As an obsessive blogger, today is my worst nightmare. Why? Because those who used to be responsible for analyzing the news, a task which has fallen to bloggers of all ideological stripes, began doing their job again this morning. The media and the politicians they cover, at times like this, have something in common. Sometimes you have no choice but to act. As Kevin C. Gottlieb, founder of GATE (Grassroots Advocacy Training Exchange), tells his clients, “When politicians feel the heat, they see the light.” The same holds true for journalists.
Even frequent Trump pimp Joe Scarborough picked up the mantle. On today’s edition of Morning Joe, Scarborough asked White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders about the urgency for firing FBI director James Comey. Her response? The President received a recommendation from the deputy attorney general and acted immediately and decisively. I started laughing, thinking, “..as opposed to his hesitant and indecisive action on Michael Flynn.” Any journalist worth his/her weight would ask that question.
And Scarborough did. The transcript from this morning’s show is not yet available, but here is my best recollection of his response to Sanders.
And yet the sitting commander-in-chief and the acting attorney general tells the President his national security adviser is compromised and represents a potential threat to the nation’s safety and he waits 18 days.
Sanders tried to push back but Scarborough was having none of it. Joe, thanks for doing your job even if it makes mine a little harder. And he was not alone. So as strange as it may seem, we owe a second debt of gratitude to Comrade Trump for doing things a Clinton presidency could never have accomplished. First, for mobilizing the resistance and proving that elections matter. Second, he has awakened another sleeping giant–the press–by giving them a real story which will generate the ratings and increased subscriptions they need.
But that’s not what I came here to talk about. As I have often reminded readers, the challenge of writing this blog is finding the angle on any topic about which no one else is talking. One creative technique which helps achieve this goal is to find a metaphor which helps explain the issues before us. In this case, the first thing that came to mind was the term “human shield.” As defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, a human shield is, “a person or group of people kept in a particular place in order to stop an enemy from attacking that place.” A quick Google search turned up the following from a CNN.com post about the fight to retake Mosul, Iraq from ISIS which shed more light on Trump’s efforts to save his presidency and reputation. (Source: CNN.com/October 30, 2016).
The reports are disturbing: Tens of thousands of men, women and children snatched from their homes and forced into the center of Mosul as the battle intensifies to drive ISIS out of Iraq’s second-largest city.
The only difference between Trump and ISIS is the White House does not need to snatch its human shields, they selectively choose t
hem from among witting or unwitting accomplices who are enlisted for the assignment. Yesterday, it was recently confirmed deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. Since much of the information in Rosenstein’s memorandum recommending Comey’s dismissal, including un-sourced verbiage and quotes, came from published news reports, the White House already knew everything it contained. So the only reason for the memorandum was to use Rosenstein as the human shield to protect Trump from having to take personal responsibility for an action which would threaten his own personal “caliphate.” Ironically, this is the first time in history, the commander-in-chief has offered an excuse for his actions by claiming, “I was only following orders.”
So just add Rosenstein to a growing list of individuals who have been employed as human shields during Trump’s 110 days in office.
- Dennis Nunes, representative from California’s 22nd Congressional district, who was picked as the buffer between Trump and his unfounded charges of wire-tapping against President Obama.
- Jason Chaffetz, representative from Utah’s 3rd Congressional district and chair of the House Government Oversight Committee, who sacrificed his career after stonewalling examination of Trump’s growing number of ethics violations.
- Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, who delivered Trump’s message about House Speaker Paul Ryan being responsible for the first attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
- Every foreign head of state who has visited the White House. By holding joint press conferences with these dignitaries, the press has been constrained from pressing Trump on issues related to his and his associates’ interaction with Russian officials.
- James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, who Trump constantly references (including a new banner tweet on @realdonaldtrump) as vindicating his campaign of any role in Russian interference in the 2016 election. In Trump world, it does not matter that Clapper has done no such thing.
- Former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump thanked for “informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation” although no White House staff can pinpoint those occasions and Comey publicly testified that the White House is under investigation.
- Perennial human shield President Barack Obama, whom Trump places in the forefront as responsible for EVERYTHING that has gone wrong during his time in the oval office.
- Several federal district judges who Trump claims are keeping him from delivering on many of the most onerous promises made during his 2016 campaign.
However, if there was an academy award for best performance by a human shield, the sole nominee and winner would have to be press secretary Sean Spicer. Trump sends him before the press on a daily basis as the first line of defense regardless of how outrageous or incomprehensible his boss’ actions or words might be. A cat with nine lives has nothing on Scary Spice.
As former Navy intelligence office Malcolm Nance reminded us last night, Comey’s firing is just one more instance where, “the target is getting buggy.” Nance also urges, “strategic patience.” By this he warns, when you are trying to take down a president of the United States, you better be sure you get EVERYTHING right. James Comey learned that lesson yesterday, when the White House was given an opening as a result of his misstatement about the number and nature of emails on Anthony Wiener’s laptop. When the White House occupant’s favorite line is, “I was right; this was fake news,” the last thing you want to do is give him ammunition.
There is still a long way to go before we know whether Trump is guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Strategic patience is the order of the day. What we already know is this. He, like ISIS, is a coward of epic proportions, willing to hide behind others to protect his territory.
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP
How do I know this? Because Trump’s own Department of Commerce told me so on Friday. A major force behind the positive employment numbers for April released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was an increase in construction jobs. And guess what is a major input for the construction industry. Softwood lumber. According to Britannica.com, “The chief economic value of pines is in the construction and paper-products industries.”
On January 27, 2017, The New Yorker published an article by Adam Gopnik titled, “Orwell’s 1984 and Trump’s America.” Gopnik admits he had never been a fan of the 1949 classic about a dystopian future, describing it as “too pat” and rooted in the Brits’ immediate post-WWII dissatisfaction with rationing and general pessimism about a return to normalcy. However, Gopnik reassesses his position after observing Comrade Trump’s behavior during the first week of his tenure in office. Referencing the daily claims by Trump and his minions about the size of the inaugural crowed or how he would have won the popular vote except for millions of illegally cast ballots, Gopnik writes:
Flipping from “1984” to “1894” was inspired by the political satire group The Capitol Steps. At the end of each performance they include a narrative titled “Lirty Dies” in which they reverse the first letters in each phrase. For example, they refer to the White House occupant as “Tronald Dump.” But a quick Google search of the term “major events in 1894” suggested interposing the middle digits of these two years was more than just a gimmick. It was one more example of what Carl Jung called “synchronicity,” the unintentional connection of seemingly unrelated experiences. Consider the following actual events from 1894 (with commentary in italics).