Sunday, June 11, 2017

It's official: we have a man-child in the Oval Office

As Republicans run out of excuses for Donald Trump, they inadvertently find themselves veering closer to truth -- something they typically wish to avoid!

Before the Comey hearing had even concluded, Republicans were out voicing their defense for Trump, deciding this time to go with he's too new to the job to know better.  Boy-wonder Paul Ryan said“He’s new to government... he probably wasn’t steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI, and White Houses. He’s just new to this.” Read: Trump is a man-child.

Where to start with this incredibly lame defense. First off, you know that as is most often the case, Republicans confer and agree well ahead of time about messaging, and so after much discussion this was apparently their best option! Yes, to frame the president as an "aw shucks" naive newbie who just fell off the turnip truck. Yup, because he has little to no experience in political office, he gets a free pass when it comes to committing egregious ethical (and possibly criminal) violations. Why c'mon, he just doesn't know any better, give him a break! 

Second, as I find myself saying over and over and over, just imagine if this were Hillary or Obama. Imagine if either of them were caught up in all these scandals. Would Paul Ryan or any other Republican be OK with the excuse that he or she was just too new on the job? That the leader of the free world was just too dumb or too naive? I think not. Impeachment proceedings would already be underway.

But what is most disturbing is that with Ryan et al (finally) admitting that we have a "naive" (ignorant, dumb, dim bulb) man-child as president, this fact cannot be narrowly applied to just this Comey matter. Republicans are saying what many of us have known for some time now. That the person who has control of the nuclear codes is someone who is "too new to the job" to be trusted to act in a way that should and would be expected of anyone else in his job.

Well that's cold comfort! 

Marco Rubio had it right when he could still be honest, saying Trump couldn't be trusted with the nuclear codes. But of course once Trump became president, like nearly all Republicans, Rubio quickly became a steadfast Trump defender (and it held true with the Comey hearing).

Yet they claim "Country First" -- LOL! Right, and Fox News is "fair and balanced." Republicans only care about themselves, their power, and their wealthy backers. That's it. If they can get what they want with a man-child lunatic to do their bidding, so be it, and the country be damned! I mean after all, a tax cut for billionaires is easily worth the trade-off of denying science and facts, eliminating health care for millions, allowing the planet to cook, and even risk going to war over a misspelled or misguided tweet.