CSotD: Forked Tongue Follies
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Pat Bagley brings the latest terrorist weapon into his commentary, with Trump driving over our allies by cancelling America's participation in the multi-nation deal to control Iran's nuclear program.
Two things to note:
He doesn't include Russia and China in this line-up, though they were signatories to the deal and are likely as unhappy with the feckless, foolish move on Trump's part. I think it's fair, however, to confine it to our allies, as well as to simply keep the numbers down and thus the cartoon cleaner.
There is also the pragmatic question of whether it's more persuasive to put this in terms of "Us against our allies" or "Us against the world"?
In my mind, Bagley made the right choice: If you have any interest in bringing in the fence-sitters, the betrayal of our allies is a more effective lure than an overall opposition to world opinion.
Ask Nikki Haley, who sits in the UN following orders and destroying what was one of the most promising political futures in the Republican Party, and yet with very little outcry over the things she has been forced to do.
The other thing I particularly like in Bagley's piece is the angry expression on Trump's face. It ties into the "terrorist in a truck" motif, of course, but it also makes a statement about his belligerence.
That matters, because this is a chickenhawk move being fostered by those who seem eager for war with Iran.
By contrast with the aggressive look of determination in Bagley's cartoon, Steve Sack shows Trump as a smug, self-satisfied doofus, irresponsibly making one bad decision after another, not as a furious terrorist but as a cheerful nitwit as oblivious to the effects of his actions as Mt. Kiluaea is to the slow, inexorable flow of its lava.
There's a somewhat viral video making the rounds that shows lava crossing a road and engulfing a car. It's impressive and frightening, but it's also filmed in time-lapse, because the flow is quite slow and nobody would have the patience to watch it happen in real time.
And we have to assume that the car was left behind when the neighborhood was evacuated, because, if the owner were around, there would have been plenty of time to move it out of the way of the lava flow.
Sack mimics that, with a chronological listing of pacts from which we have withdrawn, the Trans-Pacific Partnership so far up the mountain as to be nearly forgotten, and he's even taken pains to show NAFTA as more side-swiped than engulfed, which seems correct at the moment, though, of course, the flow continues.
Was there time to step in and stop the destruction?
Ask Mitch McConnell. Ask Paul Ryan.
They have the keys to the car and as clear a view of what's happening as any of us.
David Fitzsimmons puts the blame on John Bolton, the newest of the chickenhawks with whom Trump has surrounded himself.
When Bolton faced the draft in 1969, he enlisted in the National Guard and heroically prevented the Viet Cong from overrunning Louisiana, later explaining, ""I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost."
Today, he continues to defend his support of the Iraq invasion, which is still going on all these years later and thus not "already lost." Especially if someone else is out there fighting it.
(Disclosure: I'm not a huge John Bolton fan.)
It could also be argued that Trump gets his advice not from Bolton and the others on his staff but from Fox and Friends, but, in any case, Fitzsimmons sums up the pros and cons well. There are substantial arguments in favor of the Iran deal and substantial arguments against withdrawal, and Bolton doesn't even mention that, despite Israel's outdated, self-serving analysis, the restrictions and inspections have been working.
However, Fitzsimmons has Trump sum up the bottom line in all this: The basic policy of the Trump administration is to undo the actions of the Obama administration.
To which Ed Hall adds a bit of additional motivation by riffing on the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Alabama, in which the victims of lynchings are remembered on plaques hanging, like strange fruit, from the ceiling.
Whether it is fair to suggest a racial element in Trump's own thinking, it is certainly well-established that his base contains a strong racist element and it is well within fair commentary to depict Trump as cheerfully, thoughtlessly strolling through the exhibit of abrogated treaties, reversed decisions and abandoned ideals.
Nor is Trump's fetish for bullying solely reflected in policy decisions. Childish hostility, as Adam Zyglis depicts it, is part of his basic personality.
His unbridled lack of decent behavior has even been admitted by the First Lady in her insistence on adopting cyberbullying as a cause.
“I’m well aware that people are skeptical of me discussing this topic,” she told a group assembled in March to discuss the topic. “I have been criticized for my commitment to tackling this issue and I know that will continue.”
"It will not stop me from doing what's right," she added.
Granted, she's also facing skepticism based on a lack of original content in her material, but that may be mostly a failure in staffing rather than a personal shortcoming: I'd be surprised if very many First Ladies were actually researching and writing the material they put forth.
Which I'll admit is probably a reflection of my pity for someone who may have all sorts of regrets to process.
But listen: If you're going to ask Melania "Why don't you leave him? Why do you put up with it?" you are raising questions that could be asked of many women and perhaps shouldn't be, except by counselors and researchers.
Anyway, I like Melania.
Especially when she puts her hands in her back pockets, Bette Davis style.
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