Three Asses, Wagging
Something occurred to me last night. It arrived as a slap-to-the-forehead revelation, though more astute political minds must have noted this already: The current global crisis created by Donald Trump encompasses three simultaneous, intertwining, wag-the-dog phenomena involving three different people. Has this ever happened before?
Donald Trump seems to have started the war primarily to distract attention from his patent complicity in the Epstein abattoir.
Benjamin Netanyahu talked Trump into it because he is facing an immediate corruption trial at home, and this has provided both a distraction, and a postponement, and, conceivably, exoneration should he be perceived as a national hero.
Viktor Orban, Hungarian despot, faces an election tomorrow. Polls have shown that he is losing big. The war he has helped create has provided him with a last-minute campaign weapon he is using: Basically, he is making the sleazy argument that as a lapdog opportunistic ally of the United States, Russian and Iran he is uniquely qualified to keep his country out of the war so Hungarians won’t die.
In the middle of a terrifying global conflict, Vice President Vance traveled to Budapest to campaign for the execrable Orban. Why? Likely because Trump feels he will need Orban as an ally after the war, to make up for all the historical American allies that he has alienated — France, England, all of NATO, etc. — by being an arrogant asshole.
This completes the circle.
There are obvious parallels between the current situation and the 1998 movie “Wag the Dog,” in which a president invents a nonexistent war in Albania to draw attention away from a sex scandal. There is even a hero who was left behind enemy lines!
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Speaking of dogs, I love this very, very short video.
And that leads directly to: This is the Weekend Gene Pool, which means I hit you up for your anecdotes and observations. In this case, based on your experiences, tell us some generalizations you can make — “laws,” if you will — about living with two or more pets at the same time. Make ‘em funny and / or poignant.
Send em here:
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Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:
And from today’s Mailbag:
Q: Regarding experiences with police officers —
I got pulled over many years ago in Herndon, Virginia for ...running a stop sign? speeding? Don’t remember. After the cop explained why he stopped me and looked at my license and registration, we had the following exchange, paraphrased from cobwebbed vaults of memory.
Him: And how many drinks have you had today?
Me: None. I don’t drink.
Him: Sir, I smell alcohol in this car.
Me: (dumb look)
Wife, in passenger seat: “Oh -- it’s the bread dough.”
Me: What? Oh, right! This kind does smell exactly like beer.
We had a bowl of potato bread dough, covered with a cloth, in the back seat. I uncovered it, and the smell blossomed. It really does smell like beer. Following the well-known rule that the cop can’t ticket you if you make him laugh, he let me off with a warning.
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A: I have been ticketed at least twice by cops whom I made laugh. In once case it was for having one headlight out. I told him it was okay because I am blind in one eye. He said, “really?” I said “no.” He laughed and gave me a ticket.
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— Sean Clinchy
A: No. It would have been a good but weird aptonym had the publisher been Simon & Schuster.
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Q: Years ago, driving north on Rockville Pike from downtown Bethesda to Beltway. 10 pm, no traffic, clear weather, straight road. Might have been 10+ miles over speed limit. Officer pulled out of side street, pulled me over. The usual questions -- where are you going, where are you coming from, have you been drinking. Home, from friend’s apartment, no. He took my license and registration, called it in, came back. “Mr. Goldberg, I’ll have to give you a warning”.”Sure, officer -- I understand, thanks”. He returned with warning. I said I’m not being a wiseguy, I’m curious: what prompts giving a warning vs. a ticket? “That’s a good question. It depends on several variables -- traffic, weather, road conditions, whether speeding was mild or egregious, whether offense was worse than speeding. But mostly, I’m out of tickets.”
— Gabe Goldberg
Nice. We’ll end it here.
Well, we’ll end it here:
Re: the poll. Trump was never, and cannot ever be, “the president.” He can inhabit the Office of the President by dint of the vagaries of our arcane electoral process. But being “the president,” or “a president,” or even “presidential”? No.
My 12th grade civics teacher on the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination: “I was driving along and making a right turn, when I see a police car turn its lights on. I pull over. The officer comes up and asks, ‘Do you know why I stopped you?’ I replied, ‘I didn’t come to a full stop at the corner?’ He says, ‘Oh, that too.’ And he writes me a ticket for speeding and running a stop sign.” The lesson, if an officer asks, “Why did I stop you?” the response should be, “I’m sorry, why DID you stop me.”