For many Australians Trump has always seemed like a crook. Some of us have feared him angling to build a garish Trump tower off his presidency here and that one of our constantly revolving and prone - to - grovelling prime ministers might even encourage it.
In the Eighties,Trump tendered with a local construction firm to build a casino in Sydney in the state of New South Wales. The NSW Police Board which vetted the applicants advised the government against him (and two other applicants) because of mafia connections and also believed his financial estimates were not to be trusted.
“The board is firmly of the view that on tests of sound repute, probity and integrity, none of the three consortia … can be considered acceptable; indeed each would be dangerous.”
“Atlantic City would be a dubious model for Sydney and in our judgement, the Trump mafia connections should exclude the Kern/Trump consortium,” a summary of the police board’s report said.
In about 6 months we have another election and despite the best efforts of the Rupert Murdoch media here the left wing opposition party is predicted to win. (We seem to be over the far right thought bubbles of the current conservative party, along with a surfeit of prime ministers.) Our next possible prime minister is on record however as calling Trump "barking mad" so things might be a bit tense.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/16/trumps-bid-for-sydney-casino-30-years-ago-rejected-due-to-mafia-connections
6
Trump pal Elliott Broidy was charged with money laundering from Malaysia while you were writing this column. Please add postscript: Harding and Nixon would never have stooped this low.
2
I came upon the PBS Frontline story on the Trump 2016 campaign the other night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMwXKl0odq8
He is a monster. Anyone who believes it is a given that he will be defeated in 2020 should watch the show as a sobering refresher. I'm still not sure there is anyone in the Democratic Party who can match this political Godzilla.
4
Clearly Gail Collins doesn't read The New York Times' own reporting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnsons-vietnam-peace-talks-in-68-notes-show.html
^ In 2017, The Times revealed that Richard Nixon sabotaged the peace talks in October 1968 between the Johnson administration and the Vietnamese least the cessation of hostilities undermine his electoral prospects.
That a U.S. politician deliberately prolonged a bloody war—in which 58,000 American soldiers and several million Vietnamese died—for electoral gain is staggering.
So, no, Trump does NOT top Tricky Dick . . . yet.
2
Watergate is just Tuesday at the Trump White House.
155
Their IS light at the end of the Trump tunnel. SENATOR Romney goes to Washington in January. DOG??? Car or Plane ?
Place your Bets. I’m going with Poodles. Ann looks like a poodle gal. Seriously.
28
The stench is strong.
57
"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H. L. Mencken
in The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
179
Trump and his family remind me of the famous Duvalier clan of Haiti. Or perhaps the Marcos crime family in the Philippines. If Trump starts to have his face carved into Mt Rushmore, would anyone be surprised?
61
We can only hope the flames he goes down in are so spectacular that even his most sycophantic supporters will agree he has to go.
118
It's reported that Vladdy the High-Fiver, well, gave the Butcher of Saudi Arabia, MBS, a 'high five' when they convened recently. How quaint! And these are D.T.'s pals in this worldly dystopia we are living in. Cohen, Flynn, Corsi, Manafort, Stone, etc. ad nauseam, are light weights compared to Putin and MBS.
And let's give a big shout out to Duterte of the Philippines, another compadre of our gentle giant of the golf cart. He who encourages the police to engage in non-judicial slaughter.
Oh, the laughs these boys will have when they convene after their tours of 'duty' have expired.
42
If only Tricky Dicky had had a Putin to pull his compromised strings, Tricky Dicky could have out-trumped Trump.
Which is the more appropriate term: “Putin’s poodle” or “Putin’s puppet”?
Or should we settle for “Vlad’s lad”?
30
A chuckle here, a chuckle there--- good for Gail. But she clearly writes from a position of comfort and of assurance that we live in the best of all possible worlds. America is on the brink, Gail. Get off your recliner. It's not just Trump and his forty thousand thieves... see the latest Zinke garbage?? It's not just tikki-torchers. Or McConnell. Or the Koch Bros. Have you noticed how many Democratic senators remain in the South and its annexes across the South West? Pulblic hangings were just endorsed in Mississippi!
53
When will #45 resign?
29
Richard Nixon spent not a day in the Hanoi Hilton.
Vladimir Putin ran and runs the Lubyanka.
Alcatraz is closed.
Then whither Trump?
A prison named Infamy and Ignominy.
21
President Nixon was not a bad president but one who handled Watergate poorly.When we wake up we will realize that the worst president we had was Barak Obama.Obama stifled the economy,worsened racial relations,foreign policy that caused the disaster that was Isis,Libya, Iraq and Syria.Millions died because of his ignorance.Indirectly caused the refugee crisis of Europe.I voted for him the first time because his promises.Never again will I vote for a community organizer.
13
Trump makes me wish that we still had Dick Nixon to kick around.
29
Tricky Dick wasn't a draft dodger.
45
Gail, I'd be happy to buy the Moscow hotel you have for sale.
5
Each man has inflicted unfathomable pain and damage to America.
Nixon helped sabotage Johnson's efforts to coordinate a peace treaty and end the Viet Nam war before he left office. Millions more of our soldiers were sent to die for the sake of Nixon's thirst for power.
With Trump the thirst for power and money has undermined our country's standing and trust as a global leader. His unyielding cruelty keeps our citizens on edge. His wily manipulation of our country's worst deficient, systemic racism, keeps us divided.
50
Trumps ability to incrimentally subvert the norms in an advanced society is an abject history lesson in real time that shows us how another demagogue in another advanced society not that many years ago was able to subvert the norms of that time resulting in a worldwide catastrophe. We can only pray we do not face a similar result.
37
Are you out of your mind? Nixon was nearly impeached. Trump is smart and trust me... the moment is forced to resign, he will fight the reelection and win handsomely. If anything, recent elections show that they still have a sway over electoral politics. I hope Biden runs. He's Democrats' only hope. And maybe Bernie. He can at least make a race out of it. Others won't be able to stop his reelection.
8
It just occurred to me. This is a nationwide problem. We are similarly hiring and appointing inept bullies with questionable competence as our leaders everywhere, in corporate and academic America. We think we are insulated from dumb bullies if we continue doing our job, and want nothing except for her or him to hurt those people we resent.
Cool insight Gail.
18
When you are investigating an unknown subject, the principle is to dig and dig further until you hit the bottom. In his famous letters to his son, Lord Chesterfield called this process "bottoming". One assumes this is what Mueller is doing. In Trump's case, it's an open question where the bottom is. He is a gangster for sure, but a particularly stupid one too. Stupid in the ordinary sense of the word, that is, low IQ. How he got elected President is a truly Shakepearian subject. Richard III became king, didn't he?
33
“...but at least he wasn’t negotiating to build, say, a hotel in Hanoi at the same time.” But remember that while campaigning during 1968, he was secretly and illegally negotiating with a foreign agent against the interests of the United States.
22
Tricky Dick was crooked, but at least he appeared to act rational. He kept his inner angst out of his public agenda, at least until it was exposed, and when it became inevitable, he exited gracefully.
In spite of what you might think of him and his agenda, he advanced our country's interests with a more or less steady hand. We were not the laughingstock of the world when he was president.
I was in the Marines for part of his presidency. I don't recall thinking, or hearing any other Marine saying "God, this is the person who might order me into combat." I wonder if that is true today.
I was no fan of Tricky Dick, but Trump takes it to a whole new level.
46
Nixon didn’t have Fox News, and the WSJ wasn’t owned by Rupert Murdoch back then.
48
Trump said his old fixer [Cohen] was “a weak person and not a very smart person.”
Translation: "Cohen, you should have played for a pardon like the one that is going to be coming Manafort's way."
28
Gail - you just get better and better. Of course you do have a lot of good material to work with.
20
Nicely done Ms Collins! LOL
7
For every day of this presidency, a thread of our collective moral conscience is unraveled and lost. Across the country, workplaces (including state and federal government) have anti-nepotism and sexual harassment laws; they require employees to sign yearly conflict-of-interest statements. Zero tolerance policies have been instituted, and employees have been sacked for transgressions that pale in comparison to DJT’s blatantly illegal activities. We will never be the same again as a country.
26
The Seven Deadly Sins are major moral pitfalls decried by Christians everywhere, and our President could serve the poster boy for every one of them.
Pride: The spray tan, the toupee, the x-long tie.
Greed: the go-to Trump modus operandi.
Lust: Stormy Daniels is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
Envy: Tearing down anything of value Obama contributed to the country...or the world.
Gluttony: Try Googling "Donald Trump eating."
Wrath: Listen to Trump's choice words for Jeff Sessions, Michael Cohen, Steve Bannon, or any reporter who crosses him.
Sloth may be the only sin for which Trump gets a pass, because while he’s a lazy thinker, he does stay pretty active. The nature and quality of those efforts is another story: when not focused on personal enrichment, his energy seems mostly spent in disruptive, distractive and destructive directions.
In short, our nation's leadership seems as far from virtuous as one could possibly get. The hypocrisy and blindness of so-called "Christians" who support this falsest of idols is truly staggering.
59
STATESMANSHIP !
Nixon, in his final days before resigning, had sufficient intelligence and a sense of statesmanship to "read the writing on the wall" and resign his presidency.
Nixon, with all his faults, did have a sense of reality -
More importantly, he ultimately did have a sense of the law.
He had the intelligence to realize the evidence against him and just how accurate and damning it was.
Nixon realized he was about to be impeached and he understood what that process would be for him, his family, and his country - yes his country !
Nixon expedited the inevitable and chose a quick end; he resigned.
Yes, he was disgraced, but he spared this country the arduous task of a prolonged impeachment.
Donald Trump possesses no such intelligence -
Donald Trump does not have any Statesmanship qualities.
Donald Trump does not have any sense of wrong-doing.
Donald Trump dies not have the capacity for shame.
Donald Trump does not care about what damage he does to our country, so long as he can enrich himself and be famous.
The Title of:
"Worst and the Dumbest"
Will be FOREVER held by Donald Trump !
45
"He did toss away his translation earpiece during a meeting with Argentine President Mauricio Macri, claiming he could understand Macri better in Spanish. Can I see a show of hands on how many people will swallow that one?"
Gotta admit, I spit my coffee up on that one. Good one, Gail.
36
The Trump reality show is now funnier than any comedy article .
Sorry Gail!
1
I sometimes wonder who, in the end, has been more culpable in damaging the Republic: Trump or the Republican majority in Congress.
For that congressional majority, Trump is merely a useful (and hence tolerable) idiot, a means to their end of cementing and perpetuating their hold on power and wealth for themselves and their benefactors. Trump may have the civic IQ of a turnip or the conscience of a sociopath, but congressional Republicans knowingly and repeatedly excuse or ignore his idiocy and assaults on the body politic, so long as they have their massive tax cuts and laissez faire and caveat emptor capitalism. McConnell and is ilk know exactly what they are doing, and devil take the hindmost. A Trump by any other name would smell just as sweet to them.
And all the while, non-wealthy Trumpites are having their economic throats cut, and they won't even realize it until they try to turn their heads (if even then).
FDR said that government by organized money is just as bad as government by organized mob. We now have both.
38
Not funny anymore. No longer merely sad. More piteous than pathetic. Banal, to be sure. Erratic, feckless, careening. And yet, for all of that. Grim and acute. Like a cobra under the bed.
9
Trump owns the Senate because he owns McConnell via his wife Elaine Chao as Sec. Transportation. Never see the Press pushing McConnell on this obvious conflict. It’s why I was so disappointed the Senate didn’t flip.
28
I bet if anyone is sick of seeing Michael Cohen's bedraggled-beagle face, it's Donald Trump. I doubt if he recognizes that hang-dog expression though. It's a look of shame and he seems to be the only one in Trump world with any capacity to feel such a thing.
9
Trump wouldn't have needed the Russians if only G. Gordon Liddy had come out of retirement and supervised the break-ins.
3
"I'm not a crook"
7
Well, as Christmas nears, let's all try to think of something nice to say about "The Donald." .....................................??
1
Oh great Con,
Earlicman and Halderman know how cold Lompoc is in the winter. If you don’tbelive them, ask John Dean who used to complain about losing his Porsche to everybody in the yard.
3
In defense of Nixon, there is no record of him ever cheating at golf.
19
Isn't it curious that the CHINESE think that DJT is the SMARTEST POTUS we have ever had? The Chinese are right.
2
Perhaps Trump was avoiding Putin because he was afraid he was going to ask when he was getting his penthouse.
10
Seriously, If a person's character can be determined by the people they pal around with...
...friends and admired acquaintances like...Flynn, Manafort, Cohen, Stone, Fox, Cohn, Putin, Salman, all of the conflicted cabinet members (Pruitt, Price, Carson, Zinke), Porter, Un... the list seems to go on forever...
...then...I think portions of the American people made a very bad presidential election decision. Perhaps January will set some of the record straight.
5
"This whole saga is getting so incredibly … dense."
I'll tell you what's really dense, Gail.
That would be the heads of all the people who live around me who still think Trump is a horribly picked-on "stable genius" and a perfect president who has mobilized the military to protect us from a bunch of bedraggled Hondurans. And not only that, he gave the gift of Brett Kavanaugh, who will work to keep America's naughty women in the kitchen where they belong.
At least Michael Cohen finally figured out he was a fool.
29
Since 'Tricky Dick' is well and truly taken, how about Tricky Digit?
4
Wen the history books are written, there will just be a dark stain next to 45's name.
13
Trump's MAGA train is sliding backwards downhill, overcome by the weight of corruption and greed.
"Tides of sin draw tighter and brighter, hours become heavier and weighted, and the shadows smile...dark and wild."
[The Crow, Stairway to Heaven]
5
The courage, decency and fundamental human goodness exhibited by President Trump in the face of a crazy, unhinged, violent pack of drooling coup-plotters is truly inspiring!
2
"preferring a golf cart ride to a walk with world leaders".
Gail, did you forget, he has bone spurs.
19
Keep your opinion pieces coming, Gail. So clever. So droll. So sad (to borrow a phrase). I can't help but wonder what you'd be writing about if Ohio and Michigan had gone Hillary's way.
4
OMG you really outdid yourself with this one. I laughed so hard I spit my midnight snack all over my laptop.
3
Gail, there are dozens of Trump hotels and Trump towers all over the world. Apparently there are 33 of them all around the world. Are we going to go to war with all 33? There are such hotels and properties in Indonesia, Panama, Israel, Philippines. And if we are, could we please not start with the one which has 4000 nuclear weapons? The whole business about the "Russian hotel" is utter nonsense.
Gail, you used to be more balanced at one time and I used to admire you. But now you blindly repeat anything stupid which the editorial board here says.
It is a loss.
3
Manafort's in a class all by himself. Out on bail, wearing ankle bracelets on both ankles, he was discovered attempting to suborn perjury and remanded to custody until his court date. Meanwhile his lawyer was doing a Nunes, running to The White House with the latest intel on Mueller's questioning. This reader wonders if Mueller used Manafort to convey disinformation to POTUS and thus trap his Ace in the Hole partner in crime into making false written declarations - Voila! Smoking gun just in time for Xmas.
13
Ah, come back Tricky Dicky, all might be forgiven, because we now have Tricky-Tricky Trump!
2
This is the beginning of the end.
Did he really throw away the ear piece?
292
Strangely, what bothers me most today is the idea that someday he will die and will lie in state in the Rotunda, to be mourned by a grateful nation.
21
Is anyone surprised? Donald J. Trump telegraphs his strengths and weaknesses blatantly. That he could be elected President of the United States will remain an historic blight on our Electoral system, our educational system, and our corruption. Among the saddest of the latter is the perversion of pro-life and evangelicals to hold their noses and vote for Trump. Sen. Mitch McConnell too was complicit in this legal stunt. Wl all now face the consequences as the Ship of State sinks.
21
Possibly some voters thought in the 60s that sending a criminal (Nixon) to deal with criminals was a good strategy. The result was a 6 year horrific war, that might have been avoided by Johnson, had not Nixon undermined peace negotiations.
Voters fed up with both the Republicans and Democrats choosing Trump is a different deal. They are slowly becoming aware that his criminality is to pick their pockets, just as he has consistently tried to do with those engaged with him in any of his previous business deals. How much, the amount, of his illegality is tied up with the Russians remains to be seen, but they know he can't afford any disclosures from them. Republicans have also been aware of this--they see him as compromised to do their bidding as much as the Russians.
5
Hey Gail, how about those not indicted yet? My personal favorite is Pence, who has managed to appear above the fray carrying on professionally with decorum fitting a statesman, while simultaneously supporting the most corrupt administration in history! To those who think he didn’t and doesn’t know anything untoward not to be supportive, I’ve got a Moscow deal for you. He knew that Flynn was compromised, as he headed the transition team for Trump and was told by the head of ethics, Elijah Cummings, weeks before Flynn supposedly left because he lied to the Vice President about talking to Russians telling them not to be too upset about the sanctions because Trump would do as he promised and lift those sanctions and he much more favorable to Russia, if he can get away with it. Of course, Trump fires Comey, then Rosenstein appoints Mueller to investigate Russia, which means Russia’s plan for Trumps support is more limited, but still worthy of high fives from the myrderoys dictator of the Saudi’s who America is told they cannot refute because we have an arms deal with, which probably means that more than just Russia is propping up Trump and his businesses, including his son-in-laws interests. Justice will be served. The day of reckoning is coming. Pence can pretend to be above the fray but God knows the motivations of the heart and his are not pure. The self-righteous Pharisees were scorned by Jesus because they were a stumbling block to those looking to know truth.
21
They are dumb alright, but people are good at what they love, so, as applied to this slimy bunch, that's not hard to sort out.
I've never liked the Nixon comparisons. Say what we want about Nixon (most of which makes Watergate seem like jaywalking, btw), but Nixon was a serious person. And he did serious things as president, some of which were good (the liberal-by-today's-standards ones).
And thanks for calling out the irony of Roy Cohn's mentee crying about McCarthyism, which is only burnished by the fact that Trump, literally, would probably not know what we're talking about.
I think he will wait until his son is indicted, at which point he'll instruct Whitaker to pull the plug on Mueller; then he'll go on Fox and try to act like Vito Corleone "protecting the family". He'll figure he can sell that line to the magaoids and rile them to his side, to the point where he can weather this.
11
Imagine Trump dressed in a Santa outfit--it is that time of year when fantasy reigns you know. He shouldn't find it difficult to find togs that fit. Imagine the sleigh as a golf cart surrounded by buff Secret Service guys, apparently pulling it along. The one in front is wearing a bright red MAGA hat. Imagine the elves--there are so many, though they do appear to be dressed in prison stripes. They certainly do get left out in the cold a lot. Maybe that's their new gear. Now, what's in that bag of his? YES! Lumps of beautiful, clean coal! American coal too!! A cartoon strip begs to be drawn. Maybe that's it, we are collectively dreaming a cartoon and don't seem to be able to wake up to that wonderful morning of gifts, good cooking and a world a peace. Will we all get there this year? Prospects are poor, but you never know. Even the most credulous believers might wake up to the idea that their Santa as actually a B & E specialist who is about to make off with all the cookies and milk he can swallow before heading back to the shop.
6
“Michael Cohen’s bed-raggled Beagle face...”
My Beagle is insulted.
15
Twohuge issues are of paramount interest to me: climate change and health care costs. I'm 68, so health care's the more immediately pressing one. Already, were it not for my insurance, my wife and I would be in deep trouble financially (either that or I'd be dead). A recent, two-night stay in the hospital recently cost over $200,000. (No surgery, thank god.) But, as pressing as health care costs are, climate change may be the bigger worry, even for me. I recently had to escape air so thick with smoke there wasn't a green tree in sight--the were all dark gray silhouettes against a lighter gray background). And neither the Dems nor the Reps are doing squat about climate change, which makes the hijacking and weaponizing of passenger jets look like, dare I say it, child's play. This President's indifference to national security is depraved.
14
Trump has laid bare the fragility of our “checks and balance.” We have no checks and balances. Trump has given us a road map that can be followed by the next reality star, tin pot despot, to run for president. If we, as a people, as a nation, are smart, we would use that road map to put in place real checks and balances that do not depend on the integrity of a would be president. We need to codify things like disclosing tax returns, business blind trusts, and most importantly, the independence of the Justice Department and Federal law enforcement from the personal will of the executive. We also need standards for the political appointees and Cabinet heads. Matthew Whitaker, as AG is unreal: bottom of the barrel in the real world of practicing attorneys.
