Month: June 2018

Why?

Why do you write these stupid little essays for those stupid little local newspapers that no one reads?

Whoa! That’s a lot of putdowns in one short sentence. Let’s take them one at a time.

1. That the essays are little is undeniable. Generally a few hundred words, given the amount of space allocated by the editors who publish them. It’s true that they need words to separate the advertisements on which their existence depends, and they are sometimes grateful to get free ones, but at the same time they have to avoid alienating readers who may not agree with all the words, and they can’t afford to use too much paid advertising space. A careful balance is required, even with the popular rubric of “Op Ed” to absolve them of responsibility before the temperature rises too much. Occasional expansive explorations of a particularly complicated subject may occasionally be tolerated, but not on a steady weekly or bi-monthly basis. I have occasionally had permission for a two-part dissertation, but those were definite exceptions. (I recall that when Newt Gingrich published his Contract With America in 1994, in the form of 15 proposed Acts of Congress that the insurgents promised to introduce, it took me a lengthy two-installment 6,000-word effort to point out one by one their inconsistencies and impossibilities — as well as the horrendous grammar in which they offered them. My editor at the time at the New Fairfield Citizen News, Ellen Burnett, blessed be her name, shepherded it through, and defended it in the fuss that followed. We never tried it again, though.)

There is also the matter of reader attention. A quick in and out is generally the best way not to be overlooked, especially if your opening words are challenging. And that’s usually the reason for an essay anyway. What’s the point of adding another string of clichés to a subject that everyone has already beaten into submission? Especially if the topic happens to be in the daily new broadcasts, to which the TV addicts (that’s most of us, by a wide margin) have already been subjected to endless analysis. You need a new “hook”. Put it out there in the first sentence, before opposition (or indifference) sets in. And keep it short.

2. “Stupid” is of course a judgment call. Every reader is entitled to his own judgment calls. Brevity in itself doesn’t make an essay stupid. In fact, quite the contrary. If an idea cannot be boiled down to 2,000 words it is probably either too specialized (occupied with nitpicking, for the cognoscenti only) or too vague to be worth reading. “I didn’t have time to make it shorter” is itself a cliché among writing workshop leaders, but clichés don’t last unless they are accurate and useful.

That judgment, applied to either the essay or the newspaper (or book, or blog) where it is given a public airing, is probably intended was a condemnation, but based on what?

There is an implication that a small circulation vehicle must not be a serious one. Luther’s 95 theses though were originally nailed up in an edition of one. They gained wider currency later of course, thanks to Gutenberg. Many a samizdat started as the three or four legible copies that carbon paper could produce on a typewriter, passed from hand to hand before they finally found a typesetter and a press. The Gospels began as handwritten one-of-a-kind scrolls. I don’t mean to suggest that my scribblings have anything in common with any of those, but the Sherman Sentinel perhaps had a circulation at its maximum of around a thousand; the Citizen News in Ellen’s day had a print run of only about 8,300 (the population of New Fairfield at the time was just under 14,000). That’s not quite chopped liver, although since I am sure many recipients were quite uninterested in anything I had to say it’s not necessarily a measure of readership either. I admi that the section that always interested me most as a reader of both publications was the Letters to the Editor, which dealt almost exclusively with local issues, hardly ever with the more wide-ranging topics I chose to write about.

3. Which brings us to the that stupid little local newspapers that no one reads part. There are 320 million Americans. One out of 320 sees The doctor and I New Yorker. One out of 3,200 sees The New York Review of Books. According to WordPress my blog gets seen by about 5 people on average, if you don’t count the Chinese guy who checks in once a month, presumably on behalf of Xi’s Censorship Bureau. The disparity in those numbers does not strike me as significant, considering that we are all three pretty much tilting at windmills. There are real differences of course in remuneration and reputation, but I don’t feel particularly disadvantaged. I seriously doubt that anything said by any of us has any serious effect on the movers and shakers of the world : the politicians, the corporate moguls, or the corrupt autocrats. They have their own methods of communication and their own world of their own made-up statistics. It works. They are not likely to listen to any suggestions from me, or The New Yorker, or The NYRB.

