Little Lindsey

I got a big bang out of Donald Trump's recent comments about the relationship – some sort of pseudo love affair, to hear the idiot Trump's accusation – between Mueller and Comey. Hell, at different points in time, Trump has been equally smitten with each of them. But what really makes the accusation interesting is that it's been voiced by a guy with his own dubious sexual history, both distant and recent.

Currently – and this is no big secret – there is clearly something special between our current President and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, whose infatuation with Trump goes beyond professional admiration or mere party loyalty; it's obviously a deep-seated, very personal love.

Think about it: Here's Graham, the life-long bachelor without a proclaimed love in the world. He's always longed for someone to look up to in politics, but in his nearly three decades in public office, has really never had anyone. George W. Bush, the only Republican president during his time before Trump? Give me a break. John McCain? Well, they served as senators together, but were clearly cut from different cloth. McCain was the outspoken, self-proclaimed maverick, whereas Graham, heretofore, was the soft-spoken, quiet one. However, it seems that Trump has brought out the bitch in Little Lindsey, and not a moment too soon; Trump needs someone to back him up. And who better than his doe-eyed golf partner?

Even if poor, innocent Lindsey didn't know about Trump's past life of roaming the underbelly of New York city in the late '70s and early '80s with one of the most notorious closet queens ever, it doesn't matter now. Trump has given Graham something he never had – someone to love.

You get the idea.

Before Lindsey, Trump had Roy Cohn, the vicious attorney who railed against homosexuals then proceeded to die of AIDS in the early days of the epidemic. And it WASN'T because Cohn was an intravenous drug user. Cohn claimed at the time that liver cancer was taking him, but that was a lie.

By now, two-plus years into the Trump presidency, it's been discussed to death how Cohn was Trump's business/political mentor. But given the personal nature of the two men – hell, each is the only friend the other ever had – theirs was surely more than a business relationship, right?

In the immediate wake of Trump's association with Cohn all those years ago, with all of those voices a'waggin', Trump needed to do SOMETHING to protect what image he had and decided to go straight for the Trophy Wife. And, of course, has continued this habit for longer than any of the three women would like to remember, despite the rumor that has been floating around New York City for decades. Thankfully for Trump (and Cohn, who never really did come out of the closet, as it were), they were in a place – New York City – where people just really don't care about such things.

But throughout Red-state America, they do. And considering the conservative notions that pervade this nation of ours, one has to wonder how Trump's core constituents would feel if they knew what he REALLY likes to do when the lights go out.

Stormy Daniels is the least of it.

The Hateful Hypocrites of Cole County

Today's front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch features not one, not two, but THREE stories – all above the fold – on the recent anti-choice/anti-freedom/anti-women legislation that's sweeping portions of this sin-inflicted land of ours. Here in Missouri, over the long holiday weekend, the wise guys in Jefferson City passed their own such law. And by Jesus, they almost got it right, so to speak, ("right," that is if your mindset aligns with that of the He-man Women Haters Club), but they felt compelled to include an exception. What hypocrites.

This reminds me of my own macabre respect for none other than former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. While we stand on opposite sides of the political spectrum, I've always admired his conviction when it came to his anti-choice stance: NO EXCEPTIONS. Not for rape or incest, not in the event of a diagnosis of a physical or mental abnormality, not for a victim of human trafficking, not even in the case of a medical emergency concerning the mother. NO EXCEPTIONS! NONE!!! A tough stance, and one that very few anti-choice politicians have the guts to take. That's because these politicians really don't give as much a damn about "protecting human life," as they do about controlling women. And by offering up certain "exceptions" to their anti-choice legislation, they're playing politics with the very embryo they claim to be protecting.

The Best of Intentions

There is probably no politician about whom I have been so conflicted over the past 25 years than George H. W. Bush. His death last week reminded me of this conundrum.

