From warnings of “fire and fury” to declarations of “locked and loaded,” President Trump is dealing with the North Korean crisis his way. Naturally, heads are exploding all over Washington.
You can’t change the way things are done, the chin-strokers and gatekeepers shout hysterically! You have to follow the road most traveled!
Nearly seven months into Trump’s term, it’s not just the irredeemable haters who can’t accept the outcome of the election. Even otherwise-sensible people refuse to come to grips with the meaning of Trump’s victory.
Voters wanted change, but Washington doesn’t. And that clash of wants defines the endless war over the Trump presidency.
Now that clash revolves around the potential for an actual war, a nuclear one at that. Because the results would be catastrophic, it is worth recalling how we got to this moment of brinksmanship.
If you listen only to Trump’s critics, Kim Jong-un wasn’t bothering anybody until the president started making trouble. Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota actually charged that Kim is “acting more responsible” than Trump, a claim reinforced by the left-wing media echo chamber.
Perhaps Ellison, who is No. 2 at the Democratic National Committee, missed some of Kim’s threats and their significance now that he has nukes and intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US mainland.
“If the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a pre-emptive nuclear strike,” Kim has said.
After successfully testing an ICBM last July 4th, Kim said it was a “gift” to the “American bastards” and promised many more gifts.
Other provocations include a state video showing North Korean nuclear missiles blowing up Washington, DC, and threats against South Korea and Japan. The latest was a vow to attack Guam.
Given Kim’s warnings and his arsenal, the really odd thing isn’t that Trump is asserting American military supremacy and the willingness to use it if necessary. It’s that his predecessors didn’t.
The three previous presidents over a combined 24 years — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — all followed near-identical paths, and all failed to stop the North Korean nuclear program.
All three used diplomacy as a euphemism for kicking the can down the road. And they kicked it all the way to Trump’s desk, with Obama, on his way out the door, reportedly telling Trump that Kim had nukes.
Thanks for nothing, pal.
Yet instead of recognizing those decades of failure for what they are and conceding that the situation has changed because the current Kim has weapons of mass destruction and the ability to strike American cities, the establishment is horrified that Trump would dare take a different approach.
Lost in the manufactured outrage over his comments is that Trump offered to meet Kim, and pushed China to rein in its client state. And that aides continue to conduct back-channel negotiations and talk of wanting to avoid war.
To concede those facts would muddy their jihad against the president.
Yet there is actually something worse than the assaults on Trump: It is the ultimate position of the other side. It was belatedly confessed by Susan Rice last week.
“History shows that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea — the same way we tolerated the far greater threat of thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons during the Cold War,” Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, wrote in a New York Times op-ed.
Forget the false equivalency she establishes between the Soviets then and North Korea now. The bombshell is that Rice says it is OK for a madman to have nukes.
While it’s surprising she would admit such idiocy, the idea that she believes it isn’t exactly a shock. After all, that was the suspected bottom line of the Obama administration’s policies toward the nuclear programs of both North Korea and Iran.
Publicly, it opposed those programs, but privately, it obviously prepared to accept them. Now North Korea has achieved its nuclear and missile breakout, and Iran will, too, thanks to the running room it got under the cover of Obama’s flawed pact.
All the sophistry in the world can’t obscure the result: To wit, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize left the globe a far more dangerous place because of his leading-from-behind fecklessness.
One of Obama’s legacies is that he didn’t stop the nuclear proliferation to two pariah states that both swear to eliminate America.
And now, Rice, who calls Trump’s words “unprecedented and especially dangerous,” says he should get in line and play the same game as her boss.
A popular definition of insanity comes to mind — “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
The entire episode is another example of the crisis of our democracy that led to Trump’s victory. Is our sprawling government capable of reforming itself and confronting the urgent problems of national security and the economy?
Or is it so hopelessly hidebound and our politics so polarized that we can do nothing except tear ourselves apart — even as our adversaries vow to smash America into the dustbin of history?
Blas’ tax trickery
A savvy friend who keeps score writes this about Mayor de Blasio:
“He will propose a tax on the ‘wealthy’ anytime he has a crisis, a politically popular program, or is crabby because he didn’t get his nap. He’s proposed various taxes on individuals and property (remember the mansion tax?) over the last three years to fund pre-K for all, build or maintain 200,000 affordable housing units, create a subsidy for 25,000 renters and now fund the MTA’s infrastructure and subsidize half-fare MetroCards.”
He adds: “Lost in the commotion over his latest tax scheme was his suggestion that the $500 million devoted to MTA repairs could be bonded to support an $8 billion program. So this is no temporary crisis program — this is permanent. Those bonds have 30-year lives.
“In effect, he’s feathering the nest of the Wall Street honchos the millionaires tax supposedly aims at.”
That’s our mayor: All deception, all the time.
A beer – and a shot at NY pols
Humor being the best weapon, New York pols better fix the “Summer of Hell” transit mess pronto. A local beermaker is mocking them.
Long Island’s Blue Point Brewing Company released its “Delayed Pilsner,” which is decorated like a railroad message board where LIRR stations are all marked “Delayed.”
Firm president Todd Ahsmann told a reporter that “this beer should hold you over while you wait for the train but provide just enough bite to keep you critical of the current state of transit.”
Very clever, but since the pols have no sense of humor and can never admit a mistake, Ahsmann can probably expect a tax audit.
A cake with ‘icing’
Headline: “106-year-old Antarctic fruitcake found, might be edible”
Hey, it’s fruitcake, so “edible” only means it’s as good now as it ever was.