4. So why then bother to write essays in the first place? That’s trickier. “Because I have something to say” is in the end an egotistical claim like Trump’s — that my God-given brain is so exceptional that I am obligated to pass its benefits along to the less favored. OK. Guilty as charged. Anyone who opens his mouth or takes up his pen or approaches his computer keyboard with a public comment on other people’s behavior is admitting to a degree of pride he might well be embarrassed to admit to in other contexts. He may be truly concerned with the fate of the world, or of democracy, or of his favorite religion, but it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to try to tell everyone else what to do.

But one thing in favor of writing an essay rather than lettering a placard and picking up a bullhorn and screaming on the street corner is that the essayist has to be prepared to defend his thesis. He had better do his homework, check his numbers and names, and be ready to back up his recommendations with facts, because once he has made them public they are art of the written record and he is obligated to be able to defend them. This has a salutary effect on the essayist, unless he is into pure polemics (or Trumpian conmanship). The work of expanding a casual observation into a considered thesis, and then the reverse work of boiling it down into newspaper column length is enough to spare the world many a foolish notion. It has spared me more than one embarrassing faux pas. I have a large wastebasket, generally filled with wadded up false starts.

But why not race open wheel cars or raise chickens or build chairs? Why write essays in the first place?

There is only one answer to that : Why not?

We each ultimately have to find a meaning for our own lives. There is no agreed-on Master Book to which we all can turn to find out what the “right” life is all about (although a fortunate few like Joseph Smith and L. J hiju inRon Hubbard and a pious parade of popes and rabbis and imams believe that there is, and that they have found it). For the rest of us it is a matter of creating our own path and then being as faithful to our aspirations as possible. If you choose to build chairs, build the best damn chairs you are capable of building. Raise the fattest, most contented chickens. Win all the races you can. There is no standard that says one is more important to the future of mankind than another.

There is a case to be made that individual choice is too hard an assignment for many people — that lessons drawn from the past require too much effort and investment of time to discover what the past in fact was about. Joining a group that already “has it figured out” and codified (ten commandments for the Popes; 613 laws of correct behavior for the rabbis, 114 surahs and at least 4,000 hadiths for the imams) and letting their officially approved tenets serve to relieve one of the burden of individual exploration is a tempting alternative. It is also in many ways a more practical one, since groupthink is more powerful in politics than individual protest and politics is in its most basic form the art of survival.

Such debates are the reasons I choose to write essays. I will never equal Michel de Montaigne, who originated this literary form more than four centuries ago, but I will come as close as my talent allows. You may choose to read them or not, but if you do I hope to open your eyes to something you may not have considered before. It may have to do with politics, or war, or my reaction to stray puppies or whatever interests me at the moment. I will try to make it interesting to you too. I will even try to say something about it that may never before have been said, or thought of. I will try to back it up with facts, real ones, not made-up ones. I will be prepared to debate it with you, without shouting. On the occasions when I feel I have succeeded I will be proud. When I have failed I will be embarrassed, and resolve to do better next time.

So far there have been 600 next times. I have no intention of quitting yet.

 

Go back

Your message has been sent

 

Conscientious Objectors

There are people in many countries of the world who decline to participate in killing other humans just because their governments adopt a “zero tolerance” policy. Reformers have used a variety of definitions in an effort to establish an acceptable universal standard for such conscious objections to be legally valid. C.O. status used to be granted only to people who claimed it on the grounds of religious conviction but the religion part has been de-emphasized over the years (as some religions profess enthusiasm for official murder and as religious belief in itself has become less universal). The standards are now seen to include purely personal moral codes. The search for an acceptable worldwide phrasing continues. The UN’s Declaration of Human Rights is as close as we have come so far, and not everyone is ready to accept that (Mr. Trump, among others). But all agree that a key qualification for wartime C.O. status is that one’s beliefs must include all wars — not just a particular one.

The choice of applying for recognition of one’s C.O. status in preference to “just going along, with personal reservations” has never been popular. During World War II there were 34 and a half million men who served in the U.S. armed forces. 72,354 applied for C.O. exemptions when drafted — two tenths of one percent. It is an understatement to say that they were not then generally looked upon with approval. Similar numbers can be found for other countries, on both sides of that conflict, although in many of those countries the stigma was greater and in some it was never even an option.

