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The Screaming Moderate

Return of the Oys! Yos!

11/18/2019

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The Oy! Yo! awards have been on hiatus. Why? Not sure. But due to demand (don’t ask whose), they are now back!

Oy! to the Democratic presidential field for being, well, a huge meadow! Some are beginning to think the race for the nomination will drag to the convention (though, that always is the fear story when this happens on either side). But there are reasons this field needn’t be as large as it is, and is still growing. First, the vast majority of announced candidates have no chance of winning the nomination or the election. Get out! Your party’s goal is to beat Trump. How does your staying in help that? What keeps them in? Ego, ambition, selfishness, delusions of grandeur. For example, if Sanders alone would endorse Warren, or vice versa, one of them would be significantly ahead, not that I’m saying that’s a good thing but it could help to winnow the field.

Oy! former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a man who is extremely wealthy and has put his wealth to good use for many years. Don’t run! We have enough 70-year-old white men running. Suggestion: spend the money you would have spent on your campaign on doing more good than you actually can do as President – water for Detroit, for one thing, a columnist recently suggested.

Yo!  and it’s a huge Yo! to the career bureaucracy in the federal government. Man after woman they are coming forward to testify, in public and under oath, about wrongdoing they witnessed, putting their careers and life’s work at risk. Why? To do the right thing. Sure there are exceptions to the rule (as there are to political appointees) but career employees are what keeps our country moving – no matter the party in charge. They are not the “deep state” that conspiracy theorists theorize. They are men and women dedicated to the Constitution and serving the country. Thank you for your service.

Oy! to President Trump for oh so many reasons but he earns this Oy! for attacking everyone who speaks against him – even those in his government! Great for morale, Mr. Trump, but you only succeed in making the bureaucrats you so despise look better for speaking truth publicly to you, unlike so many of your political appointees who hide behind anonymity to do the same.

While we’re talking about sycophants, another big Oy! to the White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, for so many reasons but most recently for stating the obvious this weekend and saying that while the President had a free weekend, he thought he’d get started on his annual physical a few months early and headed to Walter Reed. Most of his weekends have been free, Ms Grisham, as the schedule that your office puts out shows! An additional Oy! because no one believes he went to the hospital to get head start on physical. Who does that?  In fact a third Oy! for contributing to the fact that few believe anything this White House says.

Another Oy! to Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, who went on TV this weekend to say the whistleblower who spurred the impeachment inquiry, “exposed things that didn’t need to be exposed.” Uh, senator, isn’t that what whistle-blowers do -- expose things that otherwise would not have been exposed? So in addition to your Oy! here’s a Captain Obvious Award to you too. P.S., Johnson also said “If the whistle-blower’s goal is to improve President Trump’s relationship with Ukraine, he utterly failed.” Uh, right, senator, because that wasn’t his or her goal. The goal was to disclose improper and probably illegal behavior by the President.

A joint Oy! to Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for not having their employees’ backs. Several State Department employees have now testified to the impeachment inquiry about alleged wrongdoing by the President. Pompeo has been silent. As Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Tom Friedman said in the New York Times this morning, “Any story on Pompeo touts that he was number one in his West Point class but he must have flunked all his courses on ethics and leadership. I guess he was really good in math.”

And for the Vice President, Trump has publicly criticized your senior staff member who will publicly testify this week but who testified in private already, saying she was aghast (my word) at the President’s behavior on his “perfect” call with the Ukrainian president. Uh, why is she on your staff if she’s so dishonest? And if she’s there because you respect her counsel, don’t lock her up, as the President would do, but back her up!

A Yo! to much maligned mainstream media who, during the Trump years, have rediscovered journalism and investigated and published stories to expose this Administration. Yes, they have made mistakes – trying to write history before its history kind of forces that. But for the vast majority of their stories, they have proven correct, despite the President’s strategy to tear down the Fourth Estate. The Yo! also is for practicing real journalism now that the White House briefing is gone. You see, you needn’t be “fed” news every day! Yo!, too, to the Fact Checkers major media have invested in who record all the lies or embellishments told by the President, and many others, to keep things somewhat honest.



