Burt Prelutsky: “When we think about the nation’s domestic enemies, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to the likes of George Soros, Chuck clown-Schumer, Nancy Pulosi, Al Franken, Maxine Mad-Waters and liar-Hillary Clinton. We should never overlook Barack liar-nObama, who went from being the worst president in U.S. history to being the worst ex-president, wresting both titles away from Jimmy Carter. Talk about records you never dream will ever be broken. In case it escaped your attention, as it apparently has the attention of the mass media, liar-nObama has created a gang of 30,000 traitors under the banner of Organizing for Action, and staffed it with many of the deplorables who did so much to make the eight years of his administration such an unmitigated disaster, including his very own Rasputin, Valerie Jarrett. The mission statement of the group is the usual litany of left-wing lunacy, including gun control (confiscation), socialized medicine, federally funded abortions on demand, climate change legislation and immigration reform (open borders). … As [Thomas] Sowell writes: ‘If Barack liar-nObama did not do enough to destroy this country in the eight years he was in office, it appears his future plans are to destroy the very foundation on which this country has operated for the past 241 years.’” https://patriotpost.us/articles/51475
As my faithful readers know, I have had a checkered history with Donald Trump. During the GOP primaries, he wasn’t at the top of my wish list. He generally hovered around fourth or fifth place. It was only when he had finally garnered the nomination, and the choice came down to him or liar-Hillary Clinton, that I hopped aboard the Trump Express and did what I could to help bring it to its final destination, which happened to be the Oval Office.
In the months since Trump took office, I have championed his selection of Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court; his desire to build a wall; his attempt to shut down immigration from rogue nations; his build-up of the military; his support of law enforcement; his attempt to repeal liar-nObamaCare; his desire to bring about tax reform and tax cuts for businesses and the middle class; his attempt to get Europe to pay for its own defense; and his open contempt of the left-wing media.
On the other hand, it’s not his use of a twitter account as a form of communication that I find so objectionable, but, rather, the banal tweets he often sends out, the 140-character limit making him come across as barely literate. If his ego weren’t the size of one of his Towers, Trump would job the tweets out to a professional who could convey his message without sounding like a backward teenager.
I don’t even object to his constantly insulting fake news outlets and the individuals who work for them, but I feel it sends the wrong message and makes him look like a hypocrite when he then turns around and spends an hour or two at the NY Times, apparently trying to curry favor with the staff by granting them an exclusive interview. It makes a person wonder if he’ll next be popping up on CNN and MSNBC, so he can cozy up to Wolf Blitzer and Rachel Maddow.
But, whatever bones I might have to pick with President Trump, I take exception when the Never-Trumpers pile on. In the same way, I had very real problems with my two older brothers, but that didn’t mean I thought outsiders had the right to insult them. That was strictly my prerogative.
That’s why I took strong exception to a recent article in Commentary magazine, titled “Saving Realism from the So-Called Realists,” which characterized Trump’s foreign policy as being one of “retrenchment and radicalism.”
It seemed as if the authors, Hal Brands and Peter Feaver, were basing their arguments not on what Trump has actually done during his first eight months in office, but instead were sniping at what they had been led to expect from Trump the candidate.
It was as if they were blissfully unaware of certain facts. Did they really not know that Trump had fired missiles into Syria; had voiced support for the UN and NATO; had gone nose-to-nose with Kim Jong-un; had aligned the U.S. with the former Soviet bloc countries against the threat of Russian aggression; had at least attempted to make China reconsider its relationship with North Korea; and had forged a stronger alliance with Israel?
But perhaps, Commentary, which is as reluctant as the National Review or the Washington Post to acknowledge even the remotest possibility that Donald Trump possesses a single human virtue, and then hires Hal Brands, who is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, to critique the President, one has to expect it will be a hit piece.
And with the possible exception of Haile Selassie, who was known as His Imperial Majesty, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings of Ethiopia, and Elect of God, has anyone ever had a heavier title to lug around than Professor Brands? You would imagine that if he were invited to give a speech, the introduction alone would barely leave him time to say: “Ladies and Gentlemen…” before it was time for everyone to go home.
Still, there is a certain irony in having a professor connected in any way to Henry Kissinger having the gall to criticize someone else’s approach to foreign affairs.
But, then, what can you expect of a magazine that in the same issue runs an article titled “The Vulgar Manliness of Donald Trump,” that pretty much reads as if it had been written by a mid-Victorian spinster who never strayed too far from the smelling salts, lest she suddenly heard a curse word or spotted a bare ankle?
● I had never heard of a 31-year-old singer-songwriter named Joy Villa, but after having seen a picture of her at the Grammy Awards wearing an evening gown sporting the words “Make America Great Again,” I am convinced she is the single bravest person in America.
I don’t even have the nerve to have a pro-Trump bumper-sticker on my car, knowing that the first time I parked it I’d come back to find my tires punctured, and yet she had the guts to display her support of the Donald at an event where the only way to tell the moderates from the extremists is to find out if they’d prefer to see the President impeached or assassinated.