But when it came to finding a suitable international definition for the Universal Declaration, there are several sticky wickets. Does the right include all wars, or only declared ones? Can the principle be recognized in non-war situations? If a government issues orders to its civilians to “Find all the Jews, turn them out of their houses, steal their belongings, strip them naked, check their teeth for possibly salvageable gold fillings, then stick your pistol in their mouths and blow their heads off”, were those citizens obliged by patriotic duty to obey, or did they have the option of declining to personally participate in pogroms? We have argued the point in courts. Eichmann’s conviction and hanging may have made us feel better and pointed the way, but it hardly settled the issue. According to Jeff Sessions the Bible does not accord that freedom to American Christians, at least. They are bound to follow the law — just or unjust. According to Donald Trump the question is irrelevant — it is all his persecutors’ fault : the Democrats have saddled him with a law that forbids us to even discuss the subject. He may be unhappy about it, but he remains law abiding.

So what about our Border Patrol agents in Texas? They signed up to join a military branch, sort of a dry-land Coast Guard. Steady employment, no advanced degree required, nice family allowance, good pension after 20 years. They thought they knew what their job was going to be. Patrol the border, catch and send back attempted illegal immigrants “wetbacks” looking for off-the-books work. They joined ICE and swore an oath to defend our country. Have they now an obligation in the light of the new job specifications (which now apparently include ripping nursing babies from their mothers’ breasts) to reconsider their individual actions from a moral point of view? If we maintain that World War II was the fault of the German citizenry for not opposing Hitler when Mein Kampf first hit the bookstalls, before he could assemble his crew of thugs and storm troopers, how can we now defend Mssrs. Sessions and Trump and their enablers? How can patrolmen defend their personal willingness to participate as they break up groups of incoming immigrants, deliberately fouling their life-giving water bottles, separating mothers and fathers from their babies as they risk everything in attempts to cross our desert border in search of a better life? How areTrump’s tweets Trump different from Mein Kampf?

Seems to me it’s time to stop allowing these questions to hide in the thickets of footnotes in liberal journals and on the Fox News shows where they can be debated to death while those babies are taught that there is no one to turn to for protection, no one to be trusted, only the permanent threat of self-serving politicians.

My hope is that each individual border patrolman will decide to answer these questions for himself or herself. Our established “Deep State” doesn’t seem to be prepared to defend common sense. But those babies will survive and grow up and we will have to deal with them and the lessons we have taught them, one way or another, here or in Mexico, or just within our consciences.

They have it within their power, we have it within our power, to fix it. Put down the guns, comfort the babies, and try to be helpful as the families struggle to find a foothold in an unforgiving world.

It seems to me we have arrived at the point where each one of us has to ask himself or herself the question: “What will I tell my grandchildren when they ask me? Where did I stand?”

Go back

Your message has been sent

 

Nuts and Screwballs

There are 7.6 billion of us on this planet. I think it is safe to say that 7.5 billion of us would just like to be left alone with our private worries to work out our personal problems and make the best life we can for ourselves and our families using the cards we have been dealt. Life is a one-time proposition — no Mulligans. It is too precious to be wasted in hatred, resentment, antagonism, and untrammeled ambition.

But there is a minority for whom this point of view seems to be irritating. For whatever reasons — religious, ideological, acquisitive, or just a simple desire to bully and dominate — they choose to foment discord with the intention of profiting from it. They attack their neighbors (tribal or national), they organize crusades and pogroms against people with different skin colors or facial characteristics or accents, they inflame whole racial populations to genocide, they try to bully anyone who doesn’t agree with their standards. Anything to stir up trouble. Out of the chaos they believe may come an opportunity to better their own status or caste, financial or political standing, or just their own narcissistic sense of satisfaction.

This seems to have been true since records began to be kept, so there is little reason to hope that it will change. All those anonymous statues and temples and pyramids and arches with the hard-to-decipher inscriptions. These nuts and screwballs can’t face the fact that once their allotted spans are finished they will be forgotten like all their predecessors. Once they acquire power, which they have acquired by means of inheritance (“the Divine right of Kings” according to the ancient chronicles, “born on third base” according to Ann Richards), or muscle (unprovoked conquest, like Alexander), or financial finagling or assassination (in countries supposedly ruled by law), or some combination of those they create nothing but problems for those of us who just want to be left in peace.

Dealing with these nuts has cost the rest of us a great deal of heartache and treasure over the millenniums. Our little blue ball has run red with the blood of those who tried to resist or just avoid being co-opted. We try to drop out as conscientious objectors, but the bullies and megalomaniacs don’t respect our desire for neutrality. They ferret us out and enlist us in their causes, whether we like it or not.