There have been a lot of knee-jerk reactions to Bush's death; not uncommon in such a situation. Typically, I extend my usual 24-hour waiting period by a number of days in the event of such a high-falutin' death. This allows time for a reality check after the initial sorrow. Hell, both Nixon and Reagan were remembered as choir boys in the hours after their death. However, as the "death week" wore on, we remembered that one was kicked out of office for his attempt to undermine the goddam Constitution while the other came within an '80s megabite of being put on trial for giving guns to the enemy. (Somehow, Reagan weaseled out of that one.) Anyhow, I like to give these things REAL time before commenting. In the case of Bush, the wait is over.

Amazingly, Bush the Elder escaped the taint of both of these political scandals – two of the biggest in American political history. His low-key demeanor and his talent for flying under the radar helped. And even when he bore ultimate responsibility – the choices of the idiot Quayle and the thoughtless ninny Clarence Thomas, as well as the decision to have Lee Atwater run his campaign – he rarely bore the brunt of blame. Even when he compromised his inherent principles and changed sides on the abortion issue in 1980 to secure a place on the Republican ticket as VP, there just wasn't much of a noise made. And this was AFTER he'd called out Reagan for the sham that was Voodoo economics, proving that he could be ahead of his time.

George was never the win-at-all-cost political monster that Nixon was, but he knew how to PLAY THE GAME. He was both a ferocious fighter and, at times, remarkably diffident. He never lived down looking at this watch during a '92 debate as a sign that he was "out of touch."

Bush was always an affable fellow and a gentle soul, his intermittent overgrown frat boy humor notwithstanding. He's certainly a retroactive breath of fresh air, given the loudmouthed peckerwood currently wasting space in the Oval Office.

It's always been hard for me not to like him, even though I never voted for the man; there are many things I admired about him. Certainly, his Navy service; his willingness to partner with Clinton on humanitarian relief initiatives; his ability to admit a mistake. This ability came to the fore in '92 when he reversed his "no new taxes" promise because he knew it would be good for the nation. He also knew it would cost him the election. He did it anyway. VERY admirable.

I even admired his efforts with regard to Iraq and Saddam. It was the right thing to do and he did it in the right way. Bush's speech on that January night in '91 announcing the war – complete with the details of the strategic thinking he and his team conducted, and the decision he had made – remains a masterpiece of SERIOUS political communication, as opposed to some "shining city on a hill" crap.

Of course, Iran Contra is where George and I part ways. We may never know the degree to which he was involved in the decision making on that one. And it remains a significant demarcation point in the quest to define Bush either as a devious co-conspirator or an innocent bystander.

In the end, thought, I'm convinced that some 90% of the moves he made – right or wrong, good or bad – were done with the best of intentions for the nation rather than himself. And for a politician, that's pretty rare.

Dishonorable Discharge

"My task which I am trying to achieve is … to make you hear … that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask." 

-       Joseph Conrad, "The Condition of Art"

A headline in a recent edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – front page, above the fold – reads "Senator, ex-POW driven by code of honor."

In terms of the service to country rendered by John McCain, there may be no more apt description. His decision to deny offers to be released in deference to longer-detained prisoners was impressive.

Unfortunately, despite the onslaught of accolades in the past days in the wake of his recent death, his service days were where the code of honor ended. As he shifted into political life, he became, well, a politician.

Just into his first senate term, he was stained with the stench of scandal when he emerged as one of the Keating Five.

When he ran for President in 2008, he was set to go with his gut and pick Joe Lieberman as his Vice President, but, instead, at the last minute and for the purpose of political expediency, he took some very poor advice and chose the unknown Governor of Alaska.

He worked hard to hone a reputation as a maverick, and in doing so, emerged as some sort of grand statesman. Maverick? Ha! This is one of the great fallacies in modern politics. He may have shouted, but when it came down to voting, though he battled Bush and harangued Trump, he voted with each of them better than 90% of the time. And it’s the votes that count. He prided himself on delivering "straight talk," but ultimately, he was still a party man.

On occasion, he would make up for his political phoniness, such as his correction of some boneheaded woman while on the campaign trail who was boohooing about Obama being a Muslim, which remains one of the more noble gestures I've witnessed in 44 years of following politics on a daily basis. And the showman in him came to the fore just last year with his dramatic thumb-down to Trump's and the Republicans' attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act.

But in the end, he was just another politician who wasn't always what he seemed to be. Which isn't very honorable at all.