27
What other public figure ridicules -- and promises to pardon -- people who cooperate with law enforcement?
Who's side in he...? Oh. Never mind.
8
"You can say a lot of bad things about Cohen"
OK, will do.
Here's the worst thing I can say about him... "Trump".
Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have used a word like that in a family publication like this. But that was the worst thing I could think of on such short notice.
But speaking of the T-word, we better hurry up and call HIM all the bad things we can think of, because he's not going to be around much longer, either. Him, get reelected? Oh, puleeese. He'll be lucky to stay out of a "hair"-matching orange jump suit until 2020. The T-man is just marking time until the next likely suspect wobbles along to fill the Oval Office seat. Really, he's devolved into no more than the Placeholder-In-Chief.
You have to hand it to Cohen, though. Talk about chutzpah! He just asked the judge if he can please please please avoid any jail time when he's sentenced. What a nice idea. I'm sure the judge hadn't thought of that before. And won't.
11
For those who worry about humor deflecting us from serious business: in the hands of Gail Collins, humor serves outrage because she makes so clear just how dangerous this ridiculous buffoon is, parading around the world as if he owns it. [When will "Trump Tower" show up on the moon?] Laughing at him is inseparable from being eager to do what we can to get him off our backs [especially the backs of the particularly vulnerable populations he just loves to brutalize]. Thank you Gail, please keep it up!
17
This was one of the funnier ones.
4
I think that we are about to find out how many hens it takes to reclaim the foxhouse.
6
"So many plea bargains and indictments, so little time."
So many sleazy, immoral opportunists.
But they are just the stocking stuffers. When it's all said and done, I think Santa Mueller will have a difficult time putting a bow around all of the indictments, far too many to wedge down the chimney. Perhaps some coming to a family so adept at evading accountability until now, they've grown accustomed to it. They're all on my wish list, Santa.
13
Great Gail! Yes, it is as if Professor Moriarty (Nixon) was replaced by Billy Batts.
1
Remember No-Drama Obama? It seems like a century ago.
Trump is nothing but a limelight-seeking, corrupt political hack. Everyday we are forced to binge-watch the longest, and worst Trump TV mini-horror series ever broadcast, which should have been canceled a long time ago.
What is Trump going to do when he is out of office? Maybe he can get his own show on Fox--call it "Trump and Foes."
18
@Paul Bernish Well I'll take up your challenge:
One. Economy that grew 3% in last 6 quarters; Obama's was 1.5% in last 6 quarters.
Two. Haven't seen a North Korean rocket or nuclear test since the president's visit. Obama warned Trump that this will be his biggest challenge.
Three. The DHS reports that 2,000+ felons have been deported. I believe this makes America safer.
Four. Yesterday, the re-negotiated NAFTA is more favorable for America especially farmers!
Five ..No Syrian chemical weapon attacks on its people. NASA after being dormant recently put a Lander on Mars. And I could go on, - you just have to stop hating and start observing.
I like America working again not apology tours.
Now to Gail Collins' article. Another former special counsel said: "if most of Mueller's inditements are from lying, the probe is in trouble." Starting with the first, van der Zwaan serving 30 days, Popodplus 15 days, Flynn, Manafort and now Cohen...All for lying.
And as she points out 13 Russians who we'll never see for "Election meddling." Incidentally the mandate was to find any collusion or cooperation in the 2016 Election with Russia. The current rant on CNN and MSNBC is a business deal failure that had nothing remotely to do with Muellers mandate.
I think the probe is in trouble. But then there's Stone and Corsi. Who?
Finally, it's been just reported that DOJ IG has documents that prove "pay to play" at the Clinton Foundation...a crime that John Huber has documented! Stay tuned.
1
Trump shelved his meeting with Putin because of his concern for Russian treatment of Ukrainian ships and sailors?
Tongue in cheek indeed, Ms. Collins.
Bret Stephens, on this same page, endorses Gary Kasparov’s suggestion that “President” Trump respond to the latest Russian assault on the Ukraine as follows:
“Send a flotilla of U.S. and NATO warships through the narrow Kerch Strait to pay a port call to the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov.”
Isn’t it time for “President” Trump to ask himself: What good is a flotilla of warships if you can’t use them?
A mere moment of reflection, however, indicates that Trump obviously cannot avail himself of Kasparov’s advised course of action.
I am reasonably sure that Vlad “the Impaler” Putin is more than willing to remind Trump of the evidence in Putin’s possession that restrains Trump from taking any serious action in opposition to virtually any Russian action or interest.
Komprimat is komprimat no matter how you spell it.
9
...and we got to experience the worst president in history in our lifetimes! Isn't it exciting?!
11
The US is like Superman....
The fact that the US is still prospering and still relevant is a credit to our institutions, the quality of our many exceptional citizens, and to the 'deep state....'
Anyone with a pulse, propped up in the Oval Office, would do....
And, in spite of stumpy, we muscle on.... hurting, but not killed, by his many missteps and attacks....
When he's gone, we can, again, soar....
11
Funniest Gail column in a long time. Not that it's really funny.
5
The higher they climb, the harder they fall. I hope it may be so with Trump.
13
All his life Trump has been drawn to corrupt, mean-spirited and grasping individuals, like his mentor Roy Cohn, and they to him. They have now gravitated to “his” administration in droves and have done and are doing irreparable damage to our environment, our institutions and our global reputation. When they are fired, forced out, or resign for a multitude of sins, he replaces them by once again scraping the bottom of the barrel and coming up with a low-life like Mathew Whittaker.
With the help of our current craven GOP Congress, Trump now seems intent on bending the Constitution/Supreme Court to his will, and we’d better hope that Mueller and his team put an end to his dreams of absolute power- and soon. May Trump and his henchmen be (golf)carted off to the slammer in the new year!
10
This whole Trump charade now has me switched to being a Democrat and a card carrying member of the ACLU...for every negative there is a positive...
16
Gail : You forgot about David Pecker's safe. What delights are in there ? Stay tuned.
12
I saved this article to read when this hideous man is beyond my sight in the rear view mirror. Not until then will this article be able to achieve maximum schtick.
3
"It was all allegedly about Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian ships and sailors. And if you believe that one, I’ve got a Moscow hotel I can sell you."
That about sums it up.
David Dennison
7
Come back Richard Nixon , all is forgiven!!
3
Trump ‘s tweet-toxicity tops Tricky Dick’s tapes—but there is no telling what Tricky Dick might have done if he had access to today’s “sophisticated” electronic technology.
2
Our country is a joke & I will never forgive this depraved man who did it. Nor will I forgive the people who voted for him or the Republicans who worship him.
18
We could awake from this nightmare by electing Robert Mueller President.
7
As usual, Gail, a very good column. However, keeping track of all the criminals in this wretched story is beginning to seem like whack-a-mole.
7
"He did toss away his translation earpiece during a meeting with Argentine President Mauricio Macri, claiming he could understand Macri better in Spanish. "
At least we now understand how the president reached the conclusion that all those foreign leaders were telling him what an incredible job he's been doing. He was doing the 'translating"!
12
To the commenter who wrote she was weeping at the death of Goerge H.W. Bush: Seriously? You weep at the death of a 94-year-old man with longtime illness? George Bush was a rich boy, who was one of the few Amereicans sheltered during Depression. Went to war, shot down twice, lived to tell, as a Sen.'s son, while his two crewmates perished... Oil money, CIA, Reagan coatstrings to the presidency, and of course, his legacy son: "WMDs? Where are they? I don't see any WMD's here?" Now, the only visible legacy left is the overly chatty blonde granddaughter of the Today show. The Bush era of WHite Privilege has been rejected. Let them quietly go on their way, but don't pretend the man was in any way representative of Americans of the Greatest Generation, and that the nation is in mourning today. An ex-president died. What time are the big college champtionship football games on today? Nobody much follows baseball anymore either. Soccer is the rising sport. RIP, pull down the flags to half mast again, ok, but don't think all of your fellow countrymen care much about the latest Bush show. I hope his servants are admitted in to the funeral services...
3
George H.W. Bush, Public Servant.
Donald J. Trump, Individual One.
5
Gail, we know that Trump called Mr. Cohen "A liar" first.
Then he confirmed what his ex-Lawyer said by saying he wanted to pursue a hotel and casino business in Moscow while campaigning in 2016 because "there was a good chance I'd lose".
And all these revelations coming after he continuously denied throughout his campaign, "I've nothing in Russia and I've never met Putin."
All these lies came from a man who created a world record of uttering 6+ thousands lies in less than two years since he became the president.
Well maybe there are professional liars who're languishing in jails for lying more number of times than our Russia flipped head of state.
And as the Justice Dept made a rule right after the Watergate scandal that a sitting president cannot be indicted for lying or committing any other acts of "High Crimes and Misdemeanor", all that our current Special Counsel Robert Mueller can do is taking his own time to finish writing his report and wait for 2018 come to an end.
I'll bet my money that Mr. Mueller will do just that.
He'll wait till Jan 3rd and hand over his report to the new members of the House Judiciary committee in the congress headed by a Democrat rather than current Republican Chairman David Nunes.
Like us on the left, Mr. Mueller knows what Mr. Nunes would do : He'd go straight to the White House in the middle of the night to hand over the report to Trump who'll simply burn it in the gold colored fireplace of the Oval Room in the current White House.
3
Ace in the hole, Gail. And he’s married to a Slovak. You can’t make this stuff up. Priceless.
6
I'll stick with Flynn. He seems the most sinister and dangerous. As Gail says, so far......
2
A good portion of the American electorate loves a man who gives hid audience meaning just by the rhythm of his words :
Trump :,Cohen’s a loser, a liar .,
question : So, why did you have him on your payroll for 12 years?
Trump : he gave me something
Trump speaking as a five year old wows his audience. They wow him back.
5
"Michael Cohen's bedraggled-beagle face"
I thought you might uplift the ugly dialogue.
I seem to be mistaken.
Thanks anyway
When Trump likened the Mueller investigation to McCarthyism, I had to stifle a snigger. Poor Trump must have missed the history lesson that showed Roy Cohn, his great mentor, was one of the most vicious of McCarthy’s henchmen. But then, Trump’s grasp of history is...uh, spotty.
12
You can drive a Russian truck through "The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) (15 U.S.C. § 78dd-1, et seq.)" with the $50M condo offer. And of course, Rudy Giuliani should be well versed in "The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO)"
Either one may be sufficed to trigger the 25th... The question is, do you want to keep Pence away from the presidency. Or can you get rid of both of them at the same time. Then, maybe we will get a Madam President after all. But hey, beggars can't be chooser, President Ford was planning to retired from Congress when he got the role of a lifetime. History may not repeat perfectly but it certainly rhymes, especially when people don't learn from it
9
Things could be far worse. Imagine if Dick Cheney was somehow the VP.
8
At the end he will be very alone and wailing Lear-like at the weather. Even so, it will be interesting to see who the last (non-family) enabler might be within his coterie of minions. It's worthy of a betting pool in lieu of March Madness. And maybe it will come sooner, too. My money is on Stephen Miller. (Pence will be one of the first to bail, expressing much shock and outrage.) Who do you think?
10
I was in 8th grade during Watergate. I'll never forget that we were studying politics that year. For the first time ever, we had to fill in all the positions in the government with pencil rather than pen.
6
I live in a conservative golf community in Arizona. Many of the people with whon I play golf voted for Trump and continue to support him. Most of them have said that "they would play golf with Trump if given the chance." Yes, it's difficult being here sometimes. I assume that most of them know how to read, but I doubt that if I forwarded this article to them that it would change any of their minds. Though I don't doubt that if anyone drove a golf cart on one of their greens, they would loose it completely.
36
@maxcommish i am puzzled..... lake oswego? not in AZ. i hope it's nice up there.... a good friend will be retiring soon to your locale.
If Trump has really taken first year high school Spanish then his comprehension of the language may well indeed compare favorably to his proficiency in English.
51
We need to put this presidency behind us and move back into the 21st century.
24
I don’t have it in me anymore to read and laugh at this.
578
@Suzy Sandor
In one sentence you have defined the mood of over half of America.
98
Most of us already knew it would inevitably come to this. Apparently you can tell about a man from the company he keeps, and so far we've had over two years of one of the most racially-charged, lie-ridden, greed-driven administrations in recent history, and that includes "Tricky Dick", which is saying a lot.
And while I'm not about to sing Richard Nixon's praises, at least he made an attempt to occasionally appear statesman-like, he didn't cheat with porn stars on his wife -- and he had a dog.
22
It could be that we do have a genius president and we don't know it.
Perhaps his love for Russia and Putin is owed to his great love for Russian literature which he shares with Putin?!
What could the two talk about for two hours behind closed doors if not War and Peace and its historical epilogue? and, considering their shared empathy and view on bettering the human condition they might continue with What Shall We Do?!
Of course his supporters will vouch that indeed these "alternatives" are the topics Trump and his patron discuss but that is what we flaming liberal snow flakes cannot grasp.
Perhaps Hannity will pick up from where I left and illuminate us! Get the popcorn!
15
I'll bet that Trump has no idea about the Roy Cohn/Joe McCarthy connection, not that it would matter to him. Trump and Joe McCarthy would have been soulmates except for the fact that McCarthy was a heavy boozer while Trump is not.
7
This is gonna be a big, beautiful trial folks. You’re not gonna believe how big. You’re gonna love it when you see it, so beautiful! And the ratings, WOW, the highest ratings in history. Over a billion people are gonna watch this trial. Translated into 1,000 languages. Amazing!! And I’m gonna have the world’s smartest attorneys, lots of them, right Rudy? Best of all, and you’re gonna love this, is I don’t have to pay for them. The American taxpayers are doing that for me. Isn’t that great and cool? Hey, did you hear I’m “individual #1”. I’m number, one, I’m number 1! Wait,....what?
45
Thought experiment: think of the people you encounter on a monthly basis (your neighbors, the people working at your supermarket, the plumber, the school bus driver, the postman, the waitstaff at your local diner, your shoe repair guy who speaks only Romanian, your brother-in-law’s father’s ex-girlfriend). In my world, there is not a single one of them I wouldn’t rather see in the White House than its current resident.
25
6 more years of Trump as President. This country is truly blessed.
5
Nixon made a deal with the corrupt government of south Vietnam that extended the war, costing unknown numbers of lives, but giving him the presidency. that was treason, and he should have been executed.
trump, on the other hand, is just a putin asset. we have no grounds (yet) for accusing trump of treason. tax evasion, fraud, perjury, conspiracy--that will do for a start.
8
Thanks Gail. True and fun to read as always.
12
Gail,
The difference between you and the criminals now occupying the White House? It's a way of life for them, something to observe with alarm, and a measure of good humor, for you. They're accustomed to the chaos, and know no other way to live. What is unusual to you is the way things are for them, all of the time.
3
The favor Cohen did for Trump was to teach him how to money launder for the Russians. This was something Cohen had already been doing for some time via his taxi business and is the reason Trump hired him after his bankruptcies had cut him off from conventional financing and he desperately needed the Russian money. Cohen showed him how and for whom. Manafort was another Russian connection. Manafort had made a career, and millions, working for Ukrainian oligarchs, especially Victor Yanukovich who, after he was deposed in 2014 by the Maidan revolution, ran directly to his sponsor, Putin, for shelter. So there is great consistency in Trump's relationships with Cohen and Manafort. These relationships both reek of Russia.
9
Donald Trumps success depends only on the greediness of others. Trump himself is so far into his own ego that he can't really see just how ignorant he really is.
Fortunately this experiment with trump as president might really be a healthy thing for the country as it demonstrates that the populace can get really sleepy when it comes to our own rights and privileges that we are so fortunate to have here.
We have become very drowsy as to our concern and education as to how our country works and we need to teach more civics to our children so they are, hopefully, more aware of the responsibility we have as Americans living under a living constitution.
496
@Dave
I don't know how healthy it is, but I agree with your comment that the populace has become uneducated in civics and the law. These classes need to be brought back to public schools.
110
@Dave - I would agee that Trump is a form of national cleansing - which might turn out to be a good thing domestically - but the damage Trump has already done to America's image abroad will likely never be overcome. The gears he has set in motion might be the end of us all.
50
@Dave I agree. For every action, there's a reaction. Having Trump as president is so......horrific.....that it has inspired many to become more active and involved in our political system. Let's hope good comes from bad.
74
Gail, your wry, acid pen is a refreshing antidote to Trump’s inferno. Depressing facts served so artfully diminishes the volume on this American tragedy.
3
One thing useful about the antics of the Trump administration is
that it could undo a century of drift of the presidency toward
de facto monarchy (ahem, aided by a lot of fawning journalism.
See the long, long obit of George H.W. Bush in today's paper).
The apparent pandering of Trump to his "base" is a civics lesson.
It's a reminder, however crude, that our elected president is,
after all, a servant of the people, not our ruler. All we need to
complete the reform is smarter voters.
5
The daily summations and Twitter feeds are actually embracing evidence of terrific use of humor to relieve of us of some of the pain. But one thing still stuns: the absolute determination of the Republican party to "see no evil, hear no evil, admit no evil." This terrifies me for the future of my country. And how do we reunify ourselves , how we re-embrace the better values we as Americans can and mostly exemplify? Yes, racism and greed are flourishing American style-they are real-but I am now hungry for change and a conscious emphasis on ethics. Please end this nightmare and let's remind ourselves..... we are so much better then this! And we can make America decent again. And maybe even one Republican will stand up and be counted...though I may never forgive any of them.
19
For someone who lies so easily and often, Trump is actually quite bad at the art of prevarication. You would think over 70+ years he would have learned how to do it better. Nixon's great error was not destroying the now infamous tapes. What will Trump's great folly end up being? There are so many to choose from but which one might actually bring him down?
8
Most of Trump’s supporters give him a pass on all the legal problems that his associates have. There thinking goes like this. We know that Trump was a shady business man who would do whatever it takes to make a sale or get to a deal. We actually respect this kind of aggressive business ethic.
The problem with this line of thinking is that one cannot reasonable expect Trump to behave any differently while in office. He is still likely to try to enrich himself and his family by pushing the bounds of what is legal… and he is the President of the U.S.
264
Please oh please, all members of the White House Press Corps who speak Spanish, ask Trump questions in Spanish for the foreseeable future. If he balks, remind him of his preference at the G20 Summit.
1071
@Rachel
He took a page out of Melania's playbook.
She says she's fluent in six or seven languages (who's counting?) but needs interpreters once she gets past Bonjour! or Ciao!
90
Two of my favorite moments each week is when I read Gail Collins’ column. During a few of those readings, I have had Diet Pepsi squirt up my nose while laughing at one of her comments. (It burns the nostrils).
Trump understands Spanish? No I didn’t swallow that thought.
Gail, I know you are approximately Hillary Clinton’s age. In a 2010 column you wrote for the then upcoming wedding of Chelsea, you mentioned that on her 2008 campaign plane, you were always a welcome sight to her for that reason.
Please promise not to retire! You can handle two columns each week.
8
Donald Trump relies on dedicated worshipers. All of them are complicit in his crimes. I would start with every Republican in Congress. Lock them all up.
16
You know Gail it's not the Donald and his posse of grifters that troubles me, it's the 10's of millions of Americans that stand behind him. I never thought that there were that many gullible people in my country.
28
@Mauichuck
And I would never in a million years ever expect to hear a family member brought up in a liberal household say that the only HONEST news came from FOX News.
2
The high five between Putin and MBS was fabulous!! But I feel so sorry for Xi Jinping. He's the only dictator at the summit who doesn't own Trump.
11
Trump is never owned. He is rented.
9
Americans were warned...and just for added smugness, let's remember that the US has problems with addictive behaviour...certainly among the better educated, but mostly among the lesser...
At times this is just too much fun - there are just so many ways to analogize the multiple dichotomies inherent in this Circus (Maximus...if you will) USA.
Let's be crystal clear though, (and here the tone is serious): GOP IS TO BLAME - McConnell, Grassley, Graham paramount.
