A United States Naval Research Laboratory photograph of Hurricane Dorian taken Sept. 2.

The 'D' list -- Hurricane Dorian and the Donald

September 4, 2019

Some leaders rise to the occasion of a crisis. Others sink. And then others add a whole new category of chaos.

For the last two weeks, much of the nation — make that much of the media — has been gripped by a Category 5 hurricane that leveled parts of the Bahamas before churning toward the East Coast of the United States. Hurricane season has not been President Donald J. Trump’s forte, as the Hurricane Maria-Puerto Rico debacle two years ago can attest. That salient point has been underscored in recent days by Dorian, the latest in a series of Cat. 5 storms that are becoming a yearly event.

Mette Frederiksen. The Danish Prime Minister is out of the Trump doghouse — for now. © News Øresund - Johan Wessman.

The universal timeshare on the Trump doghouse

August 24, 2019

Liberal American Jews and Muslims.. Brown border babies. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Oscar-winning actresses and kneeling athletes. And, of course, the old standbys, the Democrats and the media.

Round and round it goes. And where the Catherine wheel of Trump hatred stops, nobody knows. Much has been made — hammered home, really — about President Donald J. Trump’s racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny. But if we fail to consider these under the umbrella of his narcissism, we miss the dangerous point. It’s not so much that he despises people of a certain religion or race, though there are elements of that. It’s that he apparently loves no one really except himself, not even Ivanka. (He’s been undermining her efforts on Capitol Hill to press for further gun control by telling everyone she’s nothing but a liberal Democrat. You know when Ivanka comes in for criticism that we are all in a dark place.)

Greenland — so lovely this time of year.

How Green(land) was his valley

August 18, 2019

Imagine you are Greenland. You are a semiautonomous nation, part of Denmark, doing your Greenland thing with your clusters of colorful houses and glaciers and hot springs when suddenly you find yourself in the midst of a geopolitical controversy courtesy of President Donald J. Trump, who, in the words of one waggish poster on The Hill, is now up to the Louisiana Purchase in the manual on how to be el presidente.

Perhaps the president was thinking of Thomas Jefferson’s 1803 purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, which doubled the United States, or the Alaska purchase of 1867 or President Harry Truman’s overture to buy Greenland for $100 million in gold in 1946 — yeah, I’m sure he was thinking of all of this — when he floated the idea of buying Greenland from Denmark.

Before a joint session of Congress, President John F. Kennedy announces the goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth as Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and House Speaker Sam T. Rayburn listen. Courtesy NASA.

On leadership: Trump, the shootings and the stock market

August 7, 2019

So, shortly before 10 a.m. last Sunday, I boarded a plane for New York from Florida, and shortly after 10 a.m., the pilot informed us that one of the engines was leaking, which was “a blessing in disguise,” he said, because there was also a more problematic electrical malfunction outside the cockpit that wasn’t discovered until the check of the plane right before takeoff.

Blondie ambition: Then British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson greets President Donald J. Trump at the United Nations General Assembly, Oct. 2 2017. White House photograph by D. Myles Cullen.

Send in the clowns -- Boris and the Donald

July 29, 2019

Graig Nettles, the great New York Yankees’ third baseman of the 1970s, once observed that if you want an entertainer, hire (comedian) George Jessel — meaning that he was paid to hit and vacuum up ground balls from opposing batsmen, something he was quite entertaining at.

But in today’s world, it’s not enough to be good at what you do. You have to be relatable.

The Unisphere — symbol of the most global place on the face of the Earth, the polyglot New York City borough of Queens. It’s the birthplace of President Donald J. Trump and part of it is in Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district.

Mirror, mirror: Trump and the Squad

July 19, 2019

So, my uncle wanted to know, what do you think of those four women?

“Those four women” are, of course Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — who had been taking and giving the heat to House Leader Nancy Pelosi on a number of issues but mainly for their leftist impatience with her middle-of-the-road, compromise strategy. I think my answer surprised my uncle, who likes to bait me. I told him I’m not a particular fan of the Squad.

A scene from “The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead” (British Museum), in which the heart of the deceased is measured against the feather of truth.

The company Trump and others keep

July 12, 2019

So Sir Kim Darroch, British ambassador to the United States, has resigned after his remarks about the Trump Administration’s dysfunction — made in private to his own government — were leaked and President Donald J. Trump proclaimed himself “not a fan.”

Everyone but particularly an ambassador should have the right to express his opinion in privacy without fear of reprisals. But in the age of 24/7 social media and Brexit — of which Darroch was apparently not a fan — it was perhaps inevitable that he should be done in. I guess we’ll have to go back to communicating the old-fashioned way — face to face.

“Not a fan”: Darroch should have those words emblazoned on a T-shirt and wear it proudly. Remember, El Presidente wasn’t a fan of the late Sen. John McCain. So Darroch is in good company.

And The Donald had been a former fan of some who are now in the hot seat, including Jeffrey Epstein, who has been charged in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York with sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York.