Nevertheless in the end we may be said as a species to have so far by and large succeeded. All-powerful Ozymandias’s statue was toppled on its face in the sand, Alexander eventually caught a fatal cold in Babylon, Napoleon forgot to take extra pairs of dry socks with him to Russia, and peace has always returned.

So in the long view Donald Trump is no more than a wind-blown grain of sand. He and his Medici-like family will have their day and then disappear, leaving the field to other predatory families. Peace will return. The pendulum will swing back the other way, from war to peace again. We can count on surviving. Are we not 7.6 millions? The Donald is only one.

That has always been true until now, but things have changed.

What’s different? Now we have to deal with the possibility that one of these nuts and screwballs may succeed in getting his finger on the nuclear button and there will be no next time.

Good luck to the cockroaches or the rats or whatever radiation resistant species is slated to take over next on this little blue ball.

This is a new script.

Is there anything we can do about it? 

Possibly. Since pushing the button is guaranteed suicide, that may be no deterrent for the zealots who believe that this earthly life is merely a preliminary to a more comfortable permanent existence in Paradise, or Heaven. But rational beings interested in their own survival, with or without Swiss bank accounts or palaces or golf courses, are unlikely to display as much faith in an afterlife geared to their continued perpetual enjoyment. We may be able to count on their stepping back from the edge of the precipice. 

But what if they can’t control the zealots after they have been sufficiently stirred up? Well, there is yet one more line of defense. There is something incongruous about the idea of a combination in one person of an understanding of science, a PhD in physics, and a willingness to buy into the vision of a dozen eager houris in a fountain-cooled garden, or of a vacant chair and a handshake waiting at God’s reception desk. And the button has to be wired properly by scientists to work. With all the built-in safeguards the wiring gets pretty complicated; maybe even as complicated as brain surgery. Can we hope that an unacknowledged conspiracy exists among nuclear scientists and missile technicians to sabotage the impulses of the zealots at the last moment?

So far as I can see, that may be our only hope. Otherwise I will have to start discussing with my genome surgeon the possibility of using CRSPR to transform me into a convincing replica of Gregor Samsa and hope for the best.

Go back

Your message has been sent

 

 

Cabinet Meeting

1st Fly on the Wall: So where are you taking me now?

2nd Fly on the Wall: Hush! Be reverent. Be grateful that we’ve made it this far. This is the Cabinet Room, where the President meets with his advisers once a week to decide national policy. For many of his Cabinet this is the only opportunity they will have all week to even see him in person. That’s POTUS’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, calling the meeting to order. Let’s listen.

Kelly: Is everyone here? Are there enough chairs? This has been getting a bit difficult with lately with so many people to accommodate. They tell me FDR’s cabinet meetings used to require only 12 chairs and a round table, but as you know we Republicans in our battle to starve the government have now got it pared down to 25, including all the “cabinet-level” appointees. But that means you will all have to speak up so you can be heard at the far ends of the table. No yelling, though. The higher decibel levels are reserved for President Trump’s exclusive use. And no applause, please for anyone’s remarks except his.

You all know the regular rules:

  • No reports that won’t fit on one 8½x11 double-spaced page.

  • Switch immediately to flattery if you detect signs of POTUS being threatened with GES (Glazed Eyeball Syndrome).

  • Don’t hesitate to interrupt and change the subject at any opportunity; this is an officially approved discussion tactic.

  • Curtsying and bowing upon POTUS’s entrance are optional but recommended.

Oh, and an encouraging note about last week’s meeting: I have just been informed that beginning next week a duplicate of Macy’s window will be installed next to the side portico where you all come in. Rules for its use will be posted during the week. Now is everyone ready? Applause, please.

POTUS: Everyone here bright and early, I see. Down to work without any preliminaries. I like that. Shows respect. Who do we hear from first, Mike?

Kelly: Alphabetical order, sir, us usual. Mr. Pruitt.

The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Pruitt: I fail to see, Mr. President, where my personal tastes have any bearing on the performance of my government duties and I am exasperated over the attention the phony media is giving these stories about my supposed weakness for luxury. If your administration wants to attract the best talent from the private sector, it must offer us the same level of reward that the private sector does. A personal airplane is after all only a relatively minor perk, and first-class travel and a soundproof private phone are no more than trivial conveniences …

Kelly: Now, now, Scott, remember what we agreed?

