Freak Out Friday – April 20, 2018

I’m a big fan of “Designated Survivor.” In this season, President Kirkman has pretty much been going through hëll. The accidental death of his wife shattered him, and at the insistence of his staff, he wound up sitting down with a therapist and trying to piece his life back together. But it turns out that someone has obtained recordings of the sessions (it’s always recordings that screw presidents, isn’t it) and released them to the nation. Kirkman’s self-admitted mental difficulties have prompted the VP and his cabinet to implement the 25th amendment in order to relieve him of duty.

And I couldn’t help but think what a stark line has been driven between fact and fiction. Kirkman is victimized by some áššhølë who releases private moments and doubts, and his cabinet wants to push him out. Yet Trump’s private recordings get released, and he’s still elected president. While in office, he displays the clear attitudes and actions of someone who is not mentally fit to be president, and yet the VP and his own cabinet do nothing to challenge him. They look away or they look up their own áššëš and ignore him, giving him license to do whatever the hëll he wants even though it lowers the bar for what is considered acceptable behavior.

Remember Gary Hart? He was the front runner for the Democratic candidate for President in 1988. Then it was revealed he’d had an extra-marital affair with Donna Rice. Boom, he was out. Because we had standards for the presidency back then. If you could cheat on your wife, then you could cheat on the American public. So you were unacceptable. Contrast that to current days where a serial adulterer is the president and no one blinks an eye. One wonders how in God’s name the actions that we would refuse to accept in a president could have spiraled so low in just thirty years.

So what has the jerk-in-chief been up to this week?

1). Howling at the Moon. Trump’s twitter feed has been very lively in the past week as he continues to battle back against the “slime ball” James Comey. Hillary supporters really have no idea how to react. On the one hand we despise Comey because his election surprise regarding her email definitely helped get Trump elected. But his book (which I am in the midst of reading) gives us a no-holds-barred view of Trump, and to say it is unflattering is to understate it. Naturally Trump drives its sales by howling that Comey is a liar.

Seriously? The man who is so determined to maintain an ethical standard that he helped sink Hillary is now lying about Trump? Only Trump’s most dedicated supporters would buy into that because they will accept anything he says. Why? Self-preservation. They cannot accept that they were so astoundingly wrong about the Fake POTUS, and so they will seize any excuse Trump gives them in order to preserve their own innocence in foisting this fiasco of a Prez on America.

2). Old sins come back to haunt you.. A former reporter for Forbes stated that back in the 1980s, when Forbes was assembling its list of the Forbes 400–the 400 richest, most powerful people in the world–Trump called him pretending to be the fictional employee John Barron and convicted the reporter that his “boss,” Trump, should definitely be on the list, even though his debt load and lack of assets should have kept him off. In the world of Gary Hart, that alone would get the 25th amendment into motion. Nowadays we just shrug and say, “It figures.”

We need to fight against this. We have to reassert our mentality so that we don’t accept the lowered bar that Trump has set as the new norm.

3). The non-Sean Astin Rudy. . At the insistence of the GOP, Comey released his memos that he made back when he interacted with Trump. This was a remarkably stupid thing for the Republicans to do because all it does is back up everything Comey wrote in his book and makes Trump look even worse. They lend remarkable validity to the notion that Trump obstructed justice with his firing of Comey.

So what has Trump done to rebut this? He’s added Rudy Giuliani to his team of lawyers. This certainly tracks with Trump’s preferences because when the time came to choose a new Supreme Court judge, Rudy was his first choice right up until the staff convinced him to go elsewhere. It’s obvious that Trump still adores him even though Rudy’s PR stock has gone significantly south since his “glory” days of 9/11. What impact Rudy will have remains to be seen, but I very much doubt it will be anything positive.

Did he do anything right?
Actually, he did. He decided not to attend Barbara Bush’s funeral. He’s sending his wife instead. Smart. Why should this walking stick of dynamite risk setting off confrontations with his predecessors at such a serious event? Even his showing up would have added tension to the proceedings. Whoever convinced him not to go made a smart move.

