Flame-throwing, NPR utterances and Canadian visitors
Signal jamming
It’s almost too much to digest, this indiscriminate flame-throwing by the Trumpire.
Not just every day, but most every hour, there’s a fresh and startling pronouncement, often intended to divert attention from a previous declaration that had unintended consequences, but just as often meant to make sure the spotlight remains on a president who is psychologically compelled to dominate the main stage, who must always own the center ring.
He’s a wild improviser, comfortable with instincts honed in reality TV, professional wrestling and casino ownership. Enabled by congressional bootlickers and compliant courts, he has dragged the Republican Party toward authoritarianism, the nation into a duel between demagoguery and democracy, and the world into a dangerous instability.
Perhaps my blood pressure will improve if I unburden myself of these compressed observations:
*Trump’s imperialistic assertions regarding Panama, Canada, Greenland and Gaza make it nearly impossible for us to challenge Russia over Ukraine or China over Taiwan.
*Uncle Sam used to be most of the world’s favorite uncle, not a much-loathed bully.
*Let’s stipulate that the federal government is host to appreciable waste and fraud. Let’s also agree the Trump-Musk chainsaw approach to managing the budget invites unforeseen, unintended repercussions. A studied scalpel—not a manic machete—is what’s required.
Imagine, for a moment, the wide smiles that must have appeared on the faces of spy chiefs in Russia and China when they learned the White House had indiscriminately dismissed about 350 people from some of the most sensitive jobs involving maintenance and protection of America’s nuclear arsenal. Yes, most of the hasty firings were reversed. But might there now be a disaffected worker or two who might be “turned” by an adversary?
*Not many Republican members of Congress are holding town hall meetings these days, allowing them to avoid confronting an unpleasant reality: Their fawning support for Trump is infuriating more constituents.
Once they’ve tasted the power, the principal objective of most members of Congress is to remain there. If they stand up to Trump, they know they may very well face a primary election challenge from someone whose loyalty to Trump is unquestioned and who has access to Musk money.
Some members of Congress—most of them back-benchers—are doing everything but shout “look at me” to win Trump’s approval. There’s a New York congresswoman who introduced legislation to make his birthday a national holiday. There’s a Florida congresswoman who wants to add Trump’s image to Mount Rushmore. And there’s a Tennessee congressman who has introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow Trump to serve a third term.
Trump, of course, believes he won the 2020 election. So isn’t he already serving a third term? Just wonderin’.
Barred from the Oval
It’s very Trumpian for the White House to ban Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One. But I’d be careful about declaring it a violation of the First Amendment.
Let me first say that I consider the AP a national treasure and vital to our democracy. It’s as close as we have, I believe, to a truly objective, broad-based and comprehensive gatherer and distributor of news. A non-profit cooperative founded 179 years ago, it today has reporters in 94 countries.
It also refused to amend its stylebook—followed by many media outlets—to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
It’s bad form for a president to punish a news outlet whose coverage is critical of the administration. But it happens. The Biden Administration, for instance, blocked a New York Post reporter from an event following the newspaper’s aggressive reporting about Biden’s son, Hunter.
The AP can still report news from the White House. It’s just that it now, temporarily I hope, must rely on reports from the “pool” that it normally is part of, for details of what happened in the Oval or aboard the big plane.
We would be better served by having an AP reporter see it all first-hand and not rely on the eyes, ears and outlook of a pool reporter from MSNBC or Fox News.
It’s a small thing
Close to a national treasure is National Public Radio. Its federal funding is at-risk, especially now when the budget is experiencing a hard squeeze.
Accusations that NPR leans left in its news coverage are over-stated. Within the confines of its regular newscasts, I find its coverage balanced and objective. Sometimes, however, casual utterances by program hosts and reporters give critics the ammunition they seek.
A recent example:
On Feb. 14, NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson did a fact-infused, three-minute report about senior federal prosecutors resigning over an order to drop charges against New York City’s mayor.
