Month: December 2018

The death of Bush 41 made me think about how much the world has changed since he left office.  Consider this:

1.  China was an economic minnow;
2.  The only tech giant was Microsoft;
3.  There were no social media;
4.  There were few mobile phones, and no smartphones;
5.  The GOP was still predominantly a reasonable center-right party, although danger in the form of Newt Gingrich was not far away;
6.  I don’t think Fox News existed;
7.  Russia was not a revisionist power, and was in a state of collapse;
8.  There was hope for peace in the Middle East;
9.  No one knew anything about Osama or Afghanistan, and Saddam was still holding on in Iraq; and
10.  There was no Uber, Airbnb, or Amazon.

Would you trade this world for that one?  Would you give up the benefits of the internet for an America that was governed reasonably and dominated the world?Personally, I would.

The rise of China has been a positive for the Chinese, has had some benefits for us, and was in any case largely beyond our control, but the rest of the story of the last 26 years has mostly been about our mistakes, and the squandering of our inheritance.  Trump is just the worst of it.

2018 was ok.

We lived to fight another day.

Red turned blue in several states.

November ’20–save the date.

 

We finally bought our mountain home.

It’s a stately pleasure dome.

It has the most amazing view.

Come visit us and see it, too!

 

Andrea had both knees fixed.

Her walking issues have been licked.

Darcy’s now an adult dog.

I worked my butt off on my blog.

 

As for trips, what can I say?

This fall, we went to the UK.

London, Cornwall, Devon, Bath.

It took two weeks–you do the math.

 

2018 was all right.

Our nightmare’s end is now in sight.

It’s just two years until he goes

So keep the faith and hold your nose.

I don’t want to go overboard here.  Bush 41 brought us Willie Horton, and he was clueless in the face of the recession.  That said, he embodied a concept of noblesse oblige in a way that seems utterly quaint today, and he was willing to reach across the aisle to raise taxes even though it damaged him politically.  He was wise enough to stay out of the way when the Iron Curtain was falling, he put together the coalition against Saddam Hussein, and he knew better than to depose Saddam when he had the chance, because, unlike his son, he understood the Pottery Barn rule.

In short, he stood for competence, patriotism, public service, liberal democratic values, and restraint.  He was a genuine conservative, not a bomb thrower who calls himself one.  He couldn’t have been more different than you-know-who, or, for that matter, the rest of his party, as it currently exists.

That’s why I wrote a parody of “My City Was Gone” called “My Party Is Gone” about him during the 2016 primaries.  It’s painful to contemplate how much the world has changed since 1992, but, as with McCain’s death, perhaps those memories will do some good.

Xi to the left of me

Putin to the right

Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

From the Stealer’s Wheel song.

Did you see the expression on Putin’s face when he greeted MBS yesterday?  It was like “Mr. Bone Saw!  I wish I had the nerve to do that!  You da man!”  Putin, of course, has no reason to conceal his admiration for creatively murderous strong men, so he didn’t.

Trump, on the other hand, wore a vintage grumpy cat look.  Like Putin, he admires strong men, but he has to worry about the optics back home.  He can’t completely embrace authoritarians, and he won’t embrace democratic leaders, so who’s left?

Abe, I guess.  He sucks up to Trump at every possible opportunity.  In private, I’m sure he thinks Trump is a dangerous moron.

Donald Trump is waiting for Putin in his gold-plated hotel room.  Putin shows up 30 minutes late, and with his dog, which doesn’t bode well for the meeting.

T:  Vlad!  Glad you could finally make it!

P:  Donald, I’m not going to mince words.  You’ve been a huge disappointment to me, and something needs to be done about it.

T:  What do you mean?

P:  I’ve told you over and over again that you need to grow some balls and be a real strongman.  Put Hillary in jail, shut down CNN, and get rid of Mueller.  Instead, you just whine and do nothing.

T:  It’s not that easy.  America isn’t Russia, you know.

P:  Stop saying that!  No one said it was supposed to be easy.  You’re a strong man, right?   Look at Erdogan–do you think he had it easy?  He managed to shut down  his opposition, even in an allegedly democratic state.

T:  America is just different.

P:  Try being like MBS.  Now there’s a man after my own heart!  Even I never thought of killing and dismembering opponents in a government building overseas.   Talk about sending the right message!

T:  The American people don’t support that.

P:  You’re supposed to be a strong man.  What do you care about the people?  Tell them what they need to hear, and they’ll obey.  What do you think Fox News is for?  Why else did you make Whitaker your acting AG?  That’s the one thing you did right.

T:  I thought we were supposed to talk about Ukraine.

P:  There’s nothing to talk about.  Ukraine is ours.  I don’t tell you how to deal with Mexico.  You can’t tell me what to do with Ukraine.

T:  I am the US President, you know.  We have the biggest economy and the best military on the planet.  You can’t talk to me that way.

P:  I don’t give a damn about your military.  You don’t have the balls to use it.  Anyway, I have WikiLeaks, and you don’t.  They can tell the American people plenty about your dealings with us.

T:  Assange is my friend.  He wouldn’t do that to me!

P:  Don’t kid yourself.  He doesn’t love you–he hates America.  He thinks America is just too powerful and unaccountable, as I do.  He’ll leak stuff on you just as he did on Hillary.

T:  What do you want me to do?

P:  I told you.  Suck it up, shut down the opposition and the investigations, get rid of the sanctions, and be the real strong man you keep saying you are.  Otherwise, I’ll give up on you, and bad stuff is going to start happening.

T:  And if I do as you say?

P:  There’s plenty of land in Moscow for that new Trump Tower.

T:  I’ll see what I can do.

P:  You had better.  He stomps out of the room with his dog.