22 comments on “Freak Out Friday – April 20, 2018

  1. A couple of observations:
    1) The lowering of the bar from Hart to Trump. Back in the day, the “family values” talking heads would have argued that this is a reflection of the scandalous and perilous decline in society’s values due to the liberal media, feminism, tack of prayer in schools, blah, blah…you name it. But, in the Trump era, the same folks who got in high dudgeon over Democratic immorality run to embrace Tangerine Mussolini. Cause he’s a winner!
    2) Check list of Giuliani qualifications for the Trump legal team:
    a) Loyal to DJT – check! b) Has a very flexible view of “truth” – check! c) Has a very flexible view of marriage vows – bonus points!

  2. Wow, lots to unpack here.

    1) I supported Gary Hart (even went to his Washington Square rally) until that bonehead challenge to the media to find dirt on him, which they promptly obliged. One of the big differences between that (and of course the Bill Clinton impeachment) and today, besides the obvious IOKIYAR (It’s Okay If You’re A Republican) rule, is that the role of the media has completely flipped. What used to be seen as a public service in the days of Watergate is now run as strictly for-profit. It’s now in the media’s best interest to play up sensationalism for ratings, rather than uphold democracy in their former capacity of The Fifth Estate.

    2) Never heard of Designated Survivor. Who runs it? Robin might be interested.

    3) Rumor has it (absolutely NO confirmation, sorry) that Trump was specifically disinvited to Barbara Bush’s funeral, or strongly asked not to show. This may or may not have anything to do with his buddy Roger Stone’s Instagram posts about her. Even if what Stone said is true (and “vindictive, entitled, mean spirited woman” sounds an awful lot like the Barbara Bush I remember from when her husband and even her son were President), it’s one thing when it’s said by a disinterested observer and quite another when it’s from someone with a platform like Stone has.

    1. Designated Survivor was created by David Guggenheim and stars Keifer Sutherland (who also exec produces.)
      The series has a very vulnerable, yet ethically strong President. The feel is a lot like that of The West Wing, especially with the characters in the staff, though the subplots drive it more like an action adventure than a straight drama.

      1. I’ve found it an enjoyable show, to a point. Too often (and more and more lately) it’s too ridiculous.
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        Apparently there’s only one FBI agent in the world so she has to be the one to interview a high value suspect and also the one to travel to the middle east to carry a personal message from the President and also the one who has to be back in DC to lead a raid. It’s just sloppy writing when the Press Secretary and similar staff are the ones who come up with using drones for surveillance and it’s treated like a brilliant breakthrough because it never occurred to the military. Sloppy, and getting worse, alas.

    2. “Designated Surivor” is an excellent political thriller. The first season was riveting; if you’re given to binge watching, it’s very likely worth it. This season has lost a little off its fastball, but it’s still great entertainment.

      And more than once, it seems that it mirrors the situations facing the United States today, with outcomes and resolutions that would never ever happen under 45. It is easily worth a weekly investment of my time… I think it might be worth yours as well.

  3. Points of order:

    1. As Elayne Riggs noted above, Gary Hart swore to the press they could follow him all they wanted and would see no evidence he was having an affair. They did just that and found the evidence easily (less than a day later if memory serves). I always thought Hart was finished less for having the affair than by challenging the press and apparently thinking ‘they’ll never dare do anything now’. Lousy reasoning like that hurt him much more than his affair.

    2. The Republicans got the Comey notes from the Justice Department, not Comey himself. Still a massively stupid thing to do, compounded by releasing them to the public within hours of getting them. (I mean, didn’t they think they should read them first?!?)

  4. Losing his wife, Kim Raver as new romance, dirty bomb, removing president by 25th amendment?

    I liked this season if Designated Survivor better when it was called 24.

  5. The latest example of “buyer’s remorse” rationalization I’ve seen is people posting “We didn’t vote for him because he had a squeaky clean past! We voted for him because he’s going to get rid of corruption in Washington!”. Yeah, how’s that working out?

