It has been attributed to Lily Tomlin, the phrase “no matter how cynical you are, you simply cannot keep up” and it is absolute truth with this president. It should be a slow news day, we should be focused upon the lifelong service of an imperfect man, but perfectly admirable public servant, John McCain. We should be able to go a day or two without hearing something that makes you cringe about your very citizenship. We have to deal with a lot of “shoulds” nowadays.
But, is it too much to ask, even of this president, that when he conducts foreign diplomacy over the phone with a foreign ally, a very key foreign ally, that he not; A) BRAZENLY LIE, and B) Brazenly lie about something that happened before Trump was born, claiming to “remember it,” and C) act as if that brazen lie has any bearing upon our current relationship with Japan, which, since 1946, has been nothing but, a great American ally and a huge contributor to peace and progress in science, technology and the arts on the world stage?
Here, have some of this dog’s breakfast, masquerading as foreign policy talks over the phone. Per Rawstory quoting the Washington Post.
In the tense June call, Trump told Japanese Prime MInister Shinzo Abe that “I remember Pearl Harbor,” referring to the attack that brought the United States into the Second World war, which concluded before Trump was born in 1946.
Trump’s rant was part of “a blistering critique of Japan’s economic policies,” sources told the Post and complained that the Japanese don’t buy as many American goods as Americans buy Japanese goods.
“The meeting, which left Abe exasperated, epitomized the paradoxical nature of Trump’s closest relationship with a foreign leader,” the Post reports.
To make matters even worse, and explain the “paradoxical” portion of the above, apparently Prime Minister Abe is one of the world leaders that Trump actually “likes,” though he also “trash talks” about Abe.
We all know that the only prism by which Trump views the world is “How is this person or thing valuable to me, individually?” And – as one would expect of a large sophisticated nation – Japan apparently elected a man who understands human nature, and knows how to work Trump. According to the article, Abe never outright denies what Trump says, because it does nothing but rail Trump up. Rather he waits for openings and makes a counterpoint with an angle. So, the Prime Minister ably handles his own nation’s foreign policy by working Trump over, but even he was exasperated by this?
In the name of all that is holy, what the ever living fk is going on?
Can we just “reset” for just a second and think again that this is supposed to be the President of the United States? The President of the United States is supposed to be a person whom we can trust to not make a complete and total ass of himself in the middle of a phone call involving trade, by not LYING about remembering Pearl Harbor, as if Prime Minister Abe had any more to do with the attack than Donald “never-to-be-sufficiently-damned” Trump.
I remember Pearl Harbor, too. I recall it happened before I was born, and planned by men who died long ago, and carried out by a nation that paid perhaps the highest price ever paid by civilians for doing so. Look, I don’t belong anywhere near the White House, and yet I know where certain lines must be drawn when engaging in diplomacy. You mustn’t lie, at least not about black and white facts (Perhaps about what a nation knows through intelligence, yes) and you must be reasonable, i.e. not holding the Pearl Harbor attack against people who themselves were not born at the time it occurred, never mind responsible. How hard is that?
Jesus, we can’t even block and tackle, and yet we’re supposed to be a “superpower”? This is Japan, perhaps our most necessary ally in the most populated portion of the world, the portion of the world that is emerging much more strongly than any other right now, too. Dare I say that we need Japan as an ally even more than they need us right now?
No, you try and try and try to reach the level of cynicism required to deal with this president, and it simply is never enough.
Twitter: @MiciakZoom
