"... completing an abrupt reversal of American policy in the Syrian conflict. Emerging from close to five hours of talks after a hastily arranged trip to Ankara, the Turkish capital, Mr. Pence hailed the agreement as a diplomatic victory for President Trump, calling it a 'solution we believe will save lives.' The agreement 'ends the violence — which is what President Trump sent us here to do,' Mr. Pence said at a news conference at the ambassador’s residence. Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, immediately contradicted the description of the agreement, saying it was not a cease-fire at all, but merely a 'pause for our operation.' He added that 'as a result of our president’s skillful leadership, we got what we wanted.'"
Of course, Trump's critics will not stand down or give him any credit for doing anything right, so I like Trump's approach:
This is a great day for civilization. I am proud of the United States for sticking by me in following a necessary, but somewhat unconventional, path. People have been trying to make this “Deal” for many years. Millions of lives will be saved. Congratulations to ALL!
It was so much fun to see this creation of festive happiness:
Let me break this scene down:
0:00-0:12 — "No one has benefitted more from our thriving economy than women, who have filled 58% of the new jobs created in the last year," says Trump, leaning into "women." He pauses, nods and looks around.
0:15 — We see the array of women in white, keeping a solemn look at first. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turns around and causes the women behind her to smile.
0:17-0:19 — This gesture happens — one woman (who?) puts 2 elbows in the air and points 2 thumbs down at herself.
Is she receiving a signal (from Nancy Pelosi?) or simply deciding on her own? The thumbs are shaken and the woman nods her head vigorously. Her reaction sets off the woman 3 seats over to her left (who?), but there's a quick edit, so we don't see how that interaction progresses.
0:19: — We're shifted to this super-happy blonde woman (who?). The 2 other women are standing and clapping but looking like it pains them to have to approve of anything.
0:23 — Some real celebration breaks out (amid some dubiousness):
0:24 — Something's happening to the right of the screen that's exciting everyone, even bow-tie guy:
0:23-0:30 — The frame opens up and pans as if to help us see what they were pointing at, then the frame jumps back to the women we were seeing before, and they are clapping with arms extended and pumping fists in the air and laughing.
0:32 — Even AOC is standing and laughing (though not clapping):
0:36 — We get back to Trump, head back, blissful smile.... Nancy's applauding (or playing here comes the crocodile):
0:41-0:44 — The women sit down, and Trump nods a few times, and a slight smirk grows. I feel like he's thinking, Yeah, that's what I like.
He suddenly shakes his head to get into the character that works to deliver the presumably improvised line: "You were not supposed to do that."
There's an impish, confidential tone that, to me, reads as: Give me any kind of chance, and you will love me.
0:46 — The congresswoman in the headscarf is doubled over in elation. And look at the other women in this shot. Now, notice the man (with the glasses in his mouth, perhaps irritated to see that the women are going wild and annoyed that shallow charm like this works):
0:53-1:03 — "All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before."
1:07 — The reaction begins. One woman is standing (who?). AOC is talking and turning to the woman on her right, making her presence felt. Notice how the woman on her left leans away from AOC, perhaps tired of her continual efforts at looking like a powerful influencer:
1:12 — AOC is not the last one to stand. The woman on her left is (and she doesn't stand until 1:18):
1:25-1:27 — With one finger held aloft, Trump improvises: "Don’t sit yet. You are going to like this." There's an immediate, warm laugh from the assembly, and the instant he hears it, his face shows gratification:
He really does feed off the energy of the crowd. This moment is like what he gets (in much larger doses) at this rallies.
The hand position changes from upward pointing to the OK position. Given all the talk about the KKK over the weekend, I want to get out ahead of any stupidity about Trump's OK gesture. Here's Wikipedia on the 4chan prank of calling the OK sign a white power symbol.
1:30 — "And exactly one century after the Congress passed the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in the Congress than ever before." This is the dynamic in the middle of the word "before":
Nancy is calling on her people to rise.