  6. Contrast that to current days where a serial adulterer is the president and no one blinks an eye.
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    No one, PAD? Plenty of us are blinking dámņëd hard.
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    I get what you’re sayin’, but there are many people who DO refuse to accept low standards for a president. Please don’t make it sound like everyone in the country is shrugging at the current state of affairs.

  7. With all the lies, erratic behavior, conflicting interests, lack of respect and lowering standards of the current administration, it seems a good time to ask the following questions:
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    1) What should be the standards of a President of the United States? How should a President act? Where should the Presidential bar be set morally, ethically, mentally, physically? What (if any) requirements, qualifications and/or examinations should a President or Presidential candidate pass/meet?
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    2) If you could create and design your ideal President, what would you do? What characteristics would you choose? What would be your President’s social, educational and professional background? What values, principles and interests would your President have? How would your ideal President behave? What would your President’s personality be?
    .
    Thank you for your time. Keep writing!

    1. It’s not a particularly high bar we need to set. It only seems so given Trump and his supporters have set the bar so low.
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      For president I’d want someone who isn’t a hypocrite. Who won’t use the office for personal gain. Who sees their primary responsibility as making things better for other people. Who believes in facts and not ideological dogma.

  8. PAD sez:

    Remember Gary Hart? He was the front runner for the Democratic candidate for President in 1988. Then it was revealed he’d had an extra-marital affair with Donna Rice. Boom, he was out. Because we had standards for the presidency back then. If you could cheat on your wife, then you could cheat on the American public. So you were unacceptable. Contrast that to current days where a serial adulterer is the president and no one blinks an eye. One wonders how in God’s name the actions that we would refuse to accept in a president could have spiraled so low in just thirty years.

    I think when, as a society, we gave Bill Clinton a sort of “second chance” pass on Gennifer Flowers, we were already “been there, done that” with candidates cheating on their wives, even before they were candidates for POTUS. It didn’t matter at that point. Especially with the tactical advantage Bill had with Hilary by his side on the interview.

    I think when it gets messy on the whole attempt to impeach him was the whole Partisan way it was done. I mean, I was further to the Right than I am now and I couldn’t countenance perjury and obstruction of justice… But you’ve got to actual meat to the bones if you’re going with that stuff, especially when you’re trying to impeach a President. The House didn’t and so they paid the price thanks to their wet noodle cases. Several prices in fact.

    But getting back to the point, it seems that actually, Bill Clinton’s survival of that process taught Trump one thing. If you’re feisty enough, loud enough, and stubborn enough, you can have nightly re-enactments of the orgy scene from “Eyes Wide Shut” and still become President.

    Which makes me wonder why #MeToo hasn’t gone after Trump yet…

    1. So let me see if I understand this. You are taking Gary Hart, who was forced out of the presidential race because he had an affair, and Bill Clinton, who saw an affair nearly end his presidency, with Donald Trump who continues to be supported by the GOP despite his staggering array of affairs and female assault.
      .
      I mean, I get that it’s a standard conservative tactic to excuse their own sins by immediately claiming that the Democrats did even worse and supposedly got away with it, but this is hitting a new low.
      .
      PAD

      1. I’m not saying that Clinton got away with worse. I’m saying that the spirit of the times, the zeitgeist, had changed so in 4 short years, America didn’t seem to have a problem with a candidate cheating on his wife and I’m trying to say that would have been the same whether Clinton was Left or Right.

        I’m also saying that I’m not trying to excuse Trump’s since because I didn’t vote for him. I didn’t even want him in the White House to begin with. I voted for Obama twice and I think the only reason. The only reason that this…this Orangehead is in the Oval Office is because a bunch of people falsely believed they had been disenfranchised by the Obama Administration, rather than the Republicans they voted into Congress. because it’s easier to blame one man, rather than 200+ people.

        Cripes, I’m LDS, from Utah, and Republican. That should have meant it was a REQUIREMENT for me to vote for Mitt in 2012. I didn’t. Because despite my lamenting that President Obama didn’t get tougher with Congress, at least I could trust him as opposed to the Romney/Ryan vague the Republicans put up.