America needs to rid itself of a rip-off president, and move onto better themes, because, as it happens, just under it's nose is an opportunity to develop an entirely trasformative Economic Ecosystem....
Bemused are you?...possibly. Confused?...most certainly.
4
I *highly* recommend the fantastic book The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. And if you do read it you’ll start spotting them everywhere.
Footnote: even though psychopaths/sociopaths are missing some basic human qualities understand that they are incapable of seeing this and think of themselves as 100% complete. Think of a colorblind person (no offense intended) trying to conceive of the missing colors....
4
Gail’s wit and humor is like a CBD balm on the growing anxiety of seeing the web of conflicts engulfing Mr. Trump. Trump knows he’s cooked. Although I doubt he’s as big of fan of Gail’s as I am. I’m hoping Gail can increase her output to a daily article to try to match the constant roaring river of nonsense emanating from Mr. Trump. The obfuscation grows and grows, with deflection after distraction (“look over there! It’s Michael Jackson!) as Trump tries to evade Marine Captain Mueller.
The Tangerine Tyrant panic levels are seen by measuring the increasing torrent of Trump’s tweets against Mueller. Trump tweets have become dam burst of delirious delusions.
@Gail, I have formula in case you need it to measure Mr. Trump’s panic: his rate of tweets x velocity of tweets x spelling errors /100= equals Trump panic level.
Trump clearly is deluding himself of the grave consequences of his deeply flawed presidency. He’ll be famous for how he deluded his voters. He’s going full delusional on the Special Counsel. But America, not Trump is ultimately to blame.
We could’ve voted for a highly-qualified woman leader and ride the flood of societal changes to create a bright future for our country, but alas, to our unending regret we chose to miss that boat and history will never forget.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat”
10
Gail, you forgot McConnell, Ryan, Wilbur Ross, Pompeo, Zinke, Nunes, Gowdy, Pruitt, Ben Carson and a host of others. I can't wait to read the Woodward and Bernstein sequel to "All the President's Men" when it comes out. They should call it: "All the Best People". Such a cast of characters you never saw in your life.
14
@Sinbad -
"Gail, you forgot . . . "
No, it's just that she has space limitations!
3
I'll bet you a whole room full of sinister red Christmas tree-like triangle objects that we are but on the cusp of a the greatest period of presidential and Republican prevarication, exaggeration and obfuscation in our nation's history. The very concept of truth will be like so many ran-over golf balls by the time our Real Estate Huckster-In-Chief calls it quits. If I may miss-quote, "When the lying get weird, the weird turn pro."
4
In my dreams I saw a python slither by wearing a 9.99 Manafort skin jacket, no sleeves. Said she got it at a court ordered sale.
6
Imagine you're Donald Trump this Christmas as a 2018 Ebenezer Scrooge. How many ghosts from Trump's past misdeeds are going to show up to hound Trump into insomnia? A fleet-footed Paul Manafort to dance in front of him, partnering with Mueller and then partnering with Rudy Giuliani, as he puts his hands together in the shape of a bowl, lipping "Pardon. Pardon. Give me my Pardon." A tired, bedraggled Michael Cohen, directing Trump to wire more funds to another paramour, and then to Putin's account in Switzerland. A sleepless Trump stumbles down the stairs from Air Force One and demands--lying prone--that Kellyanne Conway fix his hair. A disheveled mess as the leader of the free world, a whale of a lump of man at his nadir.
8
The Israeli paper Haaretz wrote yesterday that Trump's affinity and excuses for MBS had Bibi's fingerprints all over it.
That same article mentioned that a letter about MBS by Trump was written in middle-school English.
Middle-school English is clearly an overstatement of lingua Trump.
"I am not a crook"-Nixon was an intellectual giant compared to Trump, and one one who didn't murder his native language on a 24/7 basis. That alone made Trump the laughing stock of the world.
As to MBS, not Trump nor Jared-Dearest are now his BBF, but none other than Putin with their high-five. They know that they have Trump in their claws.
3
O.M.G. Here's this guy trying to beat out a dozen, more or less competitors, for the GOP nomination of POTUS. One by one those vying for the spot denounce the Russians. Trump insists he has no financial stake in Russia. It turns that that was a total lie, a pants-on-fire one. He was not only negotiating a deal for another Trump Tower but the lifting of sanctions on Russia because then he can get a good deal with a Russian bank who can only operate with an American businessman if the sanctions are lifted.
Many years ago an acquaintance told me that he never reads fictional political stories because the real stuff is much more interesting!
The scary thing is that despite the hard evidence close to 40% of the American voters will never believe any evil words about the President who they idolize.
he real stuff is much more interesting!
9
It's stupidity is boundless, but what is dangerous is it's minions ignorance of that stupidity.
7
Instead of trying to cover all of Trumps (and his minions) lies, it would be easier and much quicker to report when these people tell the truth - about anything. What a creepy bunch. And to think the self righteous and morally upstanding Republican party sits by and does nothing. This whole crowd would have gone apoplectic had Obama or Hillary acted in such a manner. Mueller is wading into a cesspool of corruption with no end in sight.
11
I want to know who will play Trump in the inevitable movie.
2
@Bunnifacia Alec Baldwin of course!
Gail, Thanks for keepin’ on tryin’, but this just ain’t funny anymore. The “high five” at the G-20 might as well have been a billboard on the road to Laughingstock, America.
6
An article about the leader of the greatest country in the world.
(...sounds like a banana republic to me.)
3
Yeah Gail, but it was 'Tricky Dicky' who unlocked the China/US gate, (admittedly with some smart input from Kissinger) a détente if you will, which Trump, through his indescribable ignorance and incompetence, damages daily. Nixon and Kissinger (neither of whom I much like) were ahead of the game. In their company Trump ranks as a ball-boy on the world court. Also, Nixon was smart and Trump will never match or top that.
2
George W. Bush and Iraq are worse.
1
Nixon wasted the lives of thousands of Americans in southeast Asia. Trump is no Nixon. Signed.. Vietnam-era draftee/veteran
1
This is brilliant. Gail Collins dropped her mic here. I even laughed at the line about a hotel in Hanoi. I have been so despondent and anxious since 45 came to power that I appreciate someone making me laugh about this quagmire we are all mired in.
4
Gee, Trump is a lot more accomplished than I knew. I thought he was only fluent in Russian, with some English, but he understands Spanish. Who knew?
5
Sorry, Gail, but I still don't see the American people rising up in outrage about the fact that Trump had a proposal to build a hotel in Moscow.
Now if he had sold our uranium to the Russkies, or taken $500,000 for a speech there and stopped off the next day to meet in person with Putin -- that I could get excited about. The the latter would be pure fantasy, wouldn't it? (BTW, i don't recall you writing a column excoriating the Clintons for their activities with Russia. But of course that was when we were pushing re-set buttons and mocking Romney for worrying about the Russkies.)
1
"Truly, you should always beware of flunkies wearing python skin." If only all the villains in the present administration agreed to this, they'd be more readily identified. But I fear there are not enough pythons in the world to cover them all.
2
Anyone else wonder where "Anonymous" went in these turbulent times?
3
Richard Nixon, the Quaker War Monger, along with Henry the Heartless Kissinger, caused the needless deaths of tens of thousands of people...lest we forget them and our country's culpability.
3
Paul Manafort wins the prize in my book for being the worst felon amongst the other felons or criminals who were part of Trump's administration or entourage or were minions or whatever any of them were. Manafort has rolled the dice now, hoping to get a pardon from Trump from federal prison. He gave up a sure thing, to be a mole for Trump, hoping for a reward from a man who throws everyone off the troika to save his own skin. However, there are surely more felons to come. We haven't even gotten to the Trump children yet, or the son-in-law and with Cohen's revelations about the Trump Tower meeting, they may be next up on Mueller's list. Thanksgiving around the Trump table this year must have been "interesting".
The one who has fallen the furthest is Michael Flynn. Once a well respected general, (for good reason) and now a felon. Greed is a terrible mistress. The "lock her up" irony is almost funny.
With Nixon we had a better class of felons than we do with Trump (except for Flynn). If I had to choose between Nixon and Trump, I would go with Nixon all the way. At least he was intelligent, actually knew what a President was supposed to do, and even with his imminent impeachment, I felt our country was going to be okay. Every day Trump is in office, I wake up terrified that Trump has fired off a nuclear missile because he is miffed at some world leader.
I don't care if Trump is impeached, arrested, or that someone finally invokes the 25th amendment, I just want Trump gone.
1234
Amen, Diana! I’m right there with you, and so are millions of others, I believe.
105
The biggest joke of all "Make America Great Again!"
54
@Diana Excellent comments. Your last sentence is my favorite.
51
The American public can anticipate that the final, conclusive Mueller Investigation Report will probably rival in document thickness the annual budget of the federal government. Hopefully, it will include various indexes elucidating the rich cast of rogue characters, domestic and foreign, orbiting around the Fake President for years, in his business and political lives, in addition to explaining the bevy of felonies, federal and state, that have been committed by those characters and the F.P. An index of maps would also be useful, tracking the worldwide locales where all of these criminal behaviors occurred. Quite a contrast to Tricky Dick’s Washington-centric venue of impeachment/criminal conduct. It’s just a more complicated world these days.
6
Nixon, like Trump, had an uncanny feel for an angry pulse in the electorate undetected by the commentariate savants. But Nixon (stepping back from the obligatory demonizations) enacted - compared to Trump - a significant range of progressive domestic regulations. Nixon had executive skills. And significantly smarter strategic vision. Given the choice, better to re-experience Nixon: society emerged less tainted.
629
@Chris Rutledge - Nixon, for all his flaws, was experience in politics; was actually, truly, intellegent by most accounts; and really did have some very well-qualified people working in his administration. I'm not now, nor ever was a fan of Nixon, although I never faced a choice of voting for him, I watched through high school the unraveling of the Watergate scandal, but even as a non-conservative, non-Republican, I can appreciate that Nixon actually could *do the job* of president. Trump has proven endlessly that he flails at even the most basic duties, roles, and symbology of 'the president's job.' As a mediocre 'reality' TV star, Trump can't even fake the role of president with any talent.
357
@Chris Rutledge: What you point out is interesting: that Nixon and Trump had in common "an uncanny feel for an angry pulse in the electorate." Both of these men were fueled by deep resentment of perceived enemies they felt extremely inferior to. In Trump's case, Barack Obama is that enemy--a black man superior to the racist Trump in every way.
Trump and Nixon exploited the worst impulses of their supporters. Their political power derived from envy-based hate, a psychological state they understood too well.
100
@Jim Brokaw
“As a mediocre ...can’t even fake the role of a president...”
Makes me think of all the movie stars playing a President: Harrison Ford, Martin Sheen, Henry Fonda and more, each portraying some admirable qualities.
But even Peter Sellers as a bumbling President in “Dr Strangelove ...” has a leg up on competency relative to Trump. And we know how that movie ends.
81
The worst, maybe, but not the dumbest. Here's what trump knows that his corrupt predecessors didn't know.
If you want to get away with being a crook, you increase your chances of escaping justice if you are in so many crooked deals and tell so many lies that they become routine. You don't try to hide them because their sheer volume is its own smoke screen. And if you contradict yourself from one day to the next, it sows even more confusion.
Reporters have so many leads to follow that they can't cover any one of them adequately, and criminal investigations are complex because so many entanglements have to be picked apart.
1213
@mancuroc
This is so true. The key is desensitization by overwhelming of the senses. It's almost like a derivative of the Broken Windows Theory. In an environment with so much lying, dissembling, and corruption, this simply becomes the norm.
If and when Mueller's report is made public, its a good bet that nothing in it will surprise anyone too much. Many (although not all) will shrug it off and say simply, "It's Trump, what are you gonna do?"
There are many who are willing to make a Faustian Bargain to achieve their desired outcomes. It stands to reason, that if you are willing to destroy democratic institutions and norms, to get what you want, then you don't understand what truly makes America great.
170
Sean’s reply should also be recommended; an especially incisive last line in a wholly terrific post.
55
@mancuroc Mueller’s investigation has been doing due diligence in investigating all of the crooked deals and lies by Don the Con. I have heard and read frequently by many Trump supporters that the Mueller investigation has taken too long and should be halted. Nope. Mueller is doing a thorough investigation. Just what we need so we can get Trump and his crime family the justice that is coming for them. Lock them all up.
69
At the end of the day, comparing one manifestation of evil with the other (Trump v Nixon) doesn’t matter. Once the (WH) house is cleaned of this putrid mess we will need to find a way to comprehend what it is about our society, the Republican party, and our political system that permits (even encourages) these satanic presences to spew their hateful behavior across the land. We will need to exorcise these terrible influences from our way of governing and our way of life. Aspiring to be a better country must be accompanied by actions (campaign reform, electoral college repeal, recalibration of the balance of power, affirmation of liberty and justice for all, fairness in taxation, to name a few) that can fortify us against any future devilishness that might wish to siege and seize us, corrupting and bankrupting us morally and financially. We need to find a path that will save us from again descending into this hellish state of current affairs. In the spirit of Gail Collins, I hope we can do this without losing either humor or grace.
13
Trump was ill-prepared, ill-informed and ill-tempered when he rode down the escalator with his beautiful wife in the gilded lobby of his Tower to announce his candidacy in front of cheering sycophants and paid actors. He remained so as a candidate on stage with the gaggle of would-be Presidents who were astounded at his behavior. He demonstrated his lack of gifts in the debates he lost to Mrs. Clinton. He was the same when he delivered his inaugural speech, a shocking dystopian view of America. And as President he continues to amaze with his ill-prepared, ill-informed and ill-tempered comments, tweets and speeches.
The time has long passed to stop him from damaging the institutions and the reputation of the Nation. The only question is how long will it take to end his reign and begin to repair the damage he has already done.
17
As a new NYT subscriber, I am amused at all of the innuendo. I ask to myself, so what. If everything that is accused is true, a bunch of people lied about things that were legal. The original accusations that Trump conspired to rig the election and hack computers lacks any evidence. Lying to investigators is a crime seldom prosecuted. Look at all the people given immunity during the Clinton investigation. No plea agreements, or prosecutions. Let Comey, or Mueller stad up and compare how the investigations came to an end. Slam the president for what they think is wrong, but say that no prosecutor would seek an indictment, and get over it. 99% of the people can’t even tell you what they started out trying to prove.
1
We hear this argument all of the time. Most of us can connect the dots and see where they this is going. The case is far from over, the proof you seek will appear when all of the pieces are out on the table. Meuller is still setting the board.
5
What could that favor be? When imagining the possibilities of what Cohen would have done for Trump way back when they were still in love, the mind can only go to dark places. I vote for paying for an abortion of a Trump par amour which might tick off Trump's Evangelical base. But then again, in Trumpworld anything might be given a pass for Dear Leader.
At an age when I remember Watergate, seeing the conspiracies, corruption and disregard for law as exhibited by Trump and the total GOP 'Who Cares?' response, I do wonder if America has the muscle memory to recover.
"When will something matter" being the question I ask now every day. Our Congress now totally dysfunctional except as a cheerleading squad for Trump and his grifter ways.
The House may offer some relief after the New Year but the prospect of Mitch McConnell manipulating the GOP Senate in new ways to protect the Con Don does not bode well for our democratic values.
The thought that Trump may at some point be held to account for his actions remains firmly in fantasy land. We've got an Attorney General of the US under criminal investigation for fraud as head of our Justice Department! Yes, that is how low Trump is dragging us down. And he ain't finished yet.
7
The "witch hunts" are now becoming, for Mueller, which to hunt.
The grifting carnival barker, the great one who drained the swamp in order to fill his very own, a beautiful, the best swamp that laundered oligarch money could buy given the possible limits of how much money the sharks were willing to "loan" to Trump.
I shook my head at Nixon's escapades into possible constitutional crisis, cringed at Reagan's affairs into international, and somewhat illegal arms (and possible drugs for guns) deals, along with his memory lapses and laughed at the comedy routine about Bill's sexual behavior (it wasn't the sex thingy, it was the lies, yeah, right).
I cannot remember the long continuous line of presidential advisors, associates, campaign workers (they were before they weren't), attorneys (they were great before they became weak) with Nixon as we have seen with Trump.
Trump's legacy may be seen as why we should follow the old adages-if it sounds to good to be true it probably is, and the other, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
We will pay for not heeding these sayings for years to come.
Perhaps we can sell all of those red hats to pay for Trump's legal fees.
5
It is very hard to argue with the phrase ‘the worst and dumbest.’ Trump provides daily evidence that he is working hard to redefine how we think about ignorance, combined with dangerous dose of hubris.
7
Gail, excellent piece- still laughing out loud while drinking my coffee etc before 9:00AM. Just think of popular card & board games with a new version for this era. Monopoly, Clue, '..pass go and collect ...'etc.
5
Thank you for at least presenting the the tragedy as farce. It truly helps. The hourly exhaustion makes doing anything else essential to focus on another topic....like a root canal.
5
Dear Ms. Collins,
I always enjoy reading your op eds. You are a terrific writer and I love your dry wit. However, I have one issue with this piece. I think comparing Michael Cohen’s face to a beagle’s is an insult to beagles everywhere. Just sayin’
Keep the much needed laughs coming.
5
We'd actually be in a whole lot more trouble if Trump were as smart as Nixon. He's not. But he's a lot more corrupt.
11
For all his many faults, Nixon had a conscience; Trump does not. Can you imagine Trump sobbing in grief at his wife's funeral (pick one of the 3)? Can you imagine Trump going to the Lincoln Monument in the middle of the night to talk to protestors? Buchanan was terrible; Pierce was awful; Nixon was a crook (after all); Trump is an abomination.
8
Witnessing the crown prince of Saudi Arabia high-five Putin in public with smirks and laughter made me sick. They both know they can commit whatever heinous crime they so choose because they have absolute cover provided by your stooge of a president and his minions.
As I watched Prime Minister Trudeau cringe as he signed the new Nafta agreement, he reflected how the world truly sees Trump. Trudeau and his team wrestled a deal for Canada and did his best to show he wanted NO part of Trump's dog and pony show in Buenos Aires.
As a Canadian, I wake up every day with a new purpose. I will do whatever it takes to protect the integrity of my country. I will call out any political poser who tries to compromise the values of our just and open society. The one good thing Trump has achieved is showing the world what we must never allow to happen to our own precious and very fragile democracies.
17
The only way to get through this is to pretend it is a piece of bizarre fiction. Otherwise every citizen, including that so called base of Trump's, would actually come to the realization that this Country is going the way of a Banana Republic.
Right now I think we might as well add an investigation into McConnell, Nunes and various and sundry Congress Members. At this point I would not be surprised if McConnell lives in the Trump D.C. Hotel scot free, one of the perks for protecting the President.
The only thing that gives me a sense of sanity are Gail's columns and Robert Mueller.
9
Every once in awhile I point out something about the Russia investigation to one of my republican friends. They almost always respond that Hillary made it all look like small potatoes because she sold off a very important uranium mine somewhere out west to the Russians while she was Secretary of State. I am never sure how to respond to that.
3
The GOP could have nailed this grifter any time they wanted to. Never forget that.
15
Trump's stable of geniuses: "they weren't that ingenious by the way" (George W. Bush). If Mueller get's fired he can at least write a book with any number of catchy titles:
1) All the President's Men
2) The Apprentice
3) Making America Gyrate Again
etc. etc.
Trump does top tricky Dick-let me count the ways! He is delusional and truly believes that he is smart and clever-He employs his whole conflicted family in the White House(Nixon never did) He came to the White House with a flock of seedy friends, characters who already had a checkered past.(Nixon’s co -conspirators were normal until he enlisted them in the cover-up)Lastly, Trump’s aberrant behavior requires a daily update.With Nixon the plot was easier to follow, the actors fewer and they all had pronounceable names!
6
Hey, Trump enjoys rallies, but Group of 20 isn’t looking that way. Cutting meets, throwing away headphones — Trump wishes he wasn’t there. Anyway, Trump’s Mandarin is as good as his Russian, so Xi might do a deal for a hotel in Beijing? The Russian tower kinda fell through once Putin knew too much. Xi’s translator knows how to substitute good jokes for Trump’s Hillary stories, so Xi still will seem to chuckle over them.