1:45 — And here's how it looks as he gets to the end of "before":
1:47 — They're all up, and though AOC is looking dyspeptic (for an instant), there's lots of celebration and cheering:
2:03 — We see the family reaction (with Ivanka looked so much like Ivana):
2:04- We see the women in white again, cheering. Many hands in the air, fist-pumping, pointing. AOC leaps forward in a big high 5 that connects with no one (2:06).
2:20 — A U.S.A. cheer begins off screen, and the on-screen women in white pick up the cheer, with rhythmic clapping.
2:30 — The camera closes in on AOC. She's a camera magnet. She had been doing the clapping and chanting, but stops and bows her head. What is she thinking?
Ha. I'm reading Washington Post columns this morning, drawn or repelled by headlines. I was repelled by "Trump’s nothingburger speech." That's Jennifer Rubin, who I guess, was expecting Trump to do something drastic and planning to rage about it, then stuck with normal, and much less to chomp on. She wanted a red-meat Trumpburger.
Given the hype, it was disconcerting to hear a speech that, at least for the opening minutes, could have been delivered by any normal politician....
Those very gestures of presidential normalcy revealed how futile it was for anyone to wish that Trump would start talking like that all the time. Trump may have told more blatant falsehoods about immigrants and crime over the course of his speech, but to watch him mouth these platitudes is to witness a more insidious and disorienting kind of lying....
Watching Trump’s flat delivery of sentiments that he can’t possibly believe was the inverse of comforting. Instead, the address had the queasy effect of a serial killer’s mask in a horror movie: It was a failed attempt to look normal that concealed something even more terrifying underneath....
Well, it seemed more curious and almost playful to me from the headline, but it turned out to be just about what I was imagining in the Rubin piece I didn't read.
But the WaPo readers probably love this sort of thing. I see the top-rated comment is:
"...the address had the queasy effect of a serial killer’s mask in a horror movie: It was a failed attempt to look normal that concealed something even more terrifying underneath."
"'We have great relationship. Make sure you tell them that.' Mr. Rosenstein declined to comment for this article. In a statement, a Justice Department spokeswoman said he has a 'productive working relationship' with Mr. Trump. As the Mueller investigation proceeds, their relationship may sour. Mr. Trump has consistently called it a 'witch hunt,' and Mr. Rosenstein has said protecting the probe is a priority. But the rapprochement may signal that, despite the president’s public statements, the investigation isn’t in immediate danger of being halted. Senior White House officials privately praise Mr. Rosenstein’s handling of demands by congressional Republicans to share internal documents on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigations of Hillary Clinton’s email server and any Trump campaign contacts with Russia. Some Trump allies—such as Reps. Mark Meadows (R., N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R., Ohio)—accuse Mr. Rosenstein of stonewalling, but White House officials say they view their effort to impeach Mr. Rosenstein as a sideshow. Indeed, the president has recently come to rely on Mr. Rosenstein, the No. 2 at the Justice Department whom the White House increasingly views as the No. 1, given the president’s disenchantment with Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation because he served on the Trump campaign...."
That outraged Twitter user was correct: This is a competition about singing. And Ada Vox, entertaining performer though she doubtless is, was not the best singer. No, ma’am.
Most of us were thrilled to see a contestant breaking down another barrier. We were excited to see an out and proud contestant doing well and living their truth on an American institution.... Ada Vox was not eliminated because she didn’t conform to the societal norms of “Idol” viewers; she was eliminated because she didn’t conform to the key of the song.
Remember, contestants don’t get voted off “American Idol.” They failed to get voted on. Ada Vox didn’t have millions of people logging on or calling into ABC and voting to remove her from the show. She simply couldn’t grab enough viewers (or high Bs in “Circle of Life”) to compel them to vote for her.
2. I'm not so sure what Vox was doing counts as "living their truth." Vox is a drag character created by Adam Sanders after he tried out for the show 12 times as Adam Sanders and never got too far. The female performance was much more successful than what I would guess Sanders prefers — showing himself as a nonconforming male. Wasn't what he tried 12 times more the truth than the drag performance?