        And I like Mr. Keller, how I say Trump makes Warren G. Harding look good, and you automatically pooh pooh it with a “Many women have come forth and accused Trump Cons like you keep pushing them to the sidelines.” I don’t want to push them aside. I want #MeToo to succeed. In fact, I want EVERY WOMAN Trump has mistreated to keep shouting how he did it. I want him to feel the same wrath Weinstein felt and the same abandonment.

        And yet, Peter, I’m starting to think I did sink lower just now without planning or meaning to.

        No, wait… I’ll sink lower.

        To anyone who is a Democrat and didn’t understand me because of my ham-handed phrasing, here it is straight, once and for all, unequivocally:

        I am a Republican, Yes. But I do not support Donald Trump. I do not support the current Republican Congress. They make the Party look bad. They need to stop playing defense to try to maintain both Houses and actually stand up for the actual principles the Party was founded on, rather than try to repeat the idiocy of the Radical Republicans of the Reconstruction Era. They need to represent more than just the dámņ Beltway.

        So anyway, thanks for listening.

  9. I knew when you brought up Gary Hart that some con would bring up Clinton. Surprised it took so long. Oh, and they got a swipe at MeToo in, as well.

    1. Let’s see, the only thing you got right was that I’m a conservative. I brought up Clinton only because I was trying to make a point that in the space of 4 years it was considered “okay” to cheat on your spouse if you’re running for President. Further, I’m gonna double down now and even when Congress was arguing on Articles of Impeachment for Clinton, a lot of Democrats wrote it off for what it was, Republicans going after him more for the fact that cheating on his wife and being caught in a lie, that actually failing in his constitutional duties as President.

      And now I’ll triple down and say if it were a Republican who does cheats and then lies about it and they fail in their constitutional duties as President, then I will say they should resign.

      Hëll, I’ll say it right here, right now. Trump may be the President, but he’s making HARDING look good, and so should resign.

      Oh yeah, and the #MeToo reference wasn’t a swipe. It was a lament that there actually is someone in a form of power who has abused said power on women and they haven’t focused on Trump yet.

      1. Many women have come forth and accused Trump. Cons like you keep pushing them to the sidelines.

      2. Tom Keller:
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        “It was a lament that there actually is someone in a form of power who has abused said power on women and they haven’t focused on Trump yet.”
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        How is that Mr. Waldo “pushing them to the sidelines”? It reads to me that he stated in plain English three times that he wants the women abused by Donald Trump to have center stage, to be heard and acknowledged by all for what happened to them, and for Trump to suffer the consequences.
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        I ask not in hostility, but in trying to understand how these words have apparently said something entirely different to you than they did to me.

  10. Several presidents past Warren Harding had mistresses before or during their time in office: Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy (oh, Ghoddess, Kennedy!), and Johnson.
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    There was also Vice President Rockefeller, who was multiply married, and whose mistress after he left office allowed him to die rather than call an ambulance during his fatal heart attack, because she would have been exposed and embarrassed.
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    My point here is that every one of them (including Harding) kept their private affairs private, leaving it to history to tell us of the women who also loved them (or in Kennedy’s case just went to a bed with him) who were not their wives.
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    It just wasn’t acceptable. As unbelievable as it seems today, there were even a handful of people who thought Ronald Reagan was morally unqualified for the presidency because he had married, divorced, and re-married years later.
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    Whether or not they were quiet for the sake of shame or the sake of political expedience, nonetheless, they were quiet. The case here is that Donald Trump seems to have no sense of shame with regard to anything other than what may yet put him into prison, and has large groups both in the Congress and in the American people who accept his shameless behavior and won’t want to remove him from the office unlike all those others risked.
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    Things might have been different today if Seymour Hersh had run a story he ultimately spiked. He had evidence that JFK’s last paramour was an agent of the East German Stasi, the secret police and espionage agency. If there hadn’t been an assassination, he was going to go public with the story and Barry Goldwater would have been elected in 1964, as a president rumored sleeping with Marilyn Monroe was one thing, but with a president sleeping with a Communist spy was definitely too much for the American people to bear.
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    I suspect that likely would have resulted in an electorate today unwilling to tolerate what Bill Clinton and Donald Trump have done.

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