The crisis we now find ourselves in has been exaggerated and mishandled by the Trump administration to a degree that is deeply worrying and dangerous.
From the start, the White House has wanted to look tough on North Korea.
.. In the early months of President Trump’s administration, before there could possibly have been a serious policy review, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that the era of strategic patience with North Korea was over.
.. Last week, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said that North Korea’s potential to hit the United States with nuclear weapons was an “intolerable” threat. Not North Korea’s use of weapons, mind you; just the potential.
.. So why do it? Because it’s Trump’s basic mode of action. For his entire life, Trump has made grandiose promises and ominous threats — and rarely delivered on any.
When he was in business, Reuters found,
- he frequently threatened to sue news organizations for libel, but the last time he followed through was 33 years ago, in 1984.
- Trump says that he never settles cases out of court. In fact, he has settled at least 100 times, according to USA Today.
..In his political life, he has followed the same strategy of bluster.
- In 2011, he said that he had investigators who “cannot believe what they’re finding” about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and that he would at some point “be revealing some interesting things.” He had nothing.
- During the campaign, he vowed that he would label China a currency manipulator,
- move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem,
- make Mexico pay for a border wall and
- initiate an investigation into Hillary Clinton. So far, nada.
- After being elected, he signaled to China that he might recognize Taiwan. Within weeks of taking office, he folded.
- He implied that he had tapes of his conversations with then-FBI Director James B. Comey. Of course, he had none.
Does he think the North Koreans don’t know this?
.. When it saw a far more threatening leader, Mao Zedong, pursuing nuclear weapons, it was even more cautious. Mao insisted that he had no fear of a nuclear war because China would still have more than enough survivors to defeat Western imperialists. And yet, successive U.S. administrations kept their cool... The secretary of state seems to have been telