February 2018 Archives

I'm not a Trump booster and have no responsibility to promote or defend him, but Matt Latimer's article about how "Trump is winning" because of luck is pretty hilarious.

Donald Trump is on track to win reelection to the presidency of the United States.

Yes, despite Russiagate, despite shitholegate and despite whatever gate he blunders through next. Despite approval ratings that would make Nixon weep. Despite his mind-numbing political misjudgments--defending accused pedophiles, for example--and the endless, unnecessary daily drama. Trump is winning. It is actually happening, people. And if there are those who want to stop it--and there are, of course, millions--they need to know what they are up against. It's a lot more than they overconfidently think.

First, consider the fact that Trump is simply lucky.

Then Latimer lists off a bunch of Trump's accomplishments and "accomplishments", completely missing the fact that they're due in large part to Trump's bombast, not in spite of it. He concludes:

Yep. Trump is a helluva lucky guy. And that just might give us six more years.

At some point don't you have to concede that your victorious opponent is just better than you?

... writes Andrew C. McCarthy for the millionth time. He's my favorite legal commentator on the never-ending Russia imbroglio.

Trump has intervened unhelpfully in a number of cases, as I've pointed out. Of course, we should disapprove of this. A president should not intercede in pending criminal investigations -- I'd prefer if he never did it, and he certainly shouldn't make a habit of it. It would be better if the president hewed to that norm and custom. It would have been better if Trump had not pled on Michael Flynn's behalf to FBI director James Comey -- just as it would have been better if Obama had not publicly announced in April 2016 that he did not believe Mrs. Clinton should be indicted. But the fact that it would be preferable for a president to refrain from signaling how he wants an investigation to turn out does not mean such signaling is tantamount to a criminal obstruction felony. The authority that FBI agents and prosecutors exercise when they weigh in on the merits of an investigation or prosecution is the president's power. There is no power that the president's subordinates may exercise but that he may not, regardless of what norms and customs counsel against it.

McCarthy points out (again) that President Trump can only be checked-and-balanced by Congress and the courts, not by any kind of legal action. The problem for Democrats is that impeaching the president requires political power that they don't have, so they strain for a law enforcement option that simply doesn't exist.

They prefer to imagine Special Counsel Robert Mueller cobbling together a magic-bullet obstruction charge that might knock their nemesis out of office. It is not going to happen.

I don't understand the ridicule aimed at President Trump's proposal for a military parade. America has a long history of honoring our military with parades. It seems like some people mock the president reflexively, without even giving his ideas serious thought.

Contrary to fake news reports, the United States has held massive, flashy military parades since at least 1865. Subsequent public displays of military might, including tanks, missiles, and hundreds of thousands of troops occurred in 1919, 1942, 1946, 1953, 1957, 1961, and 1991.

Also contrary to mainstream media headlines, it wasn't so long ago that military parades ranked among the few issues to draw bipartisan support. No less a Democrat than Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) vocally supported a military parade on American soil as recently as 2014. The camera-happy senator's call to arms stirred even New York's Bolshevik Mayor Bill De Blasio, who proclaimed, "The brave men and women who have selflessly served our nation with courage and skill in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve a recognition for their sacrifice. I stand with Sen. Schumer in his call for a parade to honor our veteran heroes, and New York City would be proud to host this important event."

Adam O'Fallon Price writes lovingly about the em dash, which I also love. (Although I like to put spaces on either side of them, which appears to be entirely wrong.) I'm sure I overuse them -- but why shouldn't I? They're awesome. I'm going to write a poem about em dashes -- stay tuned.

It might be useful to include an official definition of the em. From The Punctuation Guide: "The em dash is perhaps the most versatile punctuation mark. Depending on the context, the em dash can take the place of commas, parentheses, or colons--in each case to slightly different effect." The "slightly different" part is, to me, the em dash's appeal summarized. It is the doppelgänger of the punctuation world, a talented mimic impersonating other punctuation, but not exactly, leaving space to shade meaning. This space allows different authors to use the em dash in different ways, and so the em dash can be especially revealing of an author's style, even their character.