Trump needs to grow up fast
Finally.
I can now state that I am in full agreement with President Trump about something.
He said he’d go to Washington and shake things up.
He’s done that!
The United States of America is experiencing daily political earthquakes, thanks to a president who can’t get out of his own way.
Mr. Trump seems to think that Washington D.C. is a big playground, where he’s the bully that controls who’s right or wrong.
He believes he’s always right – ever the good guy.
Hardly.
The seat of the American government isn’t about shirts or skins. It’s not paper or plastic. There aren’t heroes or villains. Recently, it’s not even about Democrats or Republicans.
As one former CIA Chief of Staff simply put it, “It’s about crazy or sane. And we have gone over to the crazy. It’s time to get back to the sane.”
Given Trump’s rough week of a questionably timed FBI director’s firing, after he’d supposedly requested his “loyalty”; reports of his handing top secret information to the Russians, while they were, curiously, in the Oval Office; and the cataclysmic reports about him trying to squash an investigation into the possible Russian/campaign collusion – you’d think Mr. Trump would take the time to measure the damage.
He didn’t.
He did what he’s always done.
He threw a hissy-fit.
“Look at the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media,” he crowed. “No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly.”
Consider where he said that.
He took the time to honor the graduates at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy with his personal complaint that the news media is picking on him, as if those graduates can make it stop.
Second, Trump continues to misunderstand the fact the news media has existed as an institution through the previous 44 presidents – and it’ll survive long after the 45th president leaves office.
And third, when he claimed, “with great surety,” that he’s “been treated worse or unfairly” than any other politician in history, he must’ve been on the playground, when they taught those lessons in his grade school classroom that day.
Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy, were certainly treated worse.
Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, the victims of assassination attempts, were treated badly, too.
And don’t forget that Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon faced impeachment proceedings, that were far worse than a few “unfair” news stories.
Besides, Barack Obama suffered through the stench caused by a crusader who treated him mighty unfairly for a number of years – by falsely claiming he wasn’t even an American.
When Trump seeks to “shake things up” by reaching for the imaginary culprits who are wreaking havoc on his young presidency – he should take a long look in the mirror.
The morning after it was announced that a special counsel had been appointed to investigate the possibility of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, Trump couldn’t resist leaping onto his Twitter-machine.
“With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed! This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” he wrote.
The original “draft” of that tweet contained the misspelled word “councel,” not counsel.
Why?
Because Trump was obviously out on the playground “shaking things up,” instead of being in spelling class that day.
His misspellings of simple words have caused the folks who run the Merriam-Webster Dictionary to start tweeting corrections to them online.
He’s spelled “honored,” “honered.” He tried to use the word “unprecedented,” but, instead he typed “unpresidented.”
But the text of Trump’s tweet is further proof that, sometimes, he shakes himself up more than he shakes up Washington.
That special counsel was appointed by his own assistant attorney general.
That means that if he’s the victim of a “witch hunt,” he’s also the perpetrator of it, too.
There’s zero chance he’ll blame himself for the witch hunt.
He’s not built that way.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net
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