5
I thought he liked people who didn't get captured.
5
Trump is the terrible lesson America didn't know it still needed.
10
Your humor, Gail, is in great shape. Too bad that the subject matter, devious Trump, is a most disgraceful occurrence we fell into, by electing him, no doubt due to his expert demagoguery. However ignorant and arrogant in matters of state, and morals, you have to give it to him: he is a superb liar and a crook, unsurpassed by any mafiosi surrounding his narcissistic malfeasance. And as long as his 'base' cultivates his image as savior of the 'white supremacist' nonsense, it ought to be ready to buy Moscow's hotel for the asking. In that vein, Pogo was Nostradamic: "we found the enemy, and it is Us". This 'base' is a sad reminder that we parents and school teachers are not good enough to teach our children to 'think for themselves'...so to stop charlatans on their tracks (in which case, Trump would have stayed at the fringes of society, where he belongs).
4
However, Nixon did have his Great Leader moments. One memorable moment was when he had the White House guards dressed in outlandish uniforms akin to palace guards he had seen in other countries. White, double-breasted tunics; gold braid, shako hats. One columnist described them: "frank borrowing from decadent European monarchies, which is abhorrent to this country’s democratic tradition."
Immediately people assumed the White House imperial look indicated that Nixon wished to be King and also that he had lost his mind. People were outraged. It took a month for the uniforms to be adjusted and finally they disappeared. (They actually were eventually given to a high school marching band).
One little hint that the president wanted to be like a king......erased almost immediately. Public outrage made that happen. With any encouragement, Nixon could well have gone further. LBJ knew RMN was a traitor.
So, let's please not resurrect Nixon (warmonger) as a saint compared to the current WH occupant. Both violated our Constitution, and both wanted as much power as they could amass. Both liked the superficial "trappings" of the presidency.
Neither of them really cared about the lives of others (see Vietnam).
It was our job to express outrage in 1970, same as now. The wannabe kings will always demand our outrage if we want to keep (or discover) our democracy.
3
Watergate was way easier than this.
6
I bet Trump was really jealous that his two fav guys - MBS and Putti - were high-fiving without him. Of course, he's too stupid to understand that they were high-fiving about him and how they own him and, by extension, America. Maybe gloating is a better word. Yes, gloating on the world stage that they own America.
When is this nightmare going to end? I can't go through another year of Melania's Christmas decorations. All those red trees look like Cousin It from the Addams Family and she surely looks like Morticia walking through them.
Saw Ivanka at the G-20. Can't wait for her to go to prison.
10
Trump lives in a house of cards and the wind has been blowing and blowing. His lies will bring him down very soon.
3
I have always heard that federal prisions are much more pleasant than NY state prisions. Manaford would be ill served by a federal pardon.
4
What about Warren G Harding? I’d take him over DT any day of the week.
2
Ms. Collins, it's alright, you can keep the hotel in Moscow, while here holding on to my small inn in America. It does appear that Trump is about to get trumped. There is always a flavor of trauma in such situations, and this American knows you are prepared.
All that was missing from the video of Putin and the Prince was 'By Oil, We've done it!' and 'They haven't seen the end of the beginning'. Well, at least some of us in this world appear to be having fun; fun engineered at a high national and potentially daunting global expense.
No mercy for Trump, not even in the much abused 'Spirit of Christianity', from thee? Not a crumb of compassion for a most ordinary man, poor Babbitt, who is struggling to keep his nose above water. One might be kind and venture a fine 'Norman Rockwell' president in the days where people 'knew their place'.
This political menage a trois is a classic, when the two strongest gang-up on the weakest. There may be a detente during Yuletide, or at the beginning of the New Year.
'Cohane' is my name and mark my words, if you please, but when Mr. Trump declares of the misunderstanding with The Ukraine, 'A situation which will be resolved', he may have forgotten that he is part of the situation.
Your fiend 'Lara'.
1
Way back in the early 90's there was a Writers strike .
I think this paved the way for an extreme form of
"dumbing down" the masses,in which scripted television
started to disappear. (Not that most of it ,was lame )"Reality"
became the cheap alternative to shows, that actually had some
merit.I often wonder if Individual 1, had flopped on the Apprentice,Or better yet, never been casted at all. Would he have
had the support of so many people?
And having never viewed the apprentice
Is it possible to watch reruns and be entertained?
I doubt it.
4
Will the title of the book on the Trump Presidency be: “All The President’s Lies” or “All the President’s Liars”?
The Cohen plea to lying to Congress is a bombshell. Not only was Trump lying on the campaign trail about his amour de Putin, but he continued the lie as President.
Why was it important to continue the lie once he became President? At a minimum, because he wants to derail the Mueller investigation by telling the country that he had no business dealing s with Russia.
Follow the lies.
5
Since Trump came to office, nothing matters anymore. The rule of law, basic civility, honour, facts...all the old values and institutions are just right out the window. I had to consciously pause in the middle of Gail’s column when she reminded us of just one instance of nothing mattering. It is pretty much accepted that the President had at least two sexual relationships after wife #3 had Trump’s child #5, and that his lawyer paid off the women to keep it from becoming public. Which, you have to admit, is shocking - but not as shocking as the fact that even now when the secret is out, it didn’t even matter. Wow. This guy can get away with anything. How did that happen? How does a country sink so low so quickly?
776
@Brendan W So-called Christians think that trump has been sent from GOD to save the country from liberal influence. Franklin Graham regularly excuses trump's past history by saying it is just that: past. (And that GOD is a forgiving GOD.) As for your last question: The fear of a woman or a POC as president is enough to embrace even a criminal like trump because he is a white male. The conscience-challenged Rs in Congress aid and abet these views.
108
Oh, and Republicans in Congress who aid and abet as they grasp for more and more raw power.
48
@Brendan W
It was happening well before this, but Chappaquiddick, RFK’s dalliances, and Clinton’s strong run from his time as Governor all the way to Lewinsky are convenient enough to point out that nobody has a monopoly on “sinking low”.
11
Karma and the light at the end of the tunnel are being escorted into view by the Master Mueller. I’ve finally got the beginnings of a reason to be optimistic about an end to the damage this man has done, to the Constitution, to the unhealthy, to women, to students with loans, to persons of color already here and who want to come here. As for our reputation on the International scene... don’t get me started...but my blood pressure has already dropped two points!
371
It isn't funny any more. I know some readers may giggle at your words but I think the man in the White House is no longer a joke and that is more scary than anything you could write.
1748
@Stephen Kurtz I have felt this way since November 8, 2016.
127
@Stephen Kurtz and @LMR, too
We have too much to risk, and far too much to fear, to be certain. Trump is a total fraud, Putin is an nuclear-enabled tyrant and the Saud is rich punk kid sitting upon a powder keg. I don't know what to make of a three thousand year old culture, gaining strength at a speed, unprecedented. We need voter-strength and solid governance, not a thief promoting corporate greed
89
I have felt this way since the first time I laid eyes on Trump Tower, circa 1983.
71
For all his demonstrable faults, Nixon did some good things as President.
Name one even remotely good thing Trump has done or is likely to do. Just one.
Anyone?
74
Only one that I can think of:
People are mobilized. They are educating themselves about ‘pluralism’, recognizing that civics isn’t always taught in schools; paying attention to confirmation hearings/votes, volunteering for candidates. It’s ironic that it took this level of systematic degradation of democracy to fully engage in it, but here we are.
5
@Paul Bernish
You'd think, by now, he's have at least tied his ties right.
3
@Paul Bernish One thing: He seems to be in support of prison sentencing reform. We may do better in convincing those not yet persuaded of his incompetence and wrong-doing if we avoid sweeping generalizations.
2
A recent issue of the Economist magazine notes that while Trump is a far worse president than Nixon -- who let us see his tax returns, never used his office for private gain, did not try to do business with our Soviet enemies, did not openly attack our democratic institutions and was a lot smarter in matters of trade and international diplomacy -- he is getting pretty much of a free ride in Congress and the court of public opinion. Why? Because his MAGA-hatted base has allowed him to normalize what used to be considered abnormal and unpresidential behavior.
84
My beagle was deeply by your description of Cohen as beagle faced...
20
The two are not in the same league.
Nixon was paranoid to get reelected, he had no intent to harm the country for personal gain. He was not selling out to the enemy like Trump.
39
@Banicki
It is accepted historically, and one can listen to the tape of Lyndon Johnson’s phone call with then Republican Senator Everett Dirkson; that in his campaign against Hubert Humphrey, Nixon’s surrogates actively impeded the Paris peace talks with the North Vietnamese; among other things urging our South Vietnamese allies Not to attend till after the election in order to preclude any breakthrough or progress toward ending the war while the Semocrats remained in power. Johnson, who was aware of this from intelligence sources and phone intercepts he felt he could not make public at the time, characterized this behaviour to sabotage the foreign policy of a sitting President of the United States for personal, political gain as “ treason” and
Dirksen did not take issue with that.
Former President Nixon, ( “ ...when the President does it, it isn’t a crime.”) was one kind of poison to our body politic; President Trump is toxic in different ways.
A common element has been a cynical, or recklessly careless, disregard for facts and the “ truth” in addressing the American people.
As Trump goes down, his desperation will cause him to unleash a large portion of the 40% to let loose on the rest of us.
Both congress and Fox will be sorry for aiding and abetting this dangerous man.
42
@Stephen -- you should not be very concerned about "unleash a large portion of his 40%."
They are already unleashed. It won't get worse.
3
I can hear Trump boasting now, 'I was the greatest crook in the entire history of the United States, or the universe!' It goes right beside his stable genius claim on another fake Time magazine cover.
The contrast with the civility, decency and public service of George H. W. Bush is stark.
The Republican Party dived headfirst off the metaphorical Trump Tower Moscow when they embraced Trump and his criminality, bigotry, and malevolent narcissism. Did they jump, or were they pushed by Putin occupying his metaphorical $50 million Trump Moscow penthouse?
Golf carts and penthouses in Trump's past. What will be in his future?
17
A future filled with stripes ...lots and lots of prison stripes...
2
"So many plea bargains and indictments, so little time. How do you keep track of all this stuff?"
Ah, but that's the genius of Trump. Saturate our lives with outrage after outrage and pretty soon we're numb to it all. The bar gets lower and lower till it's touching the ground and we step over it, no longer caring. This is how nations decay and finally end, not with a whimper but a shrug.
28
Gail, we're all exhausted. My only solace is to find the dog reference in your columns. My own cocktail party banter goes like this: can you imagine if Barak or Hillary (enter Dem of choice) ever tried to build a hotel during a campaign with an adversary (enter indictment of the day). Exhausted by my own incredulity. Keep the dogs coming.
16
Tricky Dick looks like a saint next to Trump.
8
"Can I see a show of hands on how many people will swallow that one?)"
43% of the people in our country think he is doing a fine job. That means that Trump's continuous lying has not made a dent in the popularity of this President with his core voters.
11
The only similarity between Nixon and Trump was that they were both morally-challenged individuals. Nixon was an intelligent and highly skilled politician. Trump is an unintelligent individual who doesn't have the vaguest idea about how government should work and knows less history than a third grader.
32
Nixon was insecure, maybe paranoid. And he got bad advice from his staff. Trump is arrogant, self-righteous -- and fires anyone who disagrees with him. Nixon created EPA. Trump is destroying it. Nixon opened relations with China. Trump is shutting them down. Nixon was a globalist. Trump is a megalomaniac isolationist. The Watergate break-in was done without Nixon's prior knowledge. He worked to cover it up. Trump knew exactly what he was doing at all times. He just denies it.
30
I am sure it is possible for the US to become a bigger embarrassment and I am scared that it will under the direction of Republicans. I pray that the Dems in the House will do something to curb the madness.
18
Nixon was venal, paranoid and self-pitying, and that's a dangerous combination of negative traits for the most powerful person in the world. That said, he can't hold a candle to Trump who has those anti-qualities in spades, to say nothing of stupidity, juvenile vanity, a complete lack of curiosity and pathological narcissism. There are a lot of people to blame for this. I blame my pathetic senator, Rob Portman, who by every conceivable measure should know better than to stand by this president. Mr. Portman will be buried under a mountain of shame.
25
Manafort wore the snake skin jacket only during those periods between the annual shedding of his own skin, and the time it took the new skin to grow in.
Something his dermatologist recommended.
17
Seriously folks - I do believe Nixon (Tricky Dick) had some modicum of respect for the constitution and what impact events had on the pillars of America.
Trump seems he would destroy these pillars that support everything that makes America great, if he knew he would be left standing.
Unlike Nixon, Trump has absolutely no respect or knowledge of our countries history and the foundation of what has made us great in the eyes of the world.
14
Every leader has flaws, and we’ve had our share of imperfect Presidents.
But I would be hard pressed to think of another POTUS - or indeed of any major country’s leader - with Donald Trump’s appalling combination of personal vileness, vast ignorance, petty vengeful narcissism, corrupt associations and authoritarian tendencies.
His manifest unfitness for public office transcends party and ideology. It will take generations to erase this stain on our nation.
35
Did other people that read M.W's book "Fire and Fury" notice that the $50 million number is the same number DJT was told he needed for his campaign and he personnally didn't have it to spare so he came up with $10M with a promise to be reinbursed? I haven't checked the timing of that....could be just a coincidence.
6
OK - so he is completely surrounded by crooks, incompetents and incompetent crooks, but he himself, Trump, is a master negotiator and the only person who can save America for the little guy. To paraphrase Nixon, he is not a crook.
Sure. Sure.
Anyone who was less of a narcissist would have resigned; but Trump hangs in there, Teflonman, with nothing sticking, leaching toxins when he overheats, and watching everyone else around him get burned.
Want real, politically incorrect telling it like it is? Trump should just admit he's crooked always has been, and everyone he likes is also bent, but he is just open about his criminal tendencies when everyone else hides them.
6
Wow what a ringing endorsement - “he’s the only one who can save America for the little guy” - unclear which reality you inhabit, but 45 is a lying, uneducated,narcissistic, racist sociopath who provides robust business opportunities for his cronies and dictator pals only - and yes, he certainly helped the little guy in NJ by decreasing tax deductions for our property taxes...yep a real champion forthe people...
Trump not only tops Tricky Dick, he tops P. T. Barnum....Trump is the greatest show on earth.
Aside from offending our democracy, our Republic, our Constitution, our sense of decency, shouldn't we be embracing Trump for all of the entertainment he has been providing?
You can't tell me that you haven't been reading/watching/smelling/listening to the daily flow of Trump effluvia.
For the past three years (seems like a century) we have been treated to the most outlandish lies, cast of shady characters, constitutional contortions, court intrigue and edge-of-your-seat existentialist thrills.
Admit it, Trump is the stuff of an off-Broadway production of a Shakespearean tragicomedy, by a cast of third-graders, gone wrong. Let's just hope for a happy ending.
10
I see a Trump Monopoly game in the future. The Get Out of Jail square will be fully occupied.
6
Your column made me laugh early in the morning changing me from zombie to human. Although Richard Nixon was power mad and did illegal things to get elected and paranoid enough to have an enenmies list, at least he knew how the government worked and there was no anxiety he would make a stupid mistake.
1
The funnest of the bunch was undoubtedly the Mooch. I would have exploded if not for SNL, the Kate characters, Alec´s Trump and the rest of them, the boys of djt are the best! Course it would be a fantastic idea to just take that crew and sub them for the actuals, of course reinstating McKinnon´s Jeffie S. Keep the real live Mooch and rehire him.
2
Most "Trump supporters" back the things that Trump backs, like white supremacy, anti-immigration, misogyny, etc. Trump himself was just the salesman who channeled these to get himself elected.
Trump is a brilliant salesman, for overpriced condos, fake university degrees, etc. But otherwise he is quite ignorant and probably unintelligent. Nobody could have said that about Richard Nixon.
6
No one I know calls Nixon stupid about anything other than the decision to create the "plumbers" unit and do the Watergate break in. Nixon was certainly more than capable of writing a complete sentence with some meaning, even a paragraph. We never saw any Nixon "covfefe."
Trump is ignorant, narcissistic to a degree that looks like outright personality disorder, and also appears to be in the early stages of some dementia. And then ... he's been a grifter all his life; an odd one because very few of them start out with an inherited fortune.
But we don't have his equivalent to the 18-minute gap yet, and we may never. Unless Mueller unearths something conclusive Trump will "pull a Christie:" rope-a-dope through to the end of this term while his henchmen go to jail.
Trump is guaranteed to join the short-list of really worst presidents; polls of presidential historians put him atop the list already. Not only is GWB looking better, even Harding and Buchanan are smiling in their graves.
I pray the nation gets past him, with not too much damage.
10
Nixon created a relationship with China. Trump is doing his best to destroy it.
2
Back in a day when journalism was an honorable profession. Today it has turned into a petty, vicious misinformation of nonsense.
A man such as Nixon, or for that matter JFK would never have gotten elected facing this media monster.
You need to thank our many hard- working, inquiring journalists for their daily pursuits of truth in this quagmire of lies, deceits, incompetence and immorality.
Without that window of truth much would be done to our country, our citizens and our standing in the world... without our knowledge and our ability to resist.
The press is not the enemy. The Washington Post says it best, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
4
@hawk, you're confusing the media writ large with Fox and the rest of the far right lie machine.
What about the NYT, WaPo, etc. coverage of Trump and his merry band of fraudsters is misinformation? They report the lies, and the wingnuts attack; the far right can't take the truth.
3
HRC was correct, the people who voted for this fraud were/are, indeed, deplorable. At 67 years old I've given up on this country. I feel sorry for my kids, and young people in this country(and the world). If you wonder what the world thinks of us, just remember, when blowhard Don spoke at the UN, everyone laughed at him. The American empire goes out, not with a bang, but a whimper. Oh well...next.
17
What is so sad about all of this is that no matter what proof comes out about Trump and his dealings, his base will remain loyal.
30
@mjbarr It is foolish loyalty that will lead them into more debt, their kids opioid addicts, no education to lead them to live in the real world of the 21st century, no health care for them to survive. It is nation-wide suicide.
1
Nixon listened to Kissinger, which was not always a very good idea, but Trump listens to no one.
30
@Robert Dole
Sean Hannity.
And other professional brown nosers.
The Quantum Leap of Republican presidential candidates: From Mitt Romney--who, at worst, had a dog on top of his car--to Trump--who is about to be visited by the Ghosts of Christmas (the war he's claimed to have won) past.
23
'Particularly in an administration where the bar for loyalty is sinking lower into the swamp with every passing minute.'
Perhaps, Gail, you or your staff would be willing to construct a Limbo Bar a la Trinidad and mark off the timeline of lowering the bar from the Andrew Johnson administration to the present. Given the density of dance activity over the past two years things may get a bit crowded. I believe in Donald Trump! He'll find a way. Um, believe me.
5
We live in a different time. During Watergate the SCOTUS unanimously ruled that the president was obligated to release the tapes which showed a conspiracy to cover up evidence. That would not happen today. Trump made sure of that when he appointed Bret Kavanaugh, wink wink.
Also, people like John Dean, or the IRS employee who leaked Nixon’s tax returns, for example, put their country before their party. That would not happen today. In a Darwinian world criminals evolve.
39
Since we're talking about flipping, the sport of gymnastics can be informative. We might describe Manafort's activities as an aerial twist in which the subject goes airborne and does a 180 degree rotation at the height of the flip. Or perhaps a gainer in which the subject does a back flip but moves forward in the process. Lots of metaphorical possibilities there. Dear Gail, in these times of lunacy, you are the gossamer thread that keeps what is left of our sanity attached to what we used to know as reality. When is your book coming out?
23
What worries me is Trump is creating a new normal for morality and legality. Any former president would have been impeached by now---
63
@ACJ
Patience. Impeachment takes time. Senatorial rats are already leaving the ship. How long did it take the Titanic to sink?
4
The thing people keep missing and rarely if ever report is that in all this, DT and the GOP is not governing. Like...at all. We are living in a junior high lunchroom. All that is discussed are the constant legal issues caused by this sick twisted man. When in God's name is the Congress and voters going to hold this fool accountable?
79
@Ken Hanig
"When in God's name is the Congress and voters going to hold this fool accountable?"