● How is it we went from hurricanes named Harvey, Irma and Jose, to one named Maria? I don’t know who’s in charge of naming these natural disasters, but is it possible that whoever it is happens to be a product of the American school system and believes the alphabet goes H, I, J, M? I mean, what the heck happened to K and L?
● Speaking of unanswered questions, wouldn’t you think that by this time, some liberal politician would have gotten drunk and, in a rare moment of candor, admitted that the only reason Democrats are always smooching the backsides of the so-called Dreamers and the rest of the illegal aliens is because the dummies don’t need to know English in order to vote for any schmuck with a (D) after his name.
● Or for that matter, have you noticed how far to the left the Democrats have gone in just the past few years? It seems like only yesterday that their priority was breaking glass ceilings whether that meant electing the first president who happened to be a female, a black, a gay Hispanic or an albino Muslim dwarf, while today their priority seems to be defending masked hooligans who spend their time breaking actual glass wherever they happen to find it shop windows, college doors or police cars.
● I not only find it unbecoming of Donald Trump to keep snuggling up to Chuck clown-Schumer and Nancy Pulosi, but unnecessary. Why doesn’t he make deals the same way he did when he was erecting skyscrapers all over New York City? I mean, if bribing the union bosses, the Mob and building inspectors, worked there, why would he imagine it wouldn’t work just as well in Washington with politicians?
● Frankly, I’m getting sick and tired of being the only person coming up with realistic solutions to the problem of Kim Jong-un. I was, you might recall, the person who suggested that the CIA kidnap Dennis Rodman and then unbeknownst to him, surgically plant a bomb inside the former basketball star. And then, the next time, he’s invited over to North Korea to have lunch with his little buddy, someone in Langley, Virginia, would press a button, and the problem is solved.
For some reason, nobody with the authority to carry out my plan picked up the ball and ran with it. Just in case, for some weird reason, they balked at sacrificing Rodman for the good of the world, I have devised an optional plan. This one calls for sending a drone into North Korea, keeping it at a low enough altitude to avoid radar detection, and having it fly into Kim Jong-un’s tub and electrocuting him while he’s bathing.
● I was happy to hear that the U.S. military opened its first installation in Israel. Although it will be located inside an Israeli Air Force base, dozens of our soldiers will be serving under the American flag, but in partnership with the Israelis in order to “improve detection, interception and deployment in aerial defense.”
Obviously, when Bibi Netanyahu recently referred to relations between our two nations never having been closer, he wasn’t just whistling "Hava Nagila" or engaging in the sort of diplomatic double-talk that comes naturally to world leaders.
Still, I can never stop wishing that Israel wasn’t located in a part of the world where peace, I fear, will forever remain illusionary. It would have been so much better if those five or six million actual and potential inventors, scientists, artists and entrepreneurs, had settled in America’s bucolic Midwest instead of the Islamic wasteland of the Middle East.
● It is occasionally good to be reminded that being old isn’t the same as being dead or even obsolete.
I have Sam Hiserman, the pride of Modesto, California, to thank for passing along a series of photos captioned with comments from people in their 70s and beyond.
James Henry Arruda: “I said, if he can do it, I can do it.” Mr. Arruda taught himself to read at the age of 92, and wrote a book four years later.
Rochelle Ford: “Every morning when I wake up, I say I’ll never be as young as I am today. Get up and do something fun.” Mrs. Ford is a 78-year-old metal sculptress.
Yvonne Dowlen: “As you grow older, if you don’t move, you won’t move.” She is an 88-year-old figure skater.
Barry McGuigan: “I’ve never been scared of old age and I’m not scared of it now.” He’s an 85-year-old surfer dude.
Ardith Bruce: “Why stop doing what you love?” She is an 84-year-old horseback-riding barrel racer.
Phyllis Sues: “I listen, I love and I live. Your body knows what to do, but sometimes your mind gets in the way.” Mrs. Sues is a 91-year-old dancer-trapeze artist.
Dr. Charles Eugster: “We have confused illness with the process of aging, which can be thoroughly healthy. Illness is not a necessary part of aging.” Dr. Eugster is a 94-year-old rowing champion.
Being 77, I know that a lot of these optimists owe their good health to genes and plain good luck, but I also know they’re not figments of someone’s imagination.
When I was still in my 40s and 50s and played tennis with a group of guys, one of the most accomplished players was about 25 or 30 years older than I was. He continued playing well into his 90s, when he died after a very brief illness.
Frank Pollack couldn’t cover quite as much court as when he was younger, but he played net as well as anyone I had ever been partnered with and never, so far as I can recall, ever double-faulted. And with age came wisdom, so any time he couldn’t get to a ball, he had no hesitation in announcing in a loud, clear voice: “It’s yours!”
If you want to Comment directly to Burt Prelutsky, please mention my name Rudy. BurtPrelutsky@aol.com
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