Donald Trump, Jill Abramson writes, is a coward:
Although he spent a dozen seasons on “The Apprentice” playing the boss who loved saying “You’re fired,” he doesn’t have the guts to lower the boom as president.
When he did fire former FBI director James Comey, he hid behind the skirts of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. With his beleaguered press secretary Sean Spicer he waited until the poor man resigned after weeks of mean-spirited critiques behind Spicey’s back, of everything from his suits to his speaking style.
Then came his cowardly trashing of attorney general Jeff Sessions, at first through leaked rumors and then finally aired publicly, in his gabfest with the “failing” New York Times, the paper he pretends to hate but really loves and fears. On Tuesday, he once again pronounced himself “disappointed” with Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation and giving the president no advance warning before being appointed.
Trump claimed that Sessions was "weak" for not going after Hillary Clinton. But after the election:
Playing the big man, he said the Clintons had already been through enough. It was time to put Hillary’s alleged crimes behind us. Now he cites Sessions’ failure to prosecute his vanquished opponent as one of the attorney general’s sins.
Cowards pick on the vulnerable. The Republican health care bill reveals that not only Trump but the entire Republican Party is cowardly. And that is why Trump continues to survive:
The president is lucky that unlike the Republicans in Nixon’s day, his party and its congressional members are cowards, too. There is no Howard Baker, asking “What did the president know and when did he know it,” or a Barry Goldwater, who had the courage to tell Nixon that his support in the Congress had crumbed to dust because of his lawlessness.The cowardly have triumphed -- for now.
Image: Fanpop.com
4 comments:
I saw John McCain yesterday reminding his fellow senators in no uncertain terms that the legislative arm of government is equal, not subservient, to the executive. Let's hope his message has some resonance, Owen.
I don't often agree with McCain, Lorne. But he is his own man. These days, there aren't many like him.
John McCain's full of crap. In that same speech, he said he couldn't support the bill Mitch McConnell wanted to pass. Hours later he voted for it. He's a great practitioner of political speech, which as Orwell noted, "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
Rule 1 in observing politics is to watch what politicians do, not what they say. McCain will say "mavericky" things that make for great quotes, so the Washington media love him. Then he'll turn around and do the opposite, inevitably voting with party leaders. That part gets buried well down in the article without comment. See e.g. this example from the NYT on yesterday's vote: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/us/politics/senate-health-care.html
Cap
They voted down McConnell's bill and they voted down full repeal, Cap. But if they vote in favour of "skinny repeal" and send it to the house for conference, they'll still wind up repealing medicare. You're right. Watch what they do.
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