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Impeachment inquiry ... off and runing

11/14/2019

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Episode one of the mid-season premiere of “You Bet Your Presidency” began with a significant plot twist in the opening monologue.

Ambassador William B. Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine and an appointee of President Trump’s, testified that one of his aides overhead a phone call between European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, a top Trump donor and also appointee, and the President. When the call ended the staffer asked Sondland about it.  The ambassador said Trump cared more about investigations of his political opponent than about Ukraine, offering the first direct evidence of Trump’s desires when it came to holding up military aid to Ukraine.

That didn’t stop Republicans from arguing that the witnesses never met Trump and therefore, I guess, couldn’t know what they were talking about.

And Season One was off and running!

Enough with "The Apprentice", Trump’s previous reality show, this one has more plot twists, more intrigue, more corruption! Watch it! Because that’s not all…

Yesterday’s first hearing in the impeachment inquiry was not “boring” as the White Hou, called it. It was a primer on foreign policy and Ukraine policy in particular. The two witnesses – Taylor, who is our acting ambassador to Ukraine, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent in charge of Ukraine policy at the State Department, were straight out of central casting.

Serious, sober, focused on answering questions but not offering opinions, like thousands of other career civil servants who dedicate their lives not to making money or policy but to providing United States' citizens with dedicated service. Kent, sporting a bow tie and vest, reminded me of Ducky on NCIS. But I digress…

Democrats, trying to put on their most serious faces because impeachment is indeed a serious business, and Republicans, trying to defend on the edges because they cannot defend Trump’s behavior, had at it from the first moments.

Taylor, in his testimony, explained that the Trump Administration had a regular channel for foreign policy led by the State Department and an irregular channel led by the President’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.  The Republican counsel asked Taylor, “This irregular channel of diplomacy, it’s not as outlandish as it could be, is that correct?”

A Republican staffer behind the counsel rolled his eyes and Taylor, chuckling, said “it’s not as outlandish as it could be, I agree.”

Remember, now, that counsel was brought in to lead the questioning so publicity grabbing congressmen didn’t go off in crazy directions, and get off message.

When you don’t have the facts argue the…I don’t whatever you can grab I guess (similar to the President’s strategy toward women), is the Republican strategy toward the hearings.

Taylor and Kent, though, were of the Jack Webb School of Witnesses – just the facts, ma’am. In fact many columnists this morning compared Taylor’s voice and approach to Walter Cronkite’s, further evidencing his just-the-facts approach. As much as the President wants to believe this was an example of the “deep state” in the bureaucracy out to get him, this really was an example of career bureaucrats focused on their jobs and following the laws.

There was, of course, further associated inanity with the day.

Trump said he hadn’t watched a minute of the hearing but his Twitter account issued about 20 impeachment inquiry-focused tweets during the hearing.

And, Trump was also meeting at the same time with Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan in the White House. Erdogan is the leader Trump warned against attacking the Kurds after the U.S., on Trump’s orders, abandoned them mid-war. You may recall shortly after the warning, Turkey attacked the Kurds.

While Trump withheld a White House meeting from Ukraine’s newly elected president to add pressure to get his way, he gave such a meeting to Erdogan who ignored Trump’s “stern warning.” Are you following?

Shoeless Joe Jackson was an early 20th Century baseball player with what became known as the Black Sox Scandal. Jacketless Jim Jordan, a California congressman who doesn’t wear a suit jacket and can’t explain why that is, and Trump’s designated lead defender in the hearings (specially appointed to this position because everyone figured he’d be the best Trump defender),  flubbed it when he delivered a long monologue demanding that the legally  protected whistleblower whose letter to authorities started the path toward impeachment, be unmasked and brought in to testify!

Jordan launched into an extended monologue about how unjust it was that Democrats weren't allowing the committee to question "the person who started it all," referring to the whistleblower. "We'll never get a chance to question that individual," he said.

Peter Welch, a Democratic congressman from Vermont, retorted, "I'd be glad to have the person who 'started it all' come in and testify."  Gesturing toward the witness table he said, "President Trump is welcome to take a seat right there." The chamber erupted in laughter.

This was only the first episode. Binge watching will ensue.

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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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