3. I give a lot of credit to Clay Aiken for going on the show in 2003 and presenting himself forthrightly as as a nontraditional male (basically, what Sanders attempted 12 times before turning to drag):
"But at some point I fight back, and it won't be pretty," said Donald Trump on a radio show when he was asked about John McCain's speech complaining about "half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems."
McCain's line sounds nasty as he delivered it (which you can see at the link), but really isn't that bad if you examine it word for word. He's not denouncing "nationalism," just nationalism that's not good enough. And he's saying he prefers to solve problems. That is, he's not that interested in ideas, and yet maybe he would be interested in an idea — including nationalism — if the people using it would develop it in a careful and serious way.
I'm also interested in the mixed metaphor because of the effort to keep it unmixed by pairing "half-baked" with "cooked" and then wrecking it with "scapegoats." Though goats can be cooked, a scapegoat is not cooked, but sent out into the wilderness.
Looking at that picture, I wondered if the "scape" in "scapegoat" was like the "scape" in "landscape," but the OED tells me it's like the "scape" in "escape.” "Landscape" comes from the Dutch "landschap," with the "schap" part being like the "-ship" ending in words like "friendship" and "scholarship." The word "landscape" began in painting, and I did like that painting of the scapegoat in the landscape. I'd like to title it "Goatscape."
Not sending a great signal on child labor, minimum wage & occupational safety >> Trump White House lets a 10-year-old volunteer mow its lawn https://t.co/uj7N9Mr8Yi
"President Trump is doing the right thing by going to Texas," said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked for Marco Rubio's presidential campaign. "Nothing can replace seeing a disaster firsthand.... Whenever a president visits a disaster site or meets with victims of a tragedy, it's important that he not make the visit about him... "
Kevin Madden, a former senior adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns, [said] ... "For Trump, the key here will be blocking out distractions and keeping his words and deeds squarely focused on the rescue missions, the humanitarian relief and economic recovery that needs to take place. It can't be about him or taking credit...."...
"Those remarks should be inclusive, healing and aspirational in terms of focus on the future," GOP strategist Phil Musser said. But Trump also has to show "command of the situation — the operational tick-tock — that demonstrates that the leader of the government is in charge, focused on the challenge and resolving it as quickly as possible, and on top of things...."
President Trump, who has faced unyielding — and bipartisan — criticism after saying that there was “blame on both sides” in Charlottesville, tweeted Saturday that he wanted “to applaud the many protestors in Boston who are speaking out against bigotry and hate. Our country will soon come together as one!”
He also wrote: “Our great country has been divided for decades. Sometimes you need protest in order to heal, & we will heal, & be stronger than ever before!”
It was an abrupt shift in tone. The president posted earlier Saturday that it appeared there were “many anti-police agitators in Boston.”
That's not just a nonsense misspelling like covfefe. "Heel" has meaning, as a tweeter named @dexter_doggie barked: “Donald Trump intends to bring you to heel."
It was a loose, good-humored side of Mr. Trump that the public rarely sees amid the fusillade of angry speeches and venomous tweets that have characterized the president’s first six months in the White House. And it came to light only because he retroactively put the session on the record, asking a reporter the next morning why she had not quoted his remarks....
In some ways, Mr. Trump has reversed the usual dichotomy between the public and private president.
“One of the great differences between Trump and more successful politicians, like J.F.K. and F.D.R., is that they would vent their spleen in private, but in public, they would project a more humorous and civilized face,” said Robert Dallek, a presidential historian....
He's getting some great press from the NYT here. But maybe it's a trick. Loosen him up, get him on record. He'll speak freely and... well, what? What will be worse than what he already says in rallies and on Twitter? I don't know, but this made me laugh:
For reporters who covered Mr. Trump before he became president, there was a familiar discursive rhythm to his remarks.... They ranged from quirky boasts... They revealed a man getting a crash course in the world... but one who still sees things through a real estate prism.... And they showed someone who recognizes that his observations occasionally edge into the surreal. “As crazy as that sounds,” Mr. Trump said, after explaining why the border wall with Mexico needed to be transparent: to prevent drug dealers from throwing 60-pound sacks of drugs over it and hitting unsuspecting Americans on their heads.