This assumes that the above are more capable and responsible than he. I, he she we, you, they are not. It's a species thing.
4
@Ken Hanig You did not get here overnight. First you take the House.
More importantly, Trump is now a proven liability for the GOP. He can only cause more damage and that damage could be permanent.
6
This is sooooo great! Love your humor in spite of how awful this is for our country!
16
Please do not disparage President Nixon by comparing him to Trump.
344
@Howard True that.
Never underestimate Trump. He can even make Nixon look better.
31
@Howard
Nixon was the last intelligent republican president.
17
@Howard
Every time someone here on earth compares Trump to Nixon, Nixon goes to the devils office to complain in person.
38
I teach Spanish and English. Trump's spoken and written English abilities aren't on any chart I have describing students' levels to tell us where to begin teaching them. So, I'm raising my hand for Trump being able to understand Macri better in Spanish.
Though, he really should say, "Equally as well." Or, "Zip."
18
Gail, you bring light to darkness:)
Our President has a lifelong guiding rule which states: definition of loyalty, lack of a better alternative.
Now that Mueller appears to be on the home stretch with enditements leading to convictions and prison sentences looming, I wonder how much longer his staff and for that matter the Congress are going to keep supporting his dismantling of our democracy.
This is all going to unravel quickly (hopefully) when jail sentences are handed down especially to members of the immediate family.
22
It will always be remarkable to me that so many Republicans in Congress have supported, and continue to support, this deeply flawed man. Mitch McConnell has been the abettor-in-chief, and this will not reflect well on him in the long run.
82
But McConnell has his excuse now...he didn't know about the Tower deal, if he had, he would not have abetted. Granted, it has a hole you can drive a truck through...but as Rachel says.."Watch this space." The R's are sure to grab that life line.
3
You need to carry around a program to keep up with the charges and indictments and like Santa's gift bag, there's more to come!
Trump will not be a topic during the Xmas Season or the season of peace and hope and good will. Not at any social gatherings I will be at.
Cohen doesn't mind being thought duplicitous but he sure as hell doesn't want to be thought treasonous. Trump didn't even know the Ukraine had sailors so I am guessing that he will avoid Putin now because of the investigation and Cohen and then they can kiss and make up later.
Personally, I wish Trump would just resign to beat the rap, retire to Russia with his crime family which will get them out of our WH, and build his Trump Tower in Moscow once he gets his Russian citizenship papers. Wouldn't it be funny if Putin barred him from entering Russia and seeking asylum?!
Justice may just be served on all kinds of levels to Trump and his minions.
30
@Andrea Landry So true about the possibility of Putin denying Trump's entry into Russia.
When all's said and done, Putin will likely take some victory laps by releasing all that he has on Trump.
While these two see themselves as rulers of the world, there can only be one king. Putin will wear that crown.
3
One plus to the unfolding saga is that I have fewer and fewer conversations/arguments with trump supporters up here in New England. The facts tend to shut them up. Some of them seem to have stopped watching the news. Every time I say something like "did you hear what he said about...." they never caught that news clip.
PS. about those golf carts: I just read that it has cost the government $300,000 (so far) to rent golf carts to follow trump around Mar a Lago. Is that true? Him donating his salary (by the way, to whom?) doesn't seem all the impressive does it?
54
I have always contended that the story of Manafort purchasing a python skin jacket for $18,500 was fake. He was actually wearing a jacket made of his own skin which he had shed the year before.
190
@syfredrick
Absolutely the best comment I've read in weeks. Thanks for the belly laugh!
24
You win the internet today.
4
Gail, I just read your latest, typically hilarious, piece about our current and utterly corrupt POTUS (aka Individual 1) after learning of George H.W. Bush’s passing, which saddened me immensely. The only thing those two persons will ever have in common is the title they’ll always hold as American Presidents. Their differences couldn’t be starker, more glaring and further apart.
Bush 41 was a brave war hero who fought and nearly died for his country then served it admirably in multiple and varied high level positions throughout his decades long career. One of his sons even became Bush 43.
I could go on, but out of respect for the Bush family, I’ll stop right there and let the readers make their own comparisons between 41 & 45 in terms of their accomplishments and the legacies they will leave us with. That alone should be enough to remind us not only of how great our leaders can become but also how pathetically they can fail us.
41
Lest we forget - Nixon committed outright treason during the '68 campaign when he offered Ho Chi Minh a better deal than Johnson was negotiating for ending the war. As much as I detest nearly everything Trump, I'll take a hotel in Moscow over such treachery in a heartbeat. Otherwise, thanks for another good offering, Ms. Collins.
17
@Jeffrey Barker
Are you assuming that Trump was not offering Putin a better deal on the sanctions than Obama was while Obama was still president?
21
Indeed. And yet, the same Nixon wrote a fine piece as early as 1967 on the need for America to officially recognize Mao's China. And yet, Nixon got the same deal from Ho in 1972-73 that he could have had in 1969, 25,000 American and close to a million Vietnamese deaths later.
15
@Jeffrey Barker. It's not the hotel that matters it's what Trump was prepared to sell out this country for a hotel. He actually tried to alter sanctions and God knows what else to appease the Russians. No lying and deceiving the American people and conspiring with our greatest foreign enemy to install himself in power is TREASON. Nixon didn't have an entire family of criminals compromising this country to foreign entities.
2
Just remember Donald Trump is the best of the Republican Party. 60 million people enthusiastically voted for this guy, including John McCain, Mitch McConnell, etc. if anyone was paying attention we knew or had the outline of all of this stuff before the election. And yet here we are. What does this say about the Republican Party? The type of blinding scorched earth, divisive, conspiracy theory based, white nationalist politics that is at the core of Republican ethos—leads to Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and now the finest distillation Donald Trump. One could only hope for a future in which the Republican parry only existed in the history books.
166
@BillC
What does this say about almost half of American voters? That's the scary part.
18
Nixon had some sympathetic support in part because his family was the very picture of dignity and class. Not once do I recall any excess or unseemly behavior from his wife Pat and their two daughters. You had to be pretty callous not to admire them.
22
Mr. Trump's descent into the dark side is liberally sprinkled with Russian connections, echoing the works of one of the greatest men to influence the ascent of Russia, Karl Marx, in 1884:
"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."
"Russia" and "money" are the twins of the noxious word cloud which is Donald J. Trump.
37
People I know often start talking about politics like this "I'm not a Trump supporter, but. . . . " We dislike both parties and hate their extremes, don't like Trump or Clinton. The "but" part is that we find we still agree with some of his goals or actions, even if we disagree with others - particularly in foreign policy and business policies. And, whatever convictions it may get, the Mueller investigation does seem like a star chamber and unconstitutional. It doesn't matter if we cringe when Trump speaks, the process matters more than any president. Last, whatever he has been, it has not been authoritarian, less so than Obama - and he is preferable to the hysteria and incipient fascism of the "resistance," championed in many of the articles and comments here. Even if they call themselves "anti-fascist" or "democratic" or are minority based, if they seek to change policy based on fear and violence, they are what they claim to hate. And, being actually or at least implicitly backed by much of the media and to some degree gov't, much more dangerous than their very weak counterparts on the right. No doubt, Trump bears responsibility for the hatred he faces. You can't campaign like that without expecting payback. Even some who should be his political allies hate him, which has been his biggest problem. I never could stand him, but prefer him to the anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-free speech rhetoric I read here so often in articles, columns and comments.
@DHEisenberg what a strange false dycotomy you’ve set up. On one side we have a clear and growing list of criminal activities perpetrated by the president and his inner circle as well as a list of ways he and his team have shown themselves incompetent at the rudiments of governance. On the other side you state a discomfort at thing you perceive as anti-democratic in the NYT - without any examples or recognition of the difference in scale or impact. Hard to take you seriously as a result.
17
Funny how the accusation that legitimate criticism is “anti-free speech”...when the accusation is published in a forum dedicated to it. If the Times were truly “anti-free speech”, your comments would never have seen the light of day. The issue is not free speech; irbid that you are too busy defending your own ideology to examine its flaws.
4
@JasFleet - I get it. I rarely write in any forum where I expect people to take me seriously or agree with me b/c most places one can comment are either fairly far right or fairly far left, and most other commenters there see anyone in the middle just as extreme as if they on the complete opposite side. At least you are relatively polite and I mean that sincerely. You should see the insults I get for suggesting that violence and intimidation aren't good ideas and that both sides are to blame for the present predicament. I don't expect to convince the other commenters any more than I expect moderates like Kasich or Webb to do well when they campaign in partisan primaries. Instead, I write to express myself, perhaps for solidarity to those who think like me (more than you think, though few in any forum) and maybe, in a very rare case, to persuade someone. The worst thing a partisan (and I was one) can do is take seriously anyone in the middle, because to do so will make you question the things you swallowed whole without thinking (as I did in my youth, it being the only thing I was taught). So, feel free not to, Jas. You are in good company and I'm used to it. If I have your intention this long, see if you can find Mark Twain's paper on "Consistency" online, still worth it a hundred years later. But, he's more persuasive than I am and he may make you question yourself.
One striking piece of this week's summit with President Obama and Jim Baker is that they both expressed pride in having left their respective times in power without indictments. Certainly, both men served honorably and respectably, whatever one thinks of their respective political leanings. But how far have things fallen with Trump that lack of criminality needs emphasis?!
22
@NM...and how quickly.
3
Nixon did at some level know that there was a right and wrong bigger than his own self-interest. No evidence of that insight with Trump. TBD is whether the GOP and the country as a whole can rise the occasion in dealing with the president who now owns the bottom.
21
I remember real estate agents like Trump. These people are dishonest, the property they represent have building violations. The payoffs, the politics and bullying that went with working with these people. What we are seeing is the crash of 08 real estate.
21
Trump has committed several nefarious actions that make Watergate seem like tiddlywinks. Trump’s opaque relationship with Putin should be incredibly alarming, yet the current GOP led Congress can’t be bothered to at least look into it.
32
I remember hearing after Richard Nixon left office he declined Secret Service protection. It's sad to think the American public will have to pay for Secret Service for the Trump Family for the rest of their lives. Grocery shopping, trips to the local golf club, going to court to defend themselves of treason, graft, perjury, collusion, theft on a grand scale, etc. You know, all the things families do.
72
@Ulysses There's lots about the presidency that should be changed once we've shed Trump. What's the need for presidential pardons? Limits to Executive Orders to by bypass Congressional action. Presidential travel budget is needed and should be enforced. This person currently in the WH takes far too many long weekends/weeks away from his job. The list is long.
What's the need for Secret Service protection for entire families post-presidency? To protect them from being kidnapped and held for ransom. Ha! Who'd volunteer to pay that ransom after enduring what we've had to endure from the Trump family?!?
19
@Ulysses If justice is served, Trump and his family will spend many years in prison, where they will surely be, hmm, guarded well -- for much less than the cost of the Secret Service.
18
@Ulysses: of course, if after he leaves office he is convicted for his financial shenanigans and ends up in jail, Secret Service protection will no longer be needed.
6
Just remember that after January, if Trump and Pence are both removed from office, Nancy Pelosi becomes our president.
Considering everything, that actually sounds like it might be a decent idea...
123
@vacciniumovatum What a huge relief it will be to have an experienced, ethical grownup as the Speaker of the House once again. Especially if it’s Nancy Pelosi, who knows all the tricks and where all the levers are. Trump, surrounded by dishonest yes-men and enablers, will not be able to make an illegal move without Pelosi kneecapping him at every turn. And that’s just the treatment Trump deserves.
23
@vacciniumovatum Why would Pence be removed? Just asking?
I just finished reading GHWB's obituary, a president with whom I disagreed a lot but whose his basic decency I never questioned.
Then I come here and see the photo of Trump with his perpetual angry scowl that he thinks makes him look tough but who is a coward at heart. Every day, often several times a day, we have to endure this reprobate's miserable guttersniping and alternate universe where lying and criminality are elevated to desirable traits.
The contrast is remarkable and alarming.
62
So much for Trump, the political outsider, cleaning up Washington. In fact, it is more like the swamp has been transplanted from Trump Towers to the White House.
19
@NM
Swamps are wetlands, providing habitats for fish & fowl.
Trump transplanted a cesspool to the White House and with it everything foul.
I am not negating Trumps pals for doing illegal things but as far as I can see he has not ordered anyone to commit a burglary,which is a felony. Nixon apparently did. He may have obstructed justice in some “Mueller” illusionary way but as you will see “no overt collusion “ with the Russians. Sorry. Mueller my allude to it but that’s it. He will go after Don jr. just because.
You may think I am a Trump fan? No. I am a justice fan. I am going to vote against Trump in 2020.That’s called politically justice.
@richard I doubt Trump will still be in office by 2020. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Trump resigns before New Years’ Day and before the Democratic takeover of the House.
5
@richard Impeachment does not require that an action rise to the level of criminality. Since his "confession" to Lester Holt, in front of an audience of millions, we have known he has tried to shut down the Mueller investigation. Obstruction of justice is an abuse of power - an impeachable offense.
5
He "was a weak person and not a very smart person" and is that because he lied in the first place, or because he wouldn't maintain the lie going forward. In either case I guess little donald wanted a lie and not the truth
7
“What do you do at holiday parties when somebody asks you what you think about the Trump scandal-rama?” The holiday parties I have attended over the years have been free of politics. Talk has been about sports, weather, family, vacations, etc But, if your question was posed, it would be clear to me the questioner was anti-Trump. We could have a most positive “ain’t it awful” discussion. It is always a relief when you know the position of the person asking about Trump. A comment like, “isn’t it awful how the press is treating Trump?”would lead me to either ask, what disturbs the person about the press? Or if I didn’t want to engage with the person to excuse myself to refill my drink or .... Trump acts like a mobster. He needs to go back to his corrupt business real estate practices and let America recover from his immoral behavior.
10
Does anyone remember when candidate Trump asserted that Hillary could not be an effective president since she would be under perpetual criminal investigation? Well, if that were the case for HRC, then that is the case in spades for POTUS Trump. Not that our Dissembler in Chief could contribute anything worthwhile to our nation were he not encumbered by the noose tightening about his neck, but really, do we need a president who spends all his time watching Fox and Friends, tweeting vitriol, blabbing on the phone with his partners in crime, and playing more golf than Obama ever dreamed possible? Indeed, lock him up and throw away the key.
39
Just think how maintaining the comb-over and the orange face with white raccoon-eyes will suffer once Trump is behind bars. Surely the hair spray glue will be banned; the tanning facilities unavailable. And, gosh: having to wear an orange jumpsuit with with a round -necked jersey, but no white collar, elephant trunk-length tie, French cuffs and links! Quelle horreur! Can't wait to see it happen.
40
Since Trump came to office, nothing matters anymore: the rule of law, basic civility, honour, facts...all the old values and institutions are just right out the window. I had to consciously pause in the middle of Gail’s column to recall just one instance of nothing mattering. It is pretty much accepted that the President had at least two sexual relationships after wife #3 had Trump’s child #5, and that his lawyer paid off the women to keep it from becoming public. Which, you have to admit, is shocking - but not as shocking as the fact that even now when the secret is out, it didn’t even matter. Wow. This guy can get away with anything. How did that happen? How does a country sink so low so quickly?
32
Forget Senator Collins, now a public and derelict member of Mitch McConnell's delusional club; my eyes are on Senator Scott of South Carolina. If anyone can see clearly again on the Republican side, let all the rest of Trump's days be Senator Scott's to rise and shine. He is the only Senator that has finally figured out he has nothing to lose by standing up and speaking out on the multitude of white, racist Trump nominees clamoring for lifelong rule.
Fingers crossed.
18
Yes, the number of criminals and the scope of the malfeasance is growing like a massive cancer. And, we haven't even touched on the NRA's roll in funneling Russian money to Trump and other GOP candidates yet. Or the Mercer's meddling in both Brexit and US elections through Cambridge Analytica. Or, the Steele Dossier, which is becoming more probable by the day. So, there is potential for at least twice the number of indictments as currently known, and of course Trump's crime family in the White House is still un-indicted. Trump's crime are the greatest ever!
13
In addition to the python skin jacket, Manafort had an ostrich skin jacket for "casual Fridays".
5
Nixon scuttled the piece takes that ended in the same place but six years later with 21,000 dead Americans Lord knows how many wounded and how many Vietnamese dead. Trump isn't there yet.
2
@dave
What will be the cost of delayed action for Climate Change during Trump’s
As a prologue, the Syrian civil wars & refugee crisis is just one example. Not only did so many die due to the conflict, it has roiled the natavists here & in Europe, jeapordizing social and political institutions based on the rule of law. This crisis finds its origins in drought caused by this changing environment.
Trump’s inaction (and concious actions too) will get him there soon enough.
Other than being sordid, the story of Trump's shenanigans in Moscow is fascinating. The question is why did the "author" of the Art of the Deal fail to make one in Russia?
Putin, may be a moral weakling enthusiastically shaking Saudi Prince Bin Salman's hand (also covered with journalists' blood- and fellow enemy of the press and also another moral weakling), but Putin is not stupid. When Putin called Trump very smart he did not mean it, he was just trying to get him elected. Actually Putin called Trump “talented” and “colorful” during the U.S. election campaign which was the basis of Donald Trump's puffed-up assertion that Russian President Vladimir Putin called him a “genius.”
Putin knows when he meets an incompetent and did not want any deal with Trump who is so completely incompetent that he loses even when he cheats. Hey, Trump managed to bankrupt opening casinos where the costumers go to become bankrupt not the other way around. No wonder Trump was kicked out the Panama hotel business. It appears this loser elected president with a Russian assist is about to be kicked out of office, not a day too soon.
15
I swear after every new revelation from the Special Counsel’s office, after any indictment, after any guilty plea, given the mass of evidence that has now piled up - all I can think of is: how is this guy still president? How is the Republican Party still behind him? How is 40% of our population still blind to Trump’s crimes?
Is it: but he’s our crook?
Is it the power of Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting state propaganda?
Is it that there are swamp creatures who are all milking it and covering up their own crimes while Trump is president?
How dare Trump get away with giving a killer like MBS a pass?
How dare Trump get away with calling the Mueller investigation a witch hunt? All his crookedness is getting exposed, with precision and evidentiary detail.
“very legal and very cool” is the new “I’m not a crook”...
26
Love it.
The trouble is that crazy man has infused debate with a virus, the redneck virus. Once he is gone, maybe we will become more civil.
Nope.
The GOP has been like this for years. Starting with Newt. Trump is just louder and much more visibly narcissistic. He’s all they wanted: maybe embarrassing, but he’s a weak fool and that’s what the GOP needed to advance their unstated but overall agenda: bankrupting The New Deal. Privatize social security, etc.
Only the removal of all GOP will heal our country. We are spreading from the west and northeast to Appalachia.
22
Well, he definitely seems dumb. But interestingly, at least he did just now figure something out that most would have known all along. He issued a statement praising George H. W. Bush. He finally figured out that having everyone in the Republican and Democratic "old school" establishment, including every ex-president, hating him is a losing play. Must have something to do with Robert Mueller's latest moves. Problem is that it is far too late to change that.
4
@Tim
Does anyone really think Trump himself penned those words of praise for #41? The statement has complete sentences for gawd’s sake!
1
Well, technically the treasonous Nixon did build a hotel in Hanoi; it was called the Hanoi Hilton. It was filled with an increased number of Americans as Nixon undermined the 1968 peace negotiations, and then after winning the presidency let the war drag on for years.
I marvel at the consistency of corruption, incompetence and bloody mindedness of Republican presidents. George HW Bush was the rare exception, even if he choose Willy Horton as his running mate.
12
It's surreal that this country is watching evidence that Russia has managed to compromise and blackmail a greedy ego obsessed failing real estate developer with a real estate deal he's been weirdly chasing for 30 years in exchange for lifting sanctions against Russia. Then help install him as president and use cover up of his lie to the American people about who he is in bed with to try and get sanctions lifted and God knows what else. Trump then installed a Russian asset and compromised criminal as head of our National Security while his son law was trying to set up an unmonitored, unsecured direct channel to the Kremlin in the Russian embassy. At what point does the even most committed Trump supporter choose this country over this traitor.
