IDLE OBSERVATION
I think we can all agree that when you schedule a high profile speech at West Point, for which purpose you require an entire graduation class to return so as to serve as your audience, and all anyone can recall of the event is how you took a sip of water and walked down a ramp, you are off your game.
Let's hope he stays off thru till November.
ReplyDeleteOff topic (mostly) but I frankly don't understand why the media is/are making such a fuss about the Bolton book based on the reporting I've heard so far. Asking Xi Jinping to buy more farm products to help T's re-election may be crass but it's not improper and is s.o.p. for U.S. Presidents I'd say. And whatever T. said to Xi about the Uighurs was no doubt morally callous but, again, unsurprising, and at this pt I doubt most foreign leaders care a lot what T. says about anything.
ReplyDeleteIn this context it's not altogether clear why the admin has even bothered going to court to stop the bk's publication. The people who read the bk weren't going to vote for T anyway, so I doubt it's going to change many people's minds. People's minds are already made up about this president.
Maybe the main aim of going to court over Bolton's book is to deter others from going down the same route.
ReplyDeleteAlso asking for the US's major foreign rival's assistance with re-election strikes me as improper. If he had asked openly for some money would that surely would have been improper, and asking for help with his reelection is not very different from that, especially with this president.
The media make a lot of fuss because that's the way they sell newspapers or in today's world increase the number of clicks.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this exactly like the quid pro quo that should have gotten him removed? Using political influence (the power of the office) to get China to act in his personal favor.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Bolton mentioned that there is much more that lawmakers could have investigated. (Too bad he was too much of a coward/opportunist to help with anything.)
Asking China to buy more farm products bc it will be good for you politically is totally different from trying to coerce a dependent ally (Ukraine) into launching an investigation of the Bidens by putting a pause on military aid.
ReplyDeleteThe China thing shows the incoherence of T's foreign and trade policies, but US presidents do all kinds of things to help their re-relection prospects that are within the wide boundaries of "acceptable" behavior and -- again, based on the reporting I've heard, there may be some actually explosive things in the Bolton bk the media is overlooking -- this is, imo, a yawn. YMMV.
Media makes a big fuss out of everything. It's all shock and outrage. As SW noted, that's what generates clicks and more ad revenue.
ReplyDelete