deals wherever and with whomever they chose.  More importantly, they would not be currently starring in “A Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue.”   And neither would the United States of America.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Gal Godot, the actor who portrays Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman in the pre-summer blockbuster of the same name, describes her character as “having many strengths and powers, but at the end of the day she’s a woman with a lot of emotional intelligence.” (Source: Entertainment Weekly, March 7, 2016)  If she wanted to hide her true identity, Diana Prince seemed the worst choice ever, until yesterday.  When it comes to suspicious pseudonyms, Diana Prince has nothing over Reality Winner.  Except of course, Reality Winner is the actual name of the person arrested yesterday for leaking classified information.

Before I go any further, I want readers to know I believe individuals who take the following security oath should be prosecuted for violations thereof.

NSA Security Oath

Upon being cleared to protect the sensitive information of the National Security Agency, I subscribe to this oath freely, without mental reservation, and with the full intent to exercise meticulous care in abiding by its items.

• I solemnly swear that I will not reveal to any person any information pertaining to the classified activities of the National Security Agency, except as necessary toward the proper performance of my duties or as specifically authorized by a duly responsible superior known to me to be authorized to receive this information.
• I further solemnly swear that I will report without delay to my security representative the details and circumstances of any case which comes within my knowledge of an unauthorized person obtaining or attempting to obtain information concerning the classified operations of the National Security Agency.
• I fully appreciate and understand that the security of the information and activities of the National Security Agency is of vital importance to the welfare and defense of the United States.
• I affirm that I am familiar with the provisions of Sections 793, 794 and 798, Title 18, United States Code.
• I do hereby affirm any understanding that the obligations of this oath will continue even after severance of my connections with the National Security Agency and that they remain fully binding on me during peacetime as well as during wartime.

My point in sharing this information is to acknowledge both my understanding why the Department of Justice was justified in charging Winner with a crime and also why I am willing to hold judgment whether she is criminal or a patriot.  Thus the title of this blog, “I Wonder, Woman?…” As should be the case at the beginning of any story or investigation, I have more questions than answers, including:

• I wonder, woman, if the timing of your release of this information was intentional, a heads-up to the Senate Intelligence Committee before it hears public testimony from NSA Director Mike Rogers on Wednesday.
• I wonder, woman, whether the alleged hacking into the IT system of a voter software development company days before the 2016 election would have come up during the hearing absent the leaked report.
• I wonder, woman, if you were concerned Special Counsel Robert Mueller might not be aware of this additional method by which the Russians were attempting to influence the outcome of the presidential election.
• I wonder, woman, whether the information in the leaked documents was a greater threat to national security than the commander-in-chief sharing the location of a national intelligence asset with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador to the United States.
• I wonder, woman, if the “trail of crumbs” you left behind which facilitated your identification as source of the leak was deliberate?
• I wonder, woman, if from the start, you intended to give yourself up?  After all, you called your mother a day before being arrested and asked her to find an alternate home for your pets.
• I wonder. woman, if your decision to “face the music” was a message, that unlike others such as Edward Snowden and Jullian Assange who sought refuge from prosecution, you are willing to make a case that sometimes patriotic acts sometime outweigh personal safety and comfort.
• Yet, I also have to wonder, woman, why, like Snowden, you gave your story to a second-tier on-line publication as opposed to bringing it to the attention of officials up the chain of command or to a potentially sympathetic member of the congressional committees with jurisdiction over the matters contained in the leaked documents.

Which brings us back to the fictional Wonder Woman.  There is a trend in films based on Marvel and DC comics to make the protagonists more ambiguous in terms of being forces for good or evil.  And the same could be said of Reality Winner.  Her arrest is just the first scene.  And it’s hard to know how the story ends.  It may even require a sequel.  But of one thing I am sure.  Ms. Winner, by choosing to have her day in court rather than becoming the next toast of Moscow or sequestered in a diplomatic sanctuary, emulates her cinema counterpart as a woman “having many strengths and powers, but at the end of the day she’s a woman with a lot of emotional intelligence.”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP