Wednesday, November 14, 2018

In November, the leaves fall and the president violates cherished traditions



     The trees are bare. Dry leaves blow around the yards, the gutters. Leaves of all sorts. Maple leaves. Oak leaves. Big catalpa leaves and tiny linden leaves. Yellow ginkgo leaves. Serrated elm leaves. Oval ash leaves. Buckeye and hickory and persimmon. Beech and redbud and poplar. Many, many leaves.
     Of course there are, you might be grumbling. It’s November. Get to the point.
     The point being that belaboring what everyone already knows gets dull. Which is why I haven’t been commenting on Donald Trump lately. Once we’ve established — and boy have we ever — that the man is a liar, bully and fraud busily trampling cherished American institutions, each new instance of deceit, intimidation, chicanery and blasphemy, well, at this point it’s just another leaf in a huuuuge pile.
     Over the weekend, however, Trump violated a norm so long established that, speaking personally, I felt a kind of awe. It was impressive. While the world leaders went to the American cemetery in France to mark the centennial since the end of World War I and honor Americans killed, Trump stayed in his room. The White House explained that it was raining: “logistical difficulties caused by the weather.”
     The Internet erupted with photographs of Barack Obama in a downpour, drenched to the skin, doing what leaders do. No need to stop there. Begin at the beginning: George Washington, riding to his inauguration in … c’mon, anybody? … New York City. In Philadelphia it began to rain, and his entourage urged him to get into a carriage. The Father o
f Our Country waved that off. He would remain on horseback, like his escort.

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4 comments:

  1. Maybe someone told Drumpf that William Henry Harrison gave his inauguration speech in a cold March rain & then croaked 31 days later. Of course Harrison's speech was three hours long & what kind of idiot gives a three hour long speech?

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  2. Lovely list of leaves, just long enough to stay interesting.

    John

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  3. There were times when Obama had to cancel heliocopter travel to an event due to weather, but those who make such arrangements have said there is always a Plan B and a Plan C. They should have been prepared. I think he didn't go because no one was paying attention to him (did you see photo of Merkel and Macron talking cozily with Trump looking on like a petulant 5-year old) and the ceremony wasn't about him. He wouldn't be in a position to steal the show. What a said, pathetic excuse for a man.

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  4. McPhee would like your opening list. Many, if not most Vietnam vets don't fault those who didn't want to participate in that war. But few would abide Trump's lack of respect for the men who did. Most likely it never occurred to Trump to serve and he probably considered the volunteers as chumps. That he would liken his nightclubbing escapades to the horrors of combat and openly insult a true American hero like John McCain shows his shallow character and empty heart. Mocking a veteran because he had to endure a few raindrops was evidence of his ignorance abut the immensity of war and the toll it took on his parents generation. That he would also use the Army as a publicity stunt against a nonexistent threat for political purposes further proof that every word he utters about the military is a lie. That 40 percent of the country still support him boggles the mind and proves that America has lost a measure of that which made us great.

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