26
Innuendo & Speculation, a perfect title should the author decide to write a book because this article showcases their ability to stretch a small amount into an article length piece.
Tricky Dick comparisons invite us to look again at the traditional narrative. Tricky Dick defied his longtime benefactors & sponsors the Rockefellers & introduced protectionist policies to protect US industry. The Rockefellers were just tying up who was in and out of the "globalists club" and this was a bad look at a cucial time.
The Watergate fantasy narrative, when looked at from a 2018 perspective is a fairy tale. WaPo editor Bradley (ex Naval Intel), was part of the Washington swamp. It's implausible that he would assign two cub reporters to the story...unless he fed them the entire narrative in serialized form via Deep Throat.
Nixon took steps to protect the US against the globalist interests who desired free trade (that only enrichs them at the expense of workers) and is smeared and destroyed by the Press. Tricky Dick betrayed his financiers and sponsors the Rockefellers so his smearing and destruction was personal. Trump tries the same and we have the 2018 version
Want gold plated evidence of how deeply corrupted the schemes and rigged globalist sytems are that Trump threatens to dismantle? That globalists would sacrifice their billion dollar media brands and turn them into gossip blogs, all peddling anti Trump lies and smears. Because their rigged sytem is worth trillions...
1
so what law has Trump broken here? where and how have he and Putin stolen the election from poor Hillary?
1
@h dierkes I suggest you bring yourself up to date on the Mueller investigation, which is looking into the same questions. Be sure to read Mueller’s report when it’s released to the public—that is, if the Senate Republicans don’t try to hide his report by marking it Top Secret.
7
Again Great America Make...
I noticed in G20 camera coverage of Putin and Saudi Prince that Trump did not push anyone out of the way to do the Three Amigos.
The disgrace just goes on and on.
5
@Dry Socket Did you notice after the group photo no one rushed in to shake Trumps hand. He looked like the lost soul he is. Quite telling.
1
Rather than visions of sugarplums dancing in the head, what this column evoked for me was a wish upon a star: a ridiculously coiffed overweight orange septuagenarian in an orange jumpsuit taking a perp walk in a golf cart. (Just think of the ratings.)
Thanks, Gail. You're great at lighting candles in the darkness.
12
Thank you, Gail. You are our personal favourite! My wife and I marvel daily on how much humiliation your president can attract. How does he do it? Donnie, look in the mirror... We are all laughing at You (as everyone has done since you first crossed the bridge into Manhattan... or earlier.) How can you stand it?
5
I am not sure there is much difference. They are both greedy, criminal, republican and feel white collar crime is just the way the game is supposed to be played.
In other words, they are classic republicans.
7
Say what you will about both Trump and Nixon (or any other President), the true effects of a presidency cannot be know except in retrospect. In his time Kennedy was imbued with a sort of halo, but now it's dimmed considerably. The same applies to Carter. Nixon's reputation has risen from depths, esp. given his contributions in later life.
For now, it's fine to hate Trump, and this paper is doing its best in that respect.
2
@kwb You are right! Even Trump didn't get tens of thousands of people killed in an unnecessary war like Dubya did. Unfortunately, there's still time.
3
@kwb It is true that time does often illuminate the actions of man, great or small. However, part of that illumination is the intelligence that Nixon took pains to throw a monkey-wrench into the Paris peace talks for political purposes. That action led directly to the deaths of tens of thousands of US servicemen and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. Regardless of later charities, that action alone, for me, does, and should, keep Nixon's reputation at rock bottom.
8
@kwb
So we will wait for twenty or thirty years to see what Trump does to improve his miserable legacy. How's that?
2
[It was all allegedly about Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian ships and sailors. And if you believe that one, I’ve got a Moscow hotel I can sell you.]
And it would be overbooked with the GOP and Trump's political base.
4
Was it a Python jacket or an ostrich-skin jacket? Or was it both?
2
"Meanwhile Paul Manafort was double-flipping, giving Trump’s lawyers a secret briefing on what was going on while he was spilling the beans."
I'm hoping that a former FBI head like Mueller would be savvy enough to anticipate this and plant enough misinformation in his dealings with Manafort to send the Presidential Palace spinning. Paging "Spy vs Spy".
7
I think it is safe to say that Trump has far exceeded are lowest expectations in the very worst sort of way.
I recall during the campaign how insiders were saying Trump's campaign was disorganized chaos. Turns out the only order surrounding Trump was the illegal scheming going on.
And that it was one of Trump's many problems. He like everybody else never thought he would be elected. Had the Russians not elected him, he would have had nothing to worry about. Chances are, nobody would have looked into the tax fraud, Stormy Daniels, the thousands of lies, the campaign money violations, the money laundering for Russian oligarchs, and on and on.
But he couldn't help himself. Trump wanted the money and the power so he got the Russians to rig it up for him. Fatal mistake.
It is interesting to hear the right wink talkers quietly dipping a tow into the waters of disloyalty. Asking so timidly, "Do you think maybe there was some collusion?"
There is a mountain range of publicly available evidence of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury, witness tampering, bribery.
Then imagine all of the resources Mueller and his crack team have access to. Once you realize the FBI was on top of this thing from early days, you can bet there are communications intercepts.
Roger Stone? Please - they were listening to that dirtbag for the whole thing.
As for me, I say Democrats should not impeach him. Make the GOP beg for impeachment.
12
One of the few things that keeps me going through all of this morass is the chance, albeit a slight one, of seeing Congressional Republicans backpedal once the Mueller investigation reaches it's tipping point.
Think about the great fun Democrats could have with political ads, pitting full-throated endorsements of Trump against the hypocritical lies that will emerge from the GOP trying to distance themselves from Trump.
I was too young and idealistic during the Nixon era to appreciate hypocrisy. Not anymore!
15
This all makes me even more weary (if that is even possible).
Is it Christmas, yet?
I'll even wait for a New Year's Eve surprise.
6
I can't afford to buy the hotel, but could I at least rent one of the rooms? If it's a hotel associate with Trump, I'll definitely be bringing my own sheets ...
3
But keep in mind: Trump's supporters don't mind being scammed or lied to. Not at all. They really don't mind.
17
@smartypants, I agree Mr. Smartypants, I agree; what I find despicable they find admirable. And never the twain shall meet. Sad.
4
None of this should be a surprise from the first Ferengi president. Re-read the Rules of Acquisition...
2
After watching Trump and his fake bravado (taking credit for “deals” that haven’t been approved by Congress) at the G-20, I saw our mighty country ignored. Trump looked like the relative who shows up at the wedding who hadn’t been invited. Statesman like...nope. Amicable....nope. Out of place....yep. I am sure All The President’s Crooks are weighing heavy on his mind. We are now mostly Make America Alone.
5
If I were preparing to write a book, I would already have collected some of the more amazingly dumb things Mr T has said about his minions, past and present (only some, not all, as the book has to remain light enough for the guy from Amazon to carry it to people's doors).
Obviously I would not include quotes obviously formulated by faithful scribblers, such as the presidential eulogy which appeared some hour ago on the passing of George Bush Senior. (An effort could incidentally have been made to adapt the language to the first-year missionary school English normally used by DT, so that the ghost-writer's effort would not have been so blatantly un-Trumpish).
Once again our hearts go out to the American people, stuck with a bumbling fool of epic proportions, only matched by the former British foreign minister and perhaps by Idi Amin.
4
"...beware of flunkies wearing python skin."
Hard to argue with. Could perhaps be the understated epitaph of Trump's entire virtual presidency.
8
Trump’s great gift to history is his ability to polish the reputations of some of his formerly tarnished predecessors. I used to think that W Bush was the worst president ever, with no one a close second, because of the magnitude of the damage he had done. Nixon was reviled because of his criminal coverup and his sleazy personality. We need more articles comparing Trump with other failed leaders, Harding, Andrew Johnson, et al. Trump’s ultimate “win” will be that he will top them all.
6
Barack the Divider hid more illegality - including planting spies in opposition campaigns and setting up a group devoted to destroyng candidate Trump and his campaign - than anything Nixon ever even WANTED to do.
Nixon never shipped uranium to Russia.
I'd like to ask him why he has spent over thirty million trying to keep things he ordered done OUT of the archives maintained for each president.
And just out of curiousity, how did Barack end up with a Social Security number reserved for Connecticut when he never went there until running for the presidency?
This thing about Rusher...
1
I've got the perfect title for all this: From Russia, With Love.
4
All of Trump's malfeasance has started to bore the crowd at the sideshow. I think the Fat Lady and the sword-swallower are a better draw these days. Not to mention the two-headed calf. (That's a Lulu, I hear.)
And how can The Donald compete with vegan anarchist terrorists - operating in a country where chicken is considered to be a vegetable - who actually throw bombs (or try to) at national icons like Evita, who after her remains made a very circuitous journey to Italy, and Spain, and maybe to the Poconos, finally made it to Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires?
No. Poor Trump is being upstaged by his despotic buddies - Vlad and MBS. He's definitely out of his league at the G20 in a country where kleptocracy is a refined art...and one done very tastefully and with panache, at that.
3
I keep thinking of the final line in 'The Devil's Advocate', where Larry the reporter morphs into John Milton. "Vanity, definitely my favorite sin."
Vanity and hubris have brought down better men than this crew.
7
"... or the new story that suggested Cohen planned to sweeten the deal by offering Putin a $50 million penthouse."
That's a lot of sugar.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prohibits companies and their individual officers from influencing foreign officials with any personal payments or rewards.
Of course, in 2012 Trump stated that “the world is laughing at us” for enforcing the anti-bribery law.
$50 mil bribe dangled to get a deal approved? To an enemy of the United States while you were running for President? Giving said enemy leverage over you?
I doubt Robert Mueller is laughing. But Putin? Mohammed bin Salman ? They are most definitely laughing.
11
Thank you Gail, as always. I admire your work, stick to it attitude. As the days start blending in on each other I do wonder how much longer anyone can continue to be mentally, emotionally, and intellectually imprisoned on the trump ride to absolutely nowhere.
What exactly has happened of any positive note since that awful day in November, 2016? Anything? The emperor obviously has no clothes as he continues to wear the exact suit and tie sporting that funny hairdo, and holding all these mini Nuremberg rallies before his whipping at the polls this November. Then rather than get to work which nobody's actually seen. Oh he signs his name in a big black leatherette folder from time to time. But he's never been shown actually sitting down to his desk hard at work being the chief executive of the nation.
Rather all we actually see is reports on his 0300hrs Twitter feeds, his walking back and forth from his airplane and helicopter or now, dodging ceremonies and other people who are world leaders. He occasionally sits in a chair with some other international politician or stands together in front of microphones blathering on about how great everything's going, the best ever. Why he even said that while he didn't believe his own government's climate report, he "loves the weather." Then he immediately proclaimed that "we're going to have the best weather!" I didn't know that anyone could just make it so.
Well another tiring day of the trump play comes to an end. Thanks Gail.
8
Had there been such a thing as 'high fives', Ho Chi Minh and Moa Tse Tung would never have dared to do one during Nixon's administration, because he was too feared to toy with. Nixon didn't sit around for years whining about Archibald Cox and Elliot Richardson, when he wanted them gone they were gone. But because Nixon was the man he was, he still wasn't half as dangerous as President Trump. Selfish to the core,, there is no telling the price Trump will make us pay to save himself and his family.
4
Enjoyed this piece immensely as I do most of Gail Collins’ pieces. But speaking of Nixon, it seems to me that forgetting about Watergate for a moment, by today’s standards, Nixon would be considered far too liberal for the Republican Party and even many democrats. Just amazing how the entire center of gravity has shifted so much.
86
What ultimately brought Nixon down was exhaustion, not on his part, but exhaustion on the part of the public that grew weary of the whole Nixon/Watergate spectacle.
We're getting to that point today. Before we ever get to the bottom of all the sordid dealings surrounding Trump, before the Mueller probe is completed or before we even get to see his taxes, what might be Trump's undoing is a weary public ready to reach for the remote and simply change the channel out of exhaustion.
It may not be the shining moment history will look back on, like the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima. And it won't inspire the words like Churchill's "this was our finest hour", but, hey, we'll take it.
121
I hope you're right. It'd be the political equivalent of cancelling one's Facebook account and going outside for a long refreshing walk.
76
@David Forster I think the people are tired of this non ending investigation that is all about nothing. They're not tired of Trump. He talks tough, the economy is strong and he bullied the Fed Chair into keeping interest rates low until the rest of the country has a few years of economic recovery under the belt. Business is booming in the Beltway, and on the coasts and the global markets. We get that. Somebody should ask Mueller if he'll have his work wrapped up by the 2020 election, if he's looking into Facebook in connection with the Russia election inverference story, and publish the weekly pricetag that the investigation workers are billing for their work. It needs to end, and if there is no there there, man up and admit it Mueller. The budget for this investigation needs to be monitored because WE are paying for this, and so far, there's been nothing but high-priced busts of businessmen. Folks, Hillary is never going to be president, no matter how much Comey and Mueller tried...
1
I'd be ecstatic if you were right. My fear is that our collective fatigue will numb us to the persistent onslaught of unethical, immoral, and criminal behavior.
At what point will it be a line too far?
5
I often think that Nixon's troubles started because of his basic insecurities. In 1960 he was VP, a WWII vet with a wonderful family. Here comes JFK with the same resume but tons of charisma and grace and bests him by a razor-thin margin. I don't think he ever got over it-even two terms elected as president couldn't assuage his feelings. But Watergate and his enemies list are small potatoes compared to the horror of the criminal enterprise now masquerading as a presidential administration.
147
"but at least he wasn’t negotiating to build, say, a hotel in Hanoi at the same time"
No, he was carpet bombing Hanoi with massed B-52 raids. Is that really better?
40
@Mark Thomason
........or sabotaging the Vietnam peace talks in 1968 in order to get elected.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/obituaries/anna-chennault-dead.amp.html
Tricky Dick and Trumpty Dumpty were both comfortable with treason.
20
Mark Thomason:
Thanks. I was waiting for us to get past the required eulogies about Nixon and Bush Sr. to the savagery of their unnecessary and fruitless wars in Iraq and Vietnam. Our history must never be whitewashed to illuminate the current events we face. Thanks, Mark.
And Nixon savaged the Constitution, Justice Dept., the CIA, the FBI, defenders of democracy that are now helping to cure us of tRump. Flynn is a fool, Manafort an obvious double-dealer … but Haldeman and Ehrlichman were horrors we should never forget.
8
@Mark Thomason Depends on how much you value human life. Trump hasn't started any wars on his watch like Clinton, Bush and Obama, has he? Too smart for that. Oh, and let's not forget the costly War on Drugs. How much, and how many lives, did that one cost. RIP Bush Sr. reunited in heaven or otherworld today, Poppy and Babs. TUrn the page, to a new America...
1
I always thought that the job of President was so overwhelmingly challenging that few people were capable of doing it. Enter Trump. Now the bar is so low almost anyone can imagine doing better than the Donald. I suppose we should thank him for establishing the absolute bottom. Maybe I'll run in 2020. I know for certain that I could never do worse than Trump.
1156
I think we all notice how the job of President of The United States appears to take a toll on the occupants of the office. Some of the graying we see is natural, but the stress of the role seems to accelerate the process. That usually becomes evident by the end of a four to eight year term.
Keep an eye on TRUMpp. I may be imagining things, but during this last week his appearance has begun to suddenly take on a bedraggled edge. When he hugs himself, as he often does when under stress, it's a tell.
129
@William O. Beeman: You were wrong at first, but you've learned. A job with the whole US government behind you is not a hard one. It is what you make of it. For Trump it's a golf vacation and a platform for his id. Now, if he can only avoid prison, it will be a success on his terms. (Just ask him.)
76
@ad rem. He's a walking heart attack that should have happened years ago, given the way he treats his body. He may think he loves the stress but the stress doesn't love him. Angina, anyone?
71
One thing you have not considered is that Mueller might have figured out Manafort was double-crossing him early during the cooperation phase. Perhaps the president did not get as good information from Manafort and his lawyers as he thought.
123
@James Ricciardi Lol. Uh huh. Can't they play their little games off the public dollar? Mueller and team, I mean.
Ironically, both Trump and Nixon ran as LAW AND ORDER candidates. Present company excepted?
53
The GOP plays the Law and Order game, but are far more corrupt than most others.
8
You can't tell the players without a scorecard. There are so many indictees it boggles the mind. The one thing about the current occupant is that he doesn't have to remember all the lies because he just denies he said them, even if you have him on video. I must say I am overwhelmed by the numbers. Gail, you must have a terrific memory to try to keep all the conspirators straight.
87
I am hoping someone has a big flowchart they are constantly updating so people like us can follow it all!
5
I have to keep reminding myself to stick with all the myriad details being unearthed by Mueller and his investigators because it's just so easy to become mired in the minutiae of which Trump crony or family member did what and when. And I'm not one of those people who has a spread sheet in my computer to keep track of how many times Trump tweeted that the investigation was a witch hunt. Fortunately the press keeps me reasonably informed or I'd get bogged down in it all. Fortunately for all of us, Trump can't keep a secret; he is driven to tell the truth on himself even while he lies pathologically to the American people. A good example of this is his interview with Lester Holt when he told all of us why he fired Comey. Then there are the "G-Summits" for comic relief because Trump can't help but embarrass himself when he gets together with other world leaders. Maybe it would be more accurate to say these are cringe-worthy moments.
55
Slowly but surely Congressional Republicans will come to realize that the elimination of Trump is not only mandatory but the manifestation of political sanity itself as well.
Sharks that they all are when it comes to hunger for power they will sense that blood is in the water given the mid-term election results for control of the House.
Nixon was asked to resign by GOP members of Congress and Trump will be given the same opportunity in the fullness of time - sometime before 2020 by one route or another.
If Trump hangs in there then GOP stalwarts will sharpen their trusty powerful shark teeth for the winning of the nomination.
Trump set the tone in 2016 and the tune will be used against him - and rightly so.
It will be "Traitor Trump" in more than just one watery sea of ruthless endeavor.
I hope the process is very long and very satisfying ............ for us all.
32
@MNW. You have more faith in the GOP leadership than I do. They have clearly shown that they’re ok with anything Trump has done or will do. Their own power is more important than preserving the rule of law and even our democracy. They’re drunk on that power and will party on until voters turn off the lights and shove them out the door. Meanwhile, they’re stacking the courts with the worst judges they can find, leaving us a legacy we’ll be dealing with for decades as they try to preserve the rights of mostly rich white males and turn back the clock on the basic rights gained for anyone else.
10
@BG
The process has already begun.
GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina are investigating Ivanka Trump's use of private e-mail for government business.
(There is a certain irony in this happenstance.)
"That you now have Republicans investigating members of the first family is an indication of the perils ahead" for the Trumps.
-GOP Tom Davis of Virginia.
(NY Times. National News. 11/26/18)
I agree that Trump tops Nixon for the bottom.
But an argument has recently been made that Cheney tops Trump for that perverse honor. I agree with that, too.
Let's hope that Trump doesn't last long enough to overtake Cheney on the way to the bottom--because he certainly has the potential to do so.
43
Trump's speaks Spanish? That's funny because it seems that he has a long way to go before learning English. Just this week, he referred to Mueller's investigation as a "phony witch hunt."
If it's a phony witch hunt, then it isn't a witch hunt. And today, he said that his dealings in Moscow were not just legal but "very legal." I would like for him to explain the difference. However, I shouldn't expect too much inasmuch as most of the time, he speaks like a mob boss. The syntax of some past politicians was funny, such as the elder Mayor Daly of Chicago, who used to say: "I resent those insinnuendos."
He was funny but Trump is not.
134
@Whole Grains thank you for a bit of humor in this otherwise horrid debacle of a president.
9
@Whole Grains -- for a moment of historical amusement you might consider the life and times of James Michael Curley: 4-term Mayor of Boston, two-term Congressman, and one-term Governor of Massachusetts. O'Neill described his governorship as "ludicrous part of the time, shocking most of the time, and tawdry all of the time."
Curley was the real thing: Irish political mob boss. He was smart, played the Irish Paddy to his rather Trump-like base, and was corrupt to the bone.
Curley's start came he was elected to Boston's board of aldermen in 1904 while in prison on a fraud conviction. He and another fellow named Curley (no relative) got caught taking the civil service exams for postmen for two good Irish boys -- illegal but very smart politics.