I read that and wanted to tell Meade why Trump thinks the wall needs to be transparent and I was laughing so hard I could not say the word "heads."
This really struck me, on ABC's "This Week" show yesterday. At the end of an interview about various political matters — which, of course, had her very critical of Trump — Nancy Pelosi was asked a question about her personal interaction with Trump:
GEORGE KARL: How often do you talk to the president?
NANCY PELOSI: I have no complaint that I don’t talk to him enough.
KARL: So you hear from him with regularity?
PELOSI: No, I wouldn't say -- well, I talk to him enough.
See how she catches herself there. She goes on, as if seized by some need to be honest or awareness of how Trump will react and respond to her in private.
I mean, I have spoken to him and I’ve spoken to his administration about issues. And we have a courteous, really cordial respectful conversation.
We have a courteous, really cordial respectful conversation. That means a lot, and — on video — she looked and sounded reflective and aware of the need to give the man his due.
But -- I always grant people their position. I respect what you believe in and what you have come to do.
They have respectful conversation and she respects what he believes in and what he has come to do. Respect, respect.
I’m not actually sure what he believes in yet. But if it's reflected in his budget, we will fight that.
That's stepping back into the political position, and then:
But he knows that. And -- so I think we have -- I think we have a -- shall we say, an understanding.
Barack Obama is turning his new home in the posh Kalorama section of the nation's capital - just two miles away from the White House - into the nerve center of the mounting insurgency against his successor, President Donald J. Trump.
Obama's goal, according to a close family friend, is to oust Trump from the presidency either by forcing his resignation or through his impeachment.
And Obama is being aided in his political crusade by his longtime consigliere, Valerie Jarrett, who has moved into the 8,200-square-foot, $5.3-million Kaloroma mansion with the former president and Michelle Obama, long time best friend...
Do Democrats really benefit from Obama's help? Looking at the last 8 years, I'd think they be screaming Stop helping us. Maybe he's not even trying to help the party that fell to pieces and shrunk to next to nothing during his leadership. If he wanted to help, he should withdraw from the scene, in classic ex-President style, and give other stars in his party a chance to rise.
As the "close family friend" reportedly said, the idea is not to rebuild the Democratic Party at all, but to undermine the current President. I can't believe a former President thinks that's a dignified role for himself.
It's interesting to hear this so soon after Trump's well-received address to Congress. Trump turned to the light (from the "dark" inaugural speech). Who can forget the old Obama credo "When they go low, we go high"? If Trump has finally gotten people other than his core supporters to see him as going high, are the Obamas now going to go low and seek to undercut him at every turn?
The effort to associate Trump with disorder — craziness and abnormality — is failing. I don't think it will work out well for Democratic Party to shift from fretting and scaring us about disorder to working to increase disorder by disrupting a presidency that people see as a force for order.
I listened to the big speech last night and some of the CNN commentary that followed it — including the strangely ecstatic Van Jones...
And I listened to that crabby former governor grousing from a diner in the hinterlands. I was listening from further into the hinterlands than he was talking from, but I — like my fellow hinterlanders as I imagine them — was yelling "Who the hell are you?" at the TV screen.
And I'm scanning the headlines this morning. Here's how the NYT — of late so hostile to Trump — presents it:
Hopeful? Vision? He didn't just get hopeful or vision. He got hopeful and vision. Well, maybe this is a setup for a later takedown: He was so good that one time. All that promise. Crushed. What happened to the man who stirred our hearts? I thought it might be love. I thought we could be so happy together. But it was just a one night stand. He lied to me.
Maybe Van Jones got the same memo. If this is political theater, let's be sharp figuring out who's faking it. I think they're all faking it, and everybody wants something.
As for Carryn Owens, I don't think anyone short of Renee Maria Falconetti in "The Passion of Joan of Arc" can fake emotion like that. But she participated in theater and chose to do it. She put herself in a position where millions would look at her face as the President of the United States bathed her in words about her dead beloved. Real emotion poured forth with melodrama beyond anything I have ever seen on television. It was real emotion appropriated for a political purpose, but there is no necessary connection between the meaning of that emotion for her and the political meaning that found its way into the mind of the people.