The circumstances raised legitimate questions. There’s no way around it. But at one point, “Morning Edition” host Leila Fadel’s “hmmm” punctuated Johnson’s report. To me it sounded like an exclamation point, as if to say, “Well now, that’s really something and worth paying attention to.”
An unneeded and unwelcome expression. Let the facts stand on their own.
But what really bothered me came at the very end when Fadel thanked Johnson for her report. Johnson responded, “My pleasure.”
No. That response falls on different ears differently. To some it says, “Happy to give you a full and unbiased report.” To others it sounds like, “I’m happy to have had this chance to tell you about this nasty, festering scandal.”
Johnson should instead have said, “You’re welcome.”
I know. Little thing. But these days, little things count and NPR needs to mind them.
A matter of timing
It was surreal.
A month ago and months away from getting on a plane in Arizona to return to our home in Illinois, I was reading T.J. Newman’s Drowning when my iPhone alerted me to that collision between a commercial jet and a helicopter over the Potomac River, within sight of the Pentagon and Washington’s Reagan National Airport.
Newman is the author of three well-received novels whose page-turning plots benefit from her years as a flight attendant. USA Today calls her “the best in the genre.”
In her best-selling debut, Falling, a commercial airline pilot faces an unthinkable choice: Crash your plane with its 143 passengers or have your family murdered by terrorist-kidnappers.
In Drowning, a jet falls into the Pacific shortly after takeoff. Dozens are killed but another 12, including two young girls, are trapped inside the plane as it sinks to the ocean floor. As gripping as the surviving passengers’ ordeal and attempt at their rescue are, they’re only part of a story with—well, I guess I’ll just say it—surprising emotional depth.
A bond develops between two strangers who’ve lost children, and Newman constructs amazingly evocative conversation between the two little girls fighting for their lives.
Newman’s prodigious research into what an underwater rescue operation would entail results in suspense rooted in realism. But her own experience as a flight attendant shows through. Who else would describe how and why flight attendants trapped in the plane would abstain from drinking any of those single-serving cocktails while awaiting rescue?
“And right now, I guarantee you,” one of them says, “the airline’s C-suite is on their knees praying they can blame this on us and not the plane or maintenance or something they’ll be liable for.”
But human resilience, not blame, is Drowning’s key theme.
I just think I’ll wait until after my return flight to Illinois before I read Newman’s new book, Worst Case Scenario. It’s about what happens when a commercial jetliner crashes into a nuclear power plant.
From north of the border
Our friends John and Vicki, a Canadian couple, were guests in our home earlier this month—a time, I think we can all agree, of unprecedented strain in relations between the U.S. and Canada.
John admitted he felt conflicted about coming to Arizona, particularly after their provincial premier urged people to avoid travel to America and instead spend their money in Canada.
Our friends’ travel had been booked before the November election and they felt comfortable knowing the Vogels didn’t endorse Trump’s saber rattling. John nevertheless said he found it necessary to bite his tongue “on numerous occasions in order to avoid a possible confrontation with folks.”
“We were met with smiles and friendly conversation,” he wrote, “as my wife and I spent $1.60 Canadian for every $1 U.S. Thanks, Trump.”
I should also point out that John and Vicki delighted in Team Canada’s taking the gold medal in the Four Nations Hockey Tournament, an overtime victory over the U.S. And that John took special pleasure in telling me about a MAGA ballcap selling north of the border. “MAGA” stands for “Make America Go Away.”
I saw the hockey tournament opening when Canadians booed our national anthem. I was embarrassed but, strangely, not angered.
Don’t be cruel
Okay, time to lighten up. I think it’s been five years since I offered up this short video of an amorous bird whose girlfriend seems less-than-enamored with Elvis music. If it’s a re-run to you, I’m betting you’re glad it has re-surfaced. Click here. And thanks for reading!
Thanks for your commentary on AP. Tossing AP out of the presidential press pool is so overblown a reaction as to be an excuse. It makes me cringe to compare (even for a moment) AP to the NY Post.
Nice to read about TJ Newman. But what can she write after The Worst Case Scenario?