Curley was famous for "them kind words fills me heart with joy," and "politics ain't beanbag." (a genteel ladies game of a generation older than his).
He was sentenced to 6–18 months on a mail fraud conviction and spent five months at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury. Truman commuted his sentence under pressure from the Massachusetts congressional delegation. Truman later gave Curley a full pardon in 1950, for both his 1904 and 1947 convictions.
It's hard to keep a good crook down....
11
@Lee Harrison
And one of the reputed campaign slogans was “Vote often and early for James Michael Curley”
There’s a good biography on him “ The Rascal King” by Jack Beatty, published about 30 or so years ago.
3
Nixon was smart but paranoid, a complicated character in many respects. Trump, on the other hand, is as emboldened by his simplicity and ignorance as he is limited by his attention span. All undertakings must benefit him; sheer greed will inevitably be his formulaic demise.
76
Oh for the love of Ms. Collins, just about the only person I know who can actually tell the facts as they are (and they are beyond depressing) and yet make them humorous at the same time. No one else can do this for me - I can't watch late night TV because who wants to go to sleep with a retelling of the horrors of the day on their minds? Perhaps it is because Ms. Collins is so truly intelligent that I know she takes these matters as deadly serious as they are and can manage to retell them and educate us about them in detail and still bring a smile - to my face, anyone, and for me at the moment I'll take any smile I can get when talking about the state of our country's government (or lack thereof).
103
Gail Collins is an exceptional talent. She has mastered her craft. She makes it possible for me to read about POTUS and be left feeling a smile inside. Most of her colleagues in the opinion business only stoke the rage.
12
I’ve been shocked by the wide coverage of the death of Bush Sr.; that’s to say what a remarkable ‘normal’ President he was and how ignorant I was in missing it. I knew he was ‘ok’ in essence but had some decisions that were less... I don’t know, something... but in comparison to Trump I’d forgotten what a decent and responsible, respectable President can accomplish.
Bush Sr. Was remarkable, and I’m embarrassed I didn’t know that and shocked at the difference between an actual real President and Donald Trump.
It’s so far down the rabbit hole, the gap between a real man with unapologetic integrity and the grinding swill of the so-called current leadership. America needs a man the likes of Bush Sr. Right now, immediately and forever. As long as the GOP as it exists today has nothing to do with it.
A President like Bush Sr. Yes please.
49
@Paul Yates: No, sorry, Bush Sr. doesn't get a pass just because he wasn't as bad as Trump (or Reagan). Bad policies are bad policies, and the Iranian path to the presidency was just traitorous as the Russian path (or Nixon's path through Hanoi).
7
@Paul Yates -- heck, at this moment Bush Jr. is starting to look amazingly good in comparison to Trump.
2
Oh, please! Not another Republican!
1
Nixon was surrounded by men who would do whatever it took to maintain and gain more power, but the actual intentional criminal miscreants were few. Haldeman and Ehrlichman come to mind. The rest of the bunch were swept up into something they didn't fully comprehend or got in so deep they couldn't get out without their brief cases catching on fire. In stark contrast, Trump seems to be surrounded by an entire den of thieves, men and a few women who have only small clues as to where they are and what they should be doing and no understanding of the limits of anything, including outrage.
I don't generally wish others ill, but it is not inconceivable that a bus load of White House toadies could be taken away in chains before this long, sad and rather disgusting tale meets its inevitable crashing ending. Trump, of course, will say, "I did rather well."
36
Regarding driving on to the putting green, on the TV I saw Trump walking and had the sound off. It was plain as day.
The man is not well physically.
Aside from all the bad stuff about him he is obviously not well.
28
@In deed
Anyone can see that, if they will look. Even with trump watching TV most of the time, its an exhausting job. Look at the before and after photos of past presidents. I wonder if he is going to survive another 2 years.
17
@sjs
I don't think the odds are small that his presidency will end with a heart attack or stroke.
3
@sjs as they say after the shootings - hopes and prayers. In this case that nature does its work.
6
When Trump tossed his hat in the ring early in 2016, he stood out in the group of what eventually became eighteen Republican wanna-bes. He was rude. Arrogant. Ignorant and untested, but self assured.
Through the primaries Trump continued on in his abrasive, non-presidential fashion.
The convention. The general election campaign. The debate with Secretary Clinton...
Through all of these milestones to the presidency, Donald Trump clung to his arrogance, abusiveness, ignorance and swagger.
When Trump won the election the nation was, in general, thrown into shock.
A candidate whose boorish behavior and complete lack of political experience made his election unthinkable, had been elected! Surely after being inaugurated, Donald Trump would make an effort to conduct himself in a manner appropriate to the awesome power of the position he’d attained.
But that hope went unfulfilled.
We now know that Trump lacks the demeanor, the character, the ethics and the knowledge to even pretend to truly be an American president. Few citizens have what it takes to sit in the chair where Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt sat. Donald Trump does not.
Now with the passing days, we are confronted by growing evidence that Trump is, in fact, no more than a greedy, corrupt white collar criminal.
The nation will survive
67
@Tom W
Excuse me, Tom, but now you know? Where was these realizations before the election. DJT is despised among the people from his home, and surrounding states. He is known to be shallow and completely unprepared
for this role he now occupies. How could voters not know?
12
@Wayne Hochberg
Willful ignorance, sadly for all too many, my brothers included.
3
What made Watergate easier than this was a Republican Congress that did not have the back of its criminal president. The current GOP serves not the best interests of the nation but the interests of Donald Trump. Their silence is tantamount to aiding and abetting the president. With the latest bombshell information on Trump's entanglements with Putin, GOP legislators may finally see the light and abandon Trump. But the difference between Nixon and Trump is stark. Nixon, when he realized he would be impeached and convicted, parted peacefully. I don't have the same confidence Trump will do the same.
778
@nzierler
I must beg to differ on one point you have made: The GOP members in congress did have Nixon's back until the tide turned (the firing of Cox?). Take a look at the roll call votes from the committee on impeachment and it ran almost exactly along party lines. The Republicans had Nixon's back. Same was true of the full house vote. Take a look.
66
@nzierler Not true.The Republicans did have Nixon's back.. See the following editorial. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/opinion/watergate-republican-party.html
The difference is that both the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats but the Republicans fought them all the way until the very end.
49
@nzierler
I am afraid that if removed from office, Mr. Trump will have to be physically dragged out of the white house. The image I have is that of a grown man behaving like a 2 year old boy throwing a temper tantrum and the parent yanking the boy away.
92
The thing I appreciate about Trump and the scandals he surrounds himself with is the bare-faced honesty about his motives.
For example, saying that he continued to negotiate for that Moscow Trump hotel because he thought he might not win, and why should he cut his name off from a marketing deal when what he really cares about is his business.
I wonder what will happen when he tries to license his name to the next Republican candidate for President? The Trump Pence, anybody?
7
Regarding the Trump story, I would like to see everything knit together, the prostitutes, lack of monies for massive buildings - or at least the name planted on it - breaking into Clinton’s staffs email accounts, which is just as illegal as Nixon’s staff breaking into the Watergate offices. Trump tried for years to build a property in Russia. While Russians were happy to lend money to the Trump organization, they really didn’t want him to build anything in their country since he cheats anyone he works with. They gave him money when no one else would just because they like to have something on anyone useful for future reference. It was their complete dislike of Clinton and the chance of having a U.S. President on whom they happened to have compromat, and who really wanted to do business with them that led to an agreement that involved Wikileaks breaking into Podesta’s email and Cambridge Analytics’ brilliant job fashioning Trump’s message when he could only bully and lie. Cambridge Analytics worked to refine Trump’s message and identify key electoral races. Trump now works at keeping the stupid voters in line and protecting the interests of his sponsors; Russia, Koch Brothers, etc., all the while holding the Republican Senate in his power. Trump was perfectly willing to bargain with Russia during the campaign on sanctions. He remains willing to do anything for Russia and Saudi Arabia, including selling out our country.
97
One of my wife’s friends sent an email to us that suggested Trump was a chess player among checkers players from the Obama years. It is that kind of fealty to a President that represents a baseline of corrupt activities from making money in office from his position, making his own rules in hiring unscrupulous, venal men and women for his cabinet officers, abusing the Supreme Court appointment process, kissing up to every tin pot dictator in the World, abusing our Allies and seriously slowing our battle against global warming while ignoring scientific data identifying the serious nature of affairs in this regard.
28
Sadly, I have to agree that Trump is MUCH worse for America than Nixon.
39
@William We survived the criminality of the Nixon years and we will survive the criminality of the Trump years. The selection of a candidate for the presidency is a long, involved and public act; Nixon damaged the republican party for decades to come. I expect Trump to do the same to the current republican party; they picked him, let them suffer with his 'legacy.' It is just unfortunate that try-as-we-might, we don't seem to be able to find these creepy persons before they make it on a presidential ballot.
2
Something preemptive needs happen with respect to Trump's agency and the government assets he has access to. I'd recommend first and foremost, that his nuclear suitcase is confiscated and locked away until after a new president is installed. (Yes, actually electing a president via the popular vote will have to wait.) Pence installed in the White House is an insult to our memory of democratic values. All these considerations pale against the image of Trump retreating to his presidential bedroom with a suitcase stuffed with the future of the human race.
20
I have always thought of Nixon as a man who could be vain, petty and cruel and capable of acting as a bit of a crook. But I never sized him up as a President like Trump who cares about himself long before he cares about the country.
24
Don't assume Nixon "cared about the country". He did have to be forced out of office after all.
2
... himself long before and after ....
Nearly three dozen indictees? Not much need for a witch hunt when the witches seem to be falling out of the trees. Speaking of trees, there's only one thing I want to see under my Christmas tree this year but only if Mueller has it wrapped up by then.
20
Yep this is funny stuff. Meanwhile, two articles in total about up to 75% of insects disappearing from study areas. Perhaps our choice of topics that fascinate will be the historical indicator of our species intelligence level.
14
@operadog- Yup. I'm reading that one too and came over here for some lighter fare (which it ain't).
Wouldn't it be funny if we were complaining about this president and his "whatevers" with humanity's collective last breath.
Let's see how many "likes" you get for this. I told you, if you want to get our attention, post a "Cat Face."
For me, the 'Bug article" is much more interesting. This one is just a rehash of stuff I already am aware of.
Maybe we should admire Donald Trump for not using his most effective defense to the increasing likelihood that he will be found to have committed impeachable crimes and misdemeanors.
We consider Trump a completely unprincipled man, but he draws the line at unleashing a readily available, watertight defense to the charges now being made against him.
The defense, of course, is for Donald Trump simply to say to Robert Mueller and the American people: “Look, let’s face it. I’m way too dumb to plan complicated schemes to get Vladimir Putin to spend a half-billion dollars for a Moscow hotel, and then have him launder the money so it’s tax free for me.”
If Trump stuck to that script, he’d be okay.
The problem is that somebody like Rudy Giuliani might volunteer: ”The President is just letting Putin have his way in Ukraine, Eastern Europe and the Middle East as thanks for helping in the election.”
8
A lifetime of cons are catching up with Individual 1. Ironically it will be the presidency that unravels the so-called empire.
12
"You’d think that after almost half a century we could at least expect an improved quality of criminals."
That's the problem -- the old myth of progress. The entire culture is addicted to the false god of progress. Yesterday just has to be better than yesterday: more money, louder parties, bigger guns, more magnificent orgasms, craftier criminals.
But it ain't so. Only the history of gadgets is linear. Everything social is cyclical. Good days followed by bad, bad days followed by good. But we have taken the bait. If something goes wrong, just buy a fancier gadget. And close your eyes and pretend that every day in every way everything is getting better and better.
The glory of Donald Trump lies in his utter loutishness. In being not just the worst ever but the worst imaginable, he has liberated us from the debilitating myth of inexorable progress. He has freed us at last to see ourselves as we actually are.
17
I was completely with you, Woofer, until your last sentence. You're too much of an optimist for me.
4
@woofer
Excellent comments. Thanks for your wise thoughts.
The great Con is at it again. He has made the deficit higher in
the last two years. Yet the State Television ( Fox and Friends)
continues to feed his supporters the cool aid to dull their senses.
When will coal get cleaner? Where are the fine people?
Nixon had some smart guys who, with help and a bag of tricks
were able to steer clear of any foul ups. For Nixon,sadly it was some tapes and his self doubt that got him tripped up.
Not so for the great Con,so far he’s got enough guys of his in federal trouble to fill the pen in Lompoc,
Soon there will be enough from his west wing for a yearbook
picture and signing there too.
Oh they don’t have any room for a golf course there, what will
the great Con do on the weekends?
5
@The Chief from Cali: "State Television ( Fox and Friends)" Perfect! Hope that gets traction beyond your comment here. Thanks!
@Mike Roddy: back in the day, the idea that “our Government could ... be full of flunkies, zealots, charlatans, and liars” was a self-evident truth. So most of our present villains are not so different from those of Nixon’s era, or Reagan’s.
Trump himself, however, is a horse of a different color. He’s Nixon’s id unchained. That’s something new.
10
If the old adage that we learn from our mistakes holds true, America will earn a PhD.
13
My solution to the problem: Expel Mr. Trump from the United States. Seize his assets and clean out his bank account, less enough money to buy a one-way ticket to Moscow (or N.Korea). After a week no one will miss him, not even his loyal followers. They have an extremely short attention span, anyway. They'll go to a NASCAR race and later won't remember who's president until 2020.
19
Trump is stupid. He thinks he's "smart" because, well, he would. Trump is so self-focused that he can't even conceive of things he -doesn't- know... and so narcissistic and needy that he will never admit to anything he doesn't know being important. Trump is convinced he is a 'business genius' - with his multiple bankruptcies to prove the opposite. Trump, of course, believes the fantasy that, because he was able to cheat his way into tax credits for those business's losses, he is a business genius "winner". Of course, any real business person would expect to keep the businesses alive as going concerns, but Trump, ever self-focused, is only concerned with the 'win' of cheating his investors and creditors.
Trump cheats. Trump cheated his whole life - he cheated to dodge the draft, he has cheated on every wife so far, and he's cheated customers, business partners, suppliers, and more recently the American voters he conned into voting for him. Trump is not smart, but he's greedily-clever, always seeking ways to cheat himself to "wins". Trump sees everything through a "what's in it for me?" filter, always a transaction, and cheats to grab what he can for himself, whether legally or not. Mr. Mueller will set this right, I hope. We can only pray he does so sooner rather than later.
40
@Jim Brokaw
the best possible example of the Dunning Kruger effect is trump. He will be the example used in basic psychology textbooks for years to come.
11
This is the best column I've ever read of yours Gail. Truly inspired. I hope this story turns out in the end, but unfortunately I fear the worst. As Eric Idle says: always look on the bright side of life".
7
Trump was elected along the Republican majorities in the Senate and House.
Under Nixon, in contrast, Republicans never even got close to a majority in either chamber of Congress. After Watergate broke wide open in 1973, the Republican fraction of Congress went down further, to 40% in the Senate and to 1/3 of the House. 18 months after the Senate Watergate panel first convened, Nixon was out of political office for the rest of his life.
Leaders of the Democratic Party in the 1970s were competent, clearheaded, organized, popular and effective, and they had backbones. Nobody writing in the New York Times these days ever seems to want to mention that.
12
@Sage -- all that you say is true, but there is the additional fact that Republicans were willing, in the end, to see Trump removed from office, for the good of the nation AND the good of their party.
There's no evidence that the current Republicans have any such motives. Why the difference?
I think the Republicans know that the party is doomed as a national party now. Becoming "the dumb angry white-guy's revenge party" is the last gasp. They'll play it out as long as it runs, leaving nothing but the political ashes.
Some new conservatism will splinter off from the Democrats, but it won't be anything like the GOP.
2
@LeezTypo" you meant "Nixon to be removed", not "Trump". Wishful thinking, eh? ;)
1
Trump should be removed from office because is is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office due to mental illness.
Trump has had a severe Narcissistic Personality Disorder from an early age.
U. S. National Library of Medicine/ Medline Plus
Narcissistic Personality Disorder-Symptoms
A person with this disorder may:
1. React to criticism with rage, shame, or humiliation
2. Take advantage of other people to achieve his or her own goals
3. Have excessive feelings of self-importance
4. Exaggerate achievements and talents
5. Be preoccupied with fantasies of success, power, beauty, intelligence, or ideal love
6. Have unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment
7. Need constant attention and admiration
8. Disregard the feelings of others, and have little ability to feel empathy
9. Have obsessive self-interest
10. Pursue mainly selfish goals
29
Nixon may have been paranoid, bitter, vindictive and willing to perform illegal acts in order to obtain and preserve power. But make no mistake that he was smart, had strong policy beliefs and surrounded himself with talent to implement them.
Trump on the other hand, has limited critical thinking ability (just look at his pathetic business track record as a scorecard), no ideals (other than to stir up racism and create social & geographical division), no morals whatsoever and a limited attention span.
If Nixon could see this kind of comparison he would be rolling over in his grave.
803
@Andrew When comparing Trump's scorecard with Nixon, please remember that "Tricky Dick" was responsible for the thousands, perhaps millions of deaths, American and Vietnamese, from 1968 through 1973. We have only recently discovered how he extended the war for his political fortunes. That's a trick that Trump would probably consider "really great."
76
@Andrew Nixon never put out a book with four chapter elevens.
36
Gail Collins -- we Americans are riveted today by the death of our 41st President, George Herbert Walker Bush, and not the "dense" plight of our 45th president, who is strutting his stuff at the G-20 Summit in Argentina right now. No matter our political suasion, we who witnessed "41" in Washington, D.C., from the time he was head of the C.I.A. in the 1970s, through his two terms as Vice-President to Ronald Reagan, and his term as our President, from 1989-93, appreciated Bush's great character and humanity. A stark contrast to the man of little character, little morality, less intelligence, who was elected our 45th President two years ago. G.H.W. Bush was Senator Prescott Bush's son and grew up in Connecticut. He and Barbara Bush moved to Texas after he served in WWII; they raised their 6 children in the Lone Star State. Bush's manifest destiny was his move from New England to Texas in the late 1940s. Today, we are remembering a different kind of American life -- long before social media and the frightening changes in our national character wrought in this young century. We weep and mourn the loss of our 41st President and look forward to seeing all of our living presidents and their wives gathered at his funeral obsequies in Texas. G.H.W. Bush was our last American president of "The Greatest Generation".
7
@Nan Socolow Seriously?? You weep at the death of a 94-year-old man with longtime illness? George Bush was a rich boy, who was one of the few Amereicans sheltered during Depression. Went to war, shot down twice, lived to tell, as a Sen.'s son, while his two crewmates perished... Oil money, CIA, Reagan coatstrings to the presidency, and of course, his legacy son: "WMDs? Where are they? I don't see any WMD's here?" Now, the only visible legacy left is the overly chatty blonde granddaughter of the Today show. The Bush era of WHite Privilege has been rejected. Let them quietly go on their way, but don't pretend the man was in any way representative of Americans of the Greatest Generation, and that the nation is in mourning today. An ex-president died. What time are the big college champtionship football games on today? Nobody much follows baseball anymore either. Soccer is the rising sport. RIP, pull down the flags to half mast again, ok, but don't think all of your fellow countrymen care much about the latest Bush show. I hope his servants are admitted in to the funeral services...
1
@Nan Socolow I wonder if 45 will be 'uninvited' to the Funeral?
@Nan Socolow Seriously?? George Bush was a rich boy, who was one of the few Amereicans sheltered during Depression. Went to war, shot down twice, lived to tell, as a Sen.'s son, while his two crewmates perished... Oil money, CIA, Reagan coatstrings to the presidency, and of course, his legacy son: "WMDs? Where are they? I don't see any WMD's here?" Now, the only visible legacy left is the overly chatty blonde granddaughter of the Today show. The Bush era of WHite Privilege has been rejected. Let them quietly go on their way, but don't pretend the man was in any way representative of Americans of the Greatest Generation, and that the nation is in mourning today. An ex-president died. What time are the big college champtionship football games on today? Nobody much follows baseball anymore either. Soccer is the rising sport. RIP, pull down the flags to half mast again, ok, but don't think all of your fellow countrymen care much about the latest Bush show. I hope his servants are admitted in to the funeral services...