Ah, but the ecstasy! It penetrated deep. Grabbed our pussy. What a night! Many words were spoken. Was this a lasting treasure or just a moment's pleasure?
There's not really any news here — "may never move." Maybe she will. Maybe she won't. She's mysterious!
In other words, US Weekly knows nothing...
"They will reevaluate toward the end of the school year if they will keep this arrangement or if Melania and Barron will move to Washington," [says the unnamed "family insider."] "They could go either way right now. They will ultimately do what's best for Barron."
... but it's still riveting the attention of a certain sort of soft, distanced political observer, the kind that responds to the lure of a cover she sees while waiting in the checkout line at the supermarket.
Just yesterday, I was blogging about the previous week's issue of US Weekly, the one with Trump's 5 children on the cover. The feminist rabble-rouser Jessica Valenti had called for people to cancel their US Weekly subscriptions (as if her readers — or anybody — subscribes to the thing (it's more of a checkout-line impulse buy, isn't it?)). And Mashable's Heather Dockray chided the rag for "normalizing" Trump.
US Weekly may not know much about how the Trumps live their private life, but it must know its audience and what sells magazines. The thing has been around for 40 years. It knows its groove through the culture, the right degree of coziness with politics, the niceness toward celebrities. From its Wikipedia page:
It was acquired by Jan Wenner in 1985 and is a part of Wenner Media LLC, which also publishes Rolling Stone and Men’s Journal... In 1999... Wenner expressed his intention to keep Us "celebrity-friendly" in contrast with the more gossipy character of its competitors. He told The New York Times: "We will be nice to celebrities. A lot of my friends are in the entertainment business."...
[In 2007, Tina Brown said,] "I adore Us Weekly. I think it's a genius magazine. I'm a big fan of magazines that fulfill the goal of what they're trying to be."...
US Weekly is kind of a safe space for people who want to think that celebrities are nice. If you're not one of those people, you're probably not picking up US Weekly anyway. It's not for you. But the don't-normalize-Trump crowd might get upset because they need the whole supermarket to be a safe space and these Trump covers are impinging on their mental peace. These people have to worry that other people like the magazine, and what is on the cover is presumably what US Weekly knows (or expects) those other people to like.
And the Trumps are getting the usual nice family-love-oriented treatment. From the current mysterious Melania article:
Though living 200 miles apart is unprecedented for a president and first lady, it suits the fiercely independent Donald just fine.
Fiercely independent. That's US Weekly's spin on this:
When ABC News anchor David Muir asked January 25 if not having Melania, 46, or Barron around left him feeling lonely, he responded, "No, because I end up working longer. And that's OK."
What I like to think Trump was saying there is that he knows he signed up for a big job and he intends to work hard on it, for us, as he said he would do. In this view, living in the White House is not about getting lots of family time. If you need too much of that, stay out of the White House. This is a major workplace, not a domestic retreat.
And if he's the one who goes to her — and she stays in where she is, in place, embedded in her life, with her activities and friends and associates — shouldn't feminists celebrate? Maybe she's one who is "fiercely independent." But look at the "abused Melania" meme:
Wrote General James 'Mad Dog' Mattis, in a letter from a few years back (which is getting shared this week, now that Trump has named Mattis for Secretary of Defense). Mattis was reacting to people who say they're too busy to read.
"... but that when I was he usually deserved it, always appreciated it, and keep it up. He spoke of other things; he characterized for me my career. I’d heard of his charm offensive, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say how charming, funny and frank he was—and, as I say, how modest. How actually humble. It moved me. And it hurt to a degree a few weeks later when I wrote in this space that 'Sane Donald Trump' would win in a landslide but that the one we had long seen, the crazed, shallow one, wouldn’t, and didn’t deserve to. Is it possible there are deeper reserves of humility, modesty and good intent lurking around in there than we know? And maybe a toolbox, too, that can screw those things together and produce something good?"
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