Send In the Clowns
In the last 36 hours, the following occurred.
The United States sent a team of three people — Steve Witcoff, Jared Kushner, and JD Vance — to negotiate a deal to end the benighted war of whim excreted by their boss. None of these people is a diplomat, or has any experience in diplomacy, or is, personally, diplomatic.
Witkoff is a disagreeable, dyspeptic cryptocurrency tycoon so deeply financially invested in the Middle East that every single thing he does there puts money into, or takes money out of, his wallet. Kushner is a thin-lipped, unsmiling real estate tycoon who is also so deeply financially invested in the Middle East that every single thing he does there puts money into, or takes money out of, his wallet.
Witkoff is also the guy who so mishandled signal-giving and signal-getting during the pre-war talks with Iran that the meetings were still going on and allegedly kinda productive when Donald Trump decided negotiations had died, and sneak-attack carpet bombed the country, Hirohito-style. Kushner is also the guy whose former employees at The New York Observer famously said was a dimwit with no ethical standards and who regularly slanted the paper’s news coverage to boost his other business ventures.
Which leaves Vance. Vance does not seem to have financial ties to the Middle East! He is compromised only by this: He is the one guy in the Trump regime’s higher echelon who actually dared to tell the adolescent, thin-skinned president that he opposed the war; he is now a man desperate to distance himself from Trump so he can run for president himself, at least marginally less tainted by his years-long obeisance to his now almost universally despised mentor. That means he is likely playing the longest game possible, a game so complex it’s impossible for anyone to contemplate what his angle is, including, probably, Vance. But he is definitely searching for an angle. It is acute.
Curiously absent from these talks was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the one guy whose actual job it is to diplomaticize the hell out of the situation.
I was remarking about this to a friend of mine yesterday. I said, “Why didn’t Rubio go? Why did they send those three clowns?”
My friend said: “Rubio’s a clown, too.”
“Not as much, maybe?”
“The man is walking around in shoes that don’t fit him. He is literally a clown.”
True enough! It turns out Rubio wasn’t in Islamabad because he was in Florida, with the president, at a mixed martial arts match that Trump was attending because a mixed martial arts event is the only venue at which Trump can be assured he will be bathed in the warm embrace of the only people who still unreservedly support him: slack-jawed idiots.
Oh, I almost forgot.
Guess what?
THE TALKS FAILED.
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And of course, afterwards Trump had his de rigueur tantrum and declared he is going to put a blockade on The Strait of Hormuz, which has crushed the world economy since Iran sphinctered it down. So, apparently, now Trump is going to sphincter it down even bigger!
Also:
Yesterday, Trump said that all of Iran’s “minelayer” ships were now “at the bottom of the sea.” Minutes later, NPR consulted an expert on sea mines who said that they can be set up by any boat of any size, such as a speedboat or a canoe.
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Today’s unrelated Gene Pool Gene Poll:
Oh yeah? Wanna bet $50?
"People come up to me with tears in their eyes and say, 'Sir, what single person could have tanked the global economy and made the U.S. both a pariah and laughingstock? You did it all by yourself sir. You are truly one of a kind...sir.'"
So what do people think will get rid of him early?
He's old, but Google tells me that the average man of 79 can expect to live to 88-90. (His father had dementia and still lived to 93.)
If Dems win the house, he may be impeached - but it takes 67 senators to convict. That would require Republican votes. What have we seen that makes you think that is possible?
He's nuts, but that isn't new. Is there anything he could do that would actually get the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment? And, even if they do, if he contests it - which he would - it takes 67 senators to confirm he is impaired. Will that really happen?
I honestly hope someone can show me a reason to hope he is out before Jan 2029. He might be sick, but we have no evidence of that. And all the other options require 14-17 Republican senators to defy him. I haven't seen anything that makes me believe that will happen.