1
I sat riveted to my TV during the entire Watergate hearings. I never thought I would detest any President more in my lifetime, but the past 2 years has altered my opinion. The best thing I can say about Nixon was he still believed in the Constitution and the rule of law to some extent. The hearings, led by Sam Ervin and Howard Baker, consisted of congressional members who put the country first and not their own self-interests. Now we have a an ineffective Congress that lets the worst President in history make us a mockery and sham on the world stage. My only level of comfort is knowing that Robert Mueller is doing his job and, I have to believe, will prevail in making America a beacon of democracy once again.
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Trump might as well listen to everyone in any language he can't understand. What difference would it make?
Here's hoping you had a good holiday and a happy birthday, Gail Collins. It seems we're all caught up in the whirlwind. The main thing that helps maintain some semblance of sanity is a healthy daily dose of humor. Welcome back to the fight.
44
@Blue Moon But please don't forget that Donald let's us say "Merry Christmas" again. I never knew we couldn't.
Yes, our cowardly bully in chief is the pits. Too bad he can't belly up to the bar with his best buddies Putin and Mohammed Bin Salman, as he'd like to. He's done his best to show us frogs who want a king that he's the guy to be our godkingemperor, but only the fake Christian (real Christians have read and care about the Jesus of the Gospels) evangelicals want to salute.
It is tragic that Republicans have fallen so far so fast, that they have no integrity and no respect for our country's supposed guiding principles of democracy and the rule of law, equality and fairness (though when we were hounding the real native Americans or interning the Japanese, we weren't any better). Children separated from parents and housed by the thousands, that's just fine. Other people aren't real if they disagree with the Trump Taliban.
What a chump. Ugh! It's not a swamp, it's a sewer, though perhaps I insult sewers, which actually perform a function in removing ordure from daily life.
These guys are too busy looting and poisoning our daily lives to think about little things like working together to solve problems, maintaining the necessities of life and our hospitable earth, and preventing toxic waste, both real and metaphorical.
Trickle up is reaching its apotheosis with this gang. Ugh again!
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Democrats, I hope, have a strategy for reminding voters that being a check on Trump was the biggest reason voters had for returning control of the House to them, after health care, that is.
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Nixon was different because his life was politics. Until bursting into politics, Trump's life had been showmanship and the "staging" of real estate. Yet both presidents channeled populist appeal, apparently way better than McGovern and HRC. It's hard to believe it given his dustbin-of-history status now, but Nixon still won 49 of 50 states in November 1972. Although Nixon was gone in 1974, I wouldn't presume that Trump will be gone after 2020. Meanwhile, enjoy the Merlot, Smug City, and Amazon's elite. Incidentally, the workers at Amazon's planned distribution center in Macon probably won't be sipping Merlot, and probably will be voting for Trump.
14
@Dave Oedel
You probably would have said in 1972 that Nixon would finish his second term...and you would have been wrong, just as you're wrong about Trump in 2020.
If Trump makes it to 2020, his fake populism of 0.1% tax cuts, attacks on healthcare, trade tariff Tourette Syndrome, deregulatory nihilism and Twidiotic behavior will sink his candidacy like a stone.... assuming Robert Mueller and his team of truth-tellers don't first bury Trump's Presidency in a mountain of his own lies, perjuries, deceits, obstructions of justice and naked acts of treason.
Most Americans don't admire an amoral, undignified crook as their President, especially when he's incompetent and a major national security risk.
When the neo-Confederacy finally wakes up one day and realizes that its Trump University degree, hatred of liberals, white spite, and 18th century coal didn't Make America Great Again, perhaps they'll consider voting for a candidate who understands boring public policy instead of a candidate who's mastered the grifting arts of snake oil, the Big Con and the Big Lie.
In the meantime, enjoy your new Jim Crow Governor Brian Kemp; you must be very proud of his recent political theft and his deep commitment to white supremacy and grand political larceny.
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@Dave Oedel
When speaking of Trump's populist appeal remember that he is a minority elected president who didn't even break 50% in the three states where he won the electoral vote by a total of 77,000 votes; he had fewer overall votes than HRC; has yet to achieve positive favourability numbers; OR even break 50% on the plus side.
We already know Russia had its fingers on the electoral scale...we'll let Mueller tell us if there was an international conspiracy.
So, drink up, the Merlot's fine.
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@Socrates
McGovern was far more admirable than Nixon, basically a nicer and more humane guy with a revulsion to the continued killing in Vietnam. But he still got whupped.
As for Kemp, he should have recused himself as secretary of state in Georgia during his run for governor, but Ohio's more draconian approach to voter purging was upheld by the Supreme Court in Husted last June. Abrams overstated that case too, and it cost her against a weak candidate.
It's interesting to me what you don't address, the alleged polarization of places like NYC from Macon, the elites from the plebes, the mighty socratic moralists from the Trumpian sinners. And hey, I didn't vote for Trump, FYI.
Apparently metro Smug City extends into Verona, NJ. ;)
6
No getting around it folks - Cadet Bone Spurs is ours. A massive tragedy for our nation. But, in the long run - it will be beneficial if we can learn enough to keep it from ever happening again. Clearly, we need some cleanup of our election process. We are blessed with a free press and freedom of speech. But, we are plagued by bad players - we need to recognize them and avoid them like the plague. Our school system needs to double the emphasis on Civics - now.
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Suggest you start by establishing a totally independent electoral commission which oversees drawing of electoral boundaries based on demographic changes not political allegiances so corrupt gerrymandering is stopped: which controls voter rolls rather than them being manipulated by rolls supervisors who are simultaneously electoral candidates: which oversees recruitment of scrutineers & vote counters at every election site: which jettisons non-functioning voting machines & returns to use of reliable pencil & paper ballot papers: which changes the polling date to a weekend day so people don’t have to take time off work to vote on a day (Tuesday) based on an obsolete 200 year old rural market day convention: which reduces the voting issues at each election to the essentials - who is to occupy federal & state houses only.
Enshrining every citizen’s right to vote in the Constitution would also be an advance as would making voting compulsory so elections were not always hihacked by the extremist fanatics.
66
The nation will survive the error of electing Donald Trump.
How will repair the damage and division wrought by this administration. How shall we go about unifying our people? And, most importantly, how shall we insure that this disaster is never repeated?
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@Tom W It would help if we had truly fair elections.
1. Early voting
2. Public financing of all elections and a small donor match program
3. DMV automatic voter registration
4. Mail in voting
5. Abolish " Citizens United"
6. No voter suppression
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@Tom W - Prosecuting the lot of them, including Trump and his crooked children, would send a message that no one, even a president, is above the law. Allowing Nixon to resign and just go home was a huge mistake.
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@David J. Krupp May I add for you, compulsory voting for ALL adults, a preferential voting system and an independent electoral commission (or department, whatever you want to call it), which runs elections all over your country at every level of government.
15
Ever since Election Day, 2016, I've been hearing about how the inner strength of American institutions will protect democracy from he newly labeled Individual 1. It's only in this last week that I came to half-believe it. But I must tell you, it's gonna be close.
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@The Dog. If you study American history, you will come to realize that we never were as wonderful as our own PR made us out to be. We have had wrong-headed wars (the Mexican war was about expanding slavery) and corruption all over the place, in every era. What has saved us most of all is that we elect the House ever 2 years, the presidency every 4 years (with a 2 term limit), and the Senate every 6 years. That ensures that new people come in and no one gets to hang on unchallenged by newcomers. So far there hasn't been any real attempt to change this. So far.
25
Buchanan is no longer at the bottom and Tricky Dick moves up a notch, but neither one of them was a gangster, Don the Dishonest is the first racketeer to inhabit the seat of government. He is a White Collar Criminal.
Trump Enterprise has a long and documented history of swindling, defrauding investors, defrauding students with a phony university, and taking money from the Department of Education under false claims.
However, his followers in the GOP have decided to emulate him. They have found a way to legally bilk the public treasury and get their followers to like it. Convince those patsys that he will make then rich while he picks their pockets. He is their messiah come to lead them to the promised land of low taxes and happy soy bean farmers.
They, the GOP will take you back to better times like the 1890s and the Robber Barons who made America Great in their own image, the Conservative Valhalla. The Great Charlatan in Washington will lead the way to the promised land, just invest in one of his enterprises, instant riches await you. All you have to do, is believe brothers, believe and your coins will be washed away.
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@David Underwood I think there's a crucial difference between Trump and a mobster.
Organised criminals are ... how to put this? ... somewhat organised.
15
@David Underwood
I think you meant “WHITEHOUSE collar criminal”
4
So many indictees, it's going to get hard to track them all Gail, and since uber-hero Mueller with his merry gang of Patriots is reportedly on a 'witch hunt' (which has bagged 35 witches at last count) per Chaos 45*, the West Wing reeks from the cold sweat of fear.
Which has caused our outside editing consultants - Catbert & Catbert - to worry about His Unhinged Unraveling Unfitness needing a suitable raincoat for a holiday gift; his flying monkey minion Complicit Crowd will probably need something much much more stylish than the $5 range which is Catbert & Catbert's budget for Agent Orange, but they're busily searching for that singular item.
After all, Special Counsel Mueller is descending with his fire hose - now that witch hunting season is open again - and Mayhem 45* is exactly the person who will most need protection from the buckets of water.
Will 1 raincoat be enough to protect from the deluge; should we all send one - from Amazon delivered by the USPS, of course ?
*No disparagement of witches intended or implied; the above is merely allegory.
62
I think of golf, and golf carts, as a metaphor for this presidency.
For starters, the president is known to cheat at golf. Right out in the open, in front of his golfing partners, he'll pick up his ball if he hates his spot, and move it where he wants it.
Brazenly moving one's ball in front of others precisely like what he's been doing on his motivations regarding his Russia mess, in his tweets, rants, and speeches--spilling the beans, in front of the world.
Never trust a man who can't play a game based on the honor system.
Then too, the president is known to be quite lazy. Too much cable news? Whatever, he was clearly too fatigued--or boorish-- to walk with allies in Europe, rides a golf cart like a kid in a toy car, likely at taxpayer expense if they carted the damn thing on Airforce 1.
Finally, golf is a game of patience, discipline, inner grit, and good manners. Golfers say the game is played as much in the head, as it is in on the fairway.
Does anyone think the president exhibits what it takes to be a good golfer? Maybe not every golfer can grow up to be president, but then again, not every president can be a good golfer without cheating.
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@ChristineMcM
I read that trump charges the FBI for the golf carts they use to follow/protect him at Mar a lago. Also read the cost was up to $300,000 (which would make it $600,000 if he lasts another 2 years). If you add in the additional people at his hotel, the increased fees at Mar a lago, the floor and other rooms rented at Trump Tower in NYC by the Feds, etc. etc. etc, it becomes clear that the presidency has very profitable to trump.
58
@ChristineMcM
I read that trump charges the Secret Service for the golf carts they use to follow/protect him at Mar a lago. Also read the cost was up to $300,000 (which would make it $600,000 if he lasts another 2 years). If you add in the additional people at his hotel, the increased fees at Mar a lago, the floor and other rooms rented at Trump Tower in NYC by the Feds, etc. etc. etc, it becomes clear that the presidency has very profitable to trump.
@ChristineMcM Long ago played with a guy who was miraculously successful at promptly finding shots hit out of bounds in the rough, with lots of weeds and shrubs/sagebrush. Took me a while to realize that he kept at least 4 of his branded golf balls in his left pocket. Became drop balls when nobody was looking. Think Trumputin has advanced to the point of a drop bag sewn into the leg of his golf pants - with a string release leading up into his left pocket. Everyone pretends that he is playing pocket pool. He thinks he is fooling his fellow members of the group. Delusional - yep.
16
Trump understands Spanish all right.
Mexico said "no" when pressed to pay for the wall. Trump understood and asked the US taxpayers to pay for it and has even threatened to veto a spending bill that does not include funding for the wall.
Trump knows the best Spanish words. At least two. Si and no.
164
@RK
And don't forget- Taco!!
7
@RK
When did "No" become a Spanish word ??
1
@RK Si in Spanish means if. Sí means yes.
Trump understands Spanish a lot better than he can figure out concepts like empathy, sympathy, justice, negotiation, loving your neighbors, patriotism, diplomacy, responsibility, consequences or common sense.
630
@Bearded One Or the US Constitution.
79
@Bearded One
The list could be extended ad infinitum but lack of understanding of science, technology, economics, history, literature, art, music, nature, pets and basic decency need to be mentioned.
44
@Bearded One
This is kind of irrelevant, but the German equivalent of the English expression "It's Greek to me." is, "It's Spanish to me." It would seem that nearly everything is Spanish to Trump.
37
A couple of weeks ago I was cogitating about all the ways Dishonest Donald has been conducting business. It occurred to me, that his organization has a long history of swindling contractors, workers, investors, and anyone that comes in contact with him. The Trump Organization is a racketeering enterprise, it should be investigated as a RICO violator. But go ahead Gail, he will sell you that bridge and you will believe it is a good deal.
Well I looked up tRump and ROCA and someone has beaten to it by a couple of weeks:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/29/lawsuit-charges-trump-organization-racketeering-enterprise-defrauded-thousands?
Nixon did not even come close, and Buchanan who was even worse, did not have the technology to do anything like Donald the Mad has done. At least with them it was politics, neither one was getting rich from it.
The president is a white collar gangster, Cohen was involved in this organization for some time. Makes us wonder what kind of squeeze Muller put on him, what would a trail bring out. One rule of prosecuting is, ask questions you know the answer to. I suspect Cohen is more scared of being part of this RICO suit, than he is of retaliation from the Mad President, has been a part of them.
227
@David Underwood
That is a great idea. Trump can be nailed for Enterprise Corruption ,if he manages to slither out of having committed treason, obstructing justice and every other charge.
After all, Al Capone got away with murder, but could not get away with tax fraud .
6
It seems pretty clear to me that for all of the inept sycophants who surround Trump, committing many high crimes and misdemeanors on his behalf and texting and emailing each other about them, it is hard to pin them on him because he avoids incriminating communications like texts, e-mails, letters and other recordings. He has even been said to eat a piece of paper when he learned that retention was required by the Presidential Records Act.
Other organized crime bosses have presented this challenge to law enforcement before, by insulating themselves from foul deeds by their minions. So I am hopeful for the Al Capone solution, which was imprisonment on tax evasion when they couldn't get him for racketeering and murder. Whatever works.
As last reported in the NY Times, the State of New York has the ball on this, because we can't expect any action from the IRS. (They are too busy harassing poor single moms for Earned Income Tax Credit abuses and auditing Trump's tax returns).
So what is going on? I am pretty sure there is no lack of will within the NY State Attorney General's office and $50 billion or so in state tax collections wouldn't hurt. At least the NY AG could make a speech or something, just to rattle the family a little more. And who knows, maybe they might shake out some fun facts in discovery.
451
Good background, Gail. Zap Comics would not even have run this column, it's too weird even for them. Nobody would have imagined that our Government could ever be full of flunkies, zealots, charlatans, and liars.
Trump surpassed Nixon a while ago, since Tricky Dick at least was in charge when critical environmental legislation was passed. Trump is in a class of his own when it comes to criminality, too. Nixon was power crazed and delusional, and ruthless besides, but he would never have imagined that anyone like Trump could get elected. We now have a new champion, and historians agree: already our President is considered to be the worst in our history, in a near unanimous poll of academic historians.
He's done now, though, after this week's revelations. It was just a matter of time. Trump will resign in a year, and get himself a place in St. Petersberg or Dubai. I would love to hear the tapes of his conversations at the bar with Dick Cheney, though, especially if we manage to revoke their passports.
252
@Mike Roddy: back in the day, the idea that “our Government could ... be full of flunkies, zealots, charlatans, and liars” was a self-evident truth. So most of our present villains are not so different from those of Nixon’s era, or Reagan’s.
Trump himself, however, is a horse of a different color. He’s Nixon’s id unchained. So that’s something new.
19
@Mike Roddy
"especially if we manage to revoke [Trump's and Cheney's] passports."
From your mouth to G-d's ear.
26
The worst in history? He’s just another Republican wonder, from the same party that gave us W and Nixon. Never forget — W murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis in an irrelevant invasion the neocons wanted to fight for all the wrong reasons. At least Trump hasn’t done that — YET.
27
Most people at the G20 were snubbing the Crown Prince bin Salman. President Macron appears to have spoken to him about the Khashoggi murder. But Putin high=fived the prince then sat with him and joked with him.
What were they joking around about? Maybe the fact that they both own Trump. Something they hold over him makes Trump play nice to them while disrespecting his own allies, his own law enforcement agencies, even his own former friends.
1515
@Linda
Would you like to join me in a bet that they have tapes and/or other physical evidence to hold over Trump?
202
@Linda . omg. i know you re right, but it is still vary depressing.
39
@Linda Correct, except for one point: t-rump has no "former friends" because he has NO friends, never has. You could not name one person who is or was actually a "friend" - his only allies are his family members, who know how to follow the money.
116
Soliloquy in the White House with apologies to
R. Browning.
There you go our sainted POTUS
Sending out your vile tweets, do,
And with words misspelled I notice
T’was your poor mischooling, too.
I see your vapid brow furrowed
Has an idea come to rest?
Into your tiny brain burrowed
A most uninvited guest.
Every morning he starts shouting
Out of temper, in a snit,
Curse words against Mueller spouting
And he don’t ease up one bit.
Unknown Soldier, that wreath laying,
Surprised by the Press to do
Barroom banter words a-spraying
Did not go, did not want to.
This is the Day for Kowtowing
Rump kissing on a grand scale
Grandiose words and head bowing
Frown or pout and you turn pale.
Pence is outdoing the others
Praise that would turn Caesar’s head,
So resented by his brothers
Wished they’d thought of it instead.
Going to the next Trade meeting
Not an idea ’neath that hair
He and Ludlow make such statements
Drive the others to despair.
Lots of nether lips are gnawing
Are these nudnicks really real,
Disaster is in the offing
That is how they truly feel.
638
@Larry Eisenberg
Wordsmith par excellence, how do you do it? I'm in awe of your gift for quickly producing multiple verses that scan so well while being so topical, witty and entertaining. I wish my writing in prose were as effortless as your verse looks.
309
@Larry Eisenberg
Seriously, brought to tears by this. Bravo, Larry. Thank you for being a voice we need.
47
@Larry Eisenberg
Bravissimo Larry!
21
Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!
Now I know why he liked to chant this mantra so much. It’s fun to say! It makes me feel as though justice will eventually be done, and this disgusting, classless low-level mob boss wanna be will one day be behind bars, either of the prison variety, or maybe serving drinks behind one at some hotel he used to own.
If you’re gonna pay off hookers and porn queens, you’ve gotta have cash flow.
It’s inevitable that lowlife liars and crooks associate with their own kind, and the president is a veritable nucleus of an atom of malfeasium, with lightweight liars orbiting around him, drawing energy from his sickly aura.
These folks will be paying for the privilege of knowing the president, and getting drawn into his circle of deceit. Manafort may be flipping and double-flipping on Mueller, but one day he may be flipping burgers in some state penitentiary where a presidential pardon cannot reach.
Any president who can make Nixon look like a stand-up guy or make Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades seem like high school hijinks has got to be judged on a completely different scale.
He may still get us into a war, or try to fire Mueller, or pardon his criminal pals or reveal even more disgusting and illegal activities that are beyond our ability to imagine, but I take comfort in the hope that one day he will get his.
1657
@gemli
"Any president who can make Nixon look like a stand-up guy or make Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades seem like high school hijinks has got to be judged on a completely different scale."
Tonight I watched the 1973 movie "Executive Action" about the Kennedy assassination. It was larded throughout with clips of Kennedy's speeches appealing to our "better angels". Under the present circumstances, it made me want to cry for our country and what we could have been and could be today.
165
@gemli
Manafort, Stone, and Cohen were crooks long before they went to work for Donnie Two Scoops. Hooking up with Trump wasn't seduction, it was recognition.
181
@gemli
"...an atom of malfeasium" Marvelous! :)
134