CSotD: When Analysis Fails
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People have noted that Dear Leader campaigned on a promise of no new wars and of ending the war in Ukraine his first day in office, and yet somehow the war in Ukraine drags on and we appear to have a new war in Iran.
Also the price of eggs remains high and groceries in general cost more and inflation has been worse but it could be better. It’s not that things aren’t better than they were during the pandemic, but that we were promised a lot more than we’ve received.
We were promised peace. People voted for Trump because they didn’t like Biden’s cooperation with Israel, and some boycotted the election for the same reason and nothing has changed in Gaza except that, today, if you say you don’t like what’s happening there, masked men will beat you up and drag you away.
So that’s new.
“I told you so” is of little comfort, particularly for an ongoing issue. It’s like having a friend who’s having an affair with a married man who keeps telling her he’s going to get a divorce and you know he isn’t and she probably does, too, at some level, but what good does that do?
Marina Hyde doesn’t mention that specifically, but her explanation of how we can understand Donald Trump in terms of self-help books and “Sex and the City” is that form of humor that makes your stomach hurt, because she’s right that making excuses and conjuring magical explanations and unlikely outcomes doesn’t do much to advance the relationship.
“I told you so” is more likely to cost you a friendship than to bring about some awakening and reform.
Broelman is right that Trump’s attack on Iran is unpopular with the American public, but he’s reaching to suggest that there are more people who want him gone than there were a week ago.
As Hyde wrote, they still think he will change and that he’s misunderstood and that with a little more patience and understanding, he’ll come around.
Or maybe they think there’s nothing they can do about it and that JD Vance would be worse anyway. Call it the “Spiro Agnew factor,” though we solved that dilemma.
Maybe we’ll discover that JD also took bribes from construction companies.
However, it’s more practical and immediate to place the blame elsewhere, as Matson does. We once had a War Powers Act that required the President to confer with Congress at least to the extent of letting them know what he was up to.
Granted, Trump isn’t trying to follow the law, or even the precedents, but Congress doesn’t have to sit back and let it happen. Executive Orders are not laws and carry very limited weight. The notion that the President can order the bombing of another country without at least checking in with Congress is only the most visible example of dictatorial overreach.
Congress, more than any other branch of the federal government, is us. If you’ve never met your Senators or your Congressional Rep, it’s because you haven’t tried. They show up often and perhaps you don’t. So if they are letting the Executive branch slide, it’s as much your fault as it is theirs.
If Dear Leader can sit up at night composing deranged Tweets, you could certainly drop an email to your legislators and ask them to pay more attention.
And, yes, I’d love to know where he got hold of “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” his latest verbal tic, along with bogus stories of people with tears in their eyes who call him “sir” and his nonsensical sprinklings of “as never seen before” and a handful of other Mad Libs nonsense.
If Banx’s vision were true, that guy would be the most valuable man in the country.
JFK memorably hosted a dinner of Nobel Laureates at the White House and said “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
It makes me wonder how to describe a meeting of the current Presidential cabinet, given that he has surrounded himself with toadies who shower him with praise and never correct his errors because they apparently aren’t capable of spotting them.
Which sounds highly partisan and opinionated, but consider their avalanche of conflicting analyses of the action in Iran, which is not about regime change but is about regime change and is not a war but is a war.
Meanwhile, Kristi Noem announced that she’d come to California to overthrow their elected government, a process she started by having her goons tackle and handcuff a United States Senator.
He’s lucky she didn’t have him dragged out to the gravel pit.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Obviously, some cartoonists have more faith in the President’s ability to pull off an effective attack than others, both cartoons having been published after the boom-boom, which either obliterated Iran’s nuclear program or just set it back a few months.
Either of these could have been sketched in advance, depending on whether the cartoonist had faith in the President or a pragmatic view of the Middle East.
I’m sure many cartoonists crumple up their work and hurl it across the room when they realize that something they assumed would happen didn’t. But I’ve seen several examples where they let it run anyway.
Bill Day clearly waited to see the results, both in terms of what was announced and what turns out to have actually occurred.
CAUTION: Those reading this abroad will want to erase that cartoon from their phones before attempting to visit the United States. The First Amendment ends at the border, even though the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that satire is protected speech.
That wasn’t this current Supreme Court, so tread lightly.
I had several Nobel Peace Prize cartoons to choose from, because Dear Leader has declared himself eager and ready to accept the honor, which lack of humility might be disqualifying.
But we’re talking about a draft dodger who wanted a Purple Heart and threw himself a military parade.
He doesn’t want much.
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