Mr. Pruitt: Yes, but …

Kelly: Alphabetical order, sir. Next is the Attorney General.

Attorney General Sessions: Here, sir. Right across from you. Remember me? No report to make, since I have recused myself from anything dealing with presidential malfeasance. Leaves me very little to do. Maybe at the next meeting. Your hair does look great though.

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Haspel: Our Black Ops agents have been exceptionally successful recently, sir, in infiltrating the Deep State organizations responsible for white persecution in so much of the country. Especially in states harboring Sanctuary Cities, where several plans for coups have been thwarted — mainly instigated by impoverished Mexican illegal immigrants and Muslims exposed to head colds because of head scarf bans. We …

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mulvaney: Your instruction about keeping the results of our assessments secret until after appropriation bills have been passed has proved difficult because of lack of cooperation from the full Nine, but we have put in place stalling tactics regarding publication that often have the desired effect. I look forward to helping you in any way I can to eliminate my office altogether.

Director of National Intelligence Coats: We are trying to keep everything quiet until your next Tweet, sir. Since we have been reduced to a footnote in the PDB, we have concluded that remaining as far undercover as possible is our best policy. Shhh.

Secretary for Small Business Affairs McMahon: Give me a moment, John. I’m just wrestling with my attaché case and trying to give the impression that the outcome is in doubt (haha! That’s a joke.) We’re working on a survey, Mr. President, that will show that a few large businesses are ten times more efficient than thousands of small businesses, since relevant legislation can be more effectively directed where needed, including subsidies and bailouts. Haven’t got all the numbers to come out right just yet, By our next meeting … John? Oh, sorry.

Secretary of Agriculture Purdue: I’m pleased to report that your export quotas on food shipments to those countries behind on their NATO bills have already resulted in thousands of farmer bankruptcies in both Kansas and Nebraska, which will enable us to close our local offices there and dispense with hundreds of bureaucratic staff, thus saving thousands of dollars. In fact I have estimated …Ooops! It’s great to have you here, Mr. President. As I was saying this morning to my wife …

Secretary of Commerce Ross: Commerce here, Mr. President. Pleased to report that the new import tax schedule has already reduced incoming port traffic by almost 30%. Thousands of stevedoring jobs have already been terminated, which will undoubtedly further weaken the Longshoremen’s Union.

Secretary of Defense Mattis: The threats to our power everywhere in the world remain unremitting, and I am strongly recommending a fifty percent increase in the Pentagon’s budget. The F-57 Invisible Fighter …

Mr. Kelly: Now, James, remember what I told you.

Mr. Mattis: Sorry, sir.

Secretary of Education DeVos: Together with the adoption of our new mission statement — Every public school student represents a lost tuition-paying opportunity for a for-profit school, and with the full elimination of the budget line for education we foresee a wide-open field of solid opportunity during the next two years, even sufficient, with luck, to withstand the inevitable pushback after 2020.

POTUS: You mean at the start of my second term? Why would there be a pushback then, as you put it? A horrible horrible word?

Mrs. DeVos: Well, our actuaries tell us that we need to protect our endowment structures, sir, and … Ooops! Sorry, John. What have HAVE you done to your hair? It looks wonderful. So shiny.

Secretary for Energy Perry: Sorry to interrupt, Liz. but my news is so encouraging I can’t resist. Thanks to your new import taxes, sir, on solar and wind hardware from China Wall Street oil futures and coal-mining stocks are reaching highs not seen since 2008. I would urge you to impose equally high import duties on automated mining and drilling machinery. Automation must be stopped if domestic jobs in the fossil fuel industry are to be saved. We are also exploring height limits for windmills. Ten feet has been suggested.

Mr. Kelly: Mr. Azar.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Azar: You can just call me Al. Actually, I would be glad if you just called me. I am getting pretty lonely in my office with no assignments. A little human warmth and companionship as signified by a nickname would be welcome. There is in any event little activity to report now that Mr.Gates has taken over so much of our burden, and we are expecting to cut back further as we discredit the vaccine people. They … Yes, John.

Secretary of Homeland Security Nielsen: I can proudly report that we have just created a new watchlist, sir, of unruly airline passengers who have protested against requests to be bumped from their flights to make room for government officials flying home first class on Friday nights. The people on this list will be refused admission right at the entrances to the airports, where TSA personnel will be assigned to check names. This is expected to prevent unsightly scenes. I am also … OK, John, OK.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Carson: We are working on a study to show that the housing shortage frequently cited by the fake news media is a myth. The actual problem is not a dearth of dwellings; it is a surplus of people. Some cultures seem to deliberately encourage overpopulation. Our new guidelines for applications for public housing direct that applicants with last names Roosevelt, Washington, or Jefferson be required to submit a photo ID, taken in strong light. There is reason to believe that some of these people are trying to use ancestral connections to gain preferred position in our waiting lists. We are prepared to institute DNA testing if necessary. The Wall is another step in the right direction …

POTUS: That’ll do for Miranda and José, but what about Mohammad and Khadija?

Carson: Give me two days for some research and we can create another list.

Secretary of the Interior Zinke: I have placed all my mining stock in LLC corporations in the name of my wife and my children and my Great Aunt Matilda. What more can I expected to do to show my complete independence from any connections with the enterprises I am sworn to regulate? What kind of a name is “Elephant Ears” for a national park, anyway. Stupid. Sounds like an ad for super-sized Q-tips. No dignity. At least Grand Tetons was a pleasure to think about. Some of my best friends don’t own mines at all.

Secretary of Labor Acosta: I guess you can call me Al, too. Nobody comes by my office even just to say hello. What am I, chopped liver?

Secretary of State Pompeo: First on a personal note, if you run into Rex Tillerson would you give him my regards and tell him he left a stale cigar in his desk drawer? He was in and out of here so fast I didn’t get a chance to meet him. But as to business, I can only express my admiration for your takeover of my department, sir. It relieves me and my staff of so much work. We can just check the Twitter feeds in the morning and forget about whether they make sense. It’s a great relief after years of trying to figure out where we rate in the world. The Foreign Service has now been trimmed by half of its former staff level, which is already saving us a small fortune on both salaries and diplomatic cables and airfare. Any new instructions this morning, sir?

Representative of the United States at the United Nations Haley: Adding up all the numbers, sir, and presuming that all foreign orders for military hardware remain firm, we find that immediately foreclosing on all client states for their due prorated contributions to NATO and all similar treaty commitments would result in sufficient billions in savings to finance a wall completely around the contiguous states, including sea walls high enough to eliminate danger from 1000-year storms. Besides, it’s only fair.

Secretary of Transportation Chao: We have just completed a study that shows that creation of new infrastructure only results in calls for redoubled expenditures on maintenance, which has serious deleterious effects on our Homeland Defense and Pentagon budgets. We therefore suggest … all right, John, can’t I even …?

Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin: Your suggestion about switching treasury bonds to Bitcoin is under serious consideration, sir. While it is true that secrecy is nearly always a good thing, certain questions remain about anomalies in the routing of certain funds, especially in what used to be our ruble accounts. They don’t always seem as transparent as we would like them to appear. Plus, maintenance and power charges on all those mining servers threaten to be far more expensive in the end than the former monthly Fed meetings.

U.S. Trade Representative Lighthizer: I hate to interject anything personal at this point, Mr. President, but can you please tell me where to find my office? Presumably it is being efficiently run by my staff, but this constantly walking the corridors to show the paparazzi how busy I am is getting hard on my bunions.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Thomas Bowman: Mr. Shulkin gave me such short notice of this meeting, sir, that I haven’t had time to prepare any remarks.

POTUS: Splendid, splendid! We need more advisors like you.

Vice President Pence: President Trump will now say a few words. I shall listen carefully.

1st Fly on the Wall: I think we need a spot of lunch. Shall we repair to the cafeteria and look for something tasty?

2nd Fly on the Wall: Don’t we need to listen to Mr. Trump?

1st Fly on the Wall: I don’t. His little palms are itching to get around his cell phone and start tweeting about what a GREAT meeting this was and how pleased he was that everyone agreed that it was perhaps one of the greatest cabinet meetings ever held. He will thank everyone for coming and announce that he has found a high school football team in Utah that will accept the invitation to the White House that he withdrew from the Philadelphia Eagles when they refused to promise not to kneel in the Oval Office. Plus, my feet are getting tired. This is a slippery wall.

2nd Fly on the Wall: OK. We’ll hear it all in a different version on Fox News anyway. I’m hungry, too. Let’s go.

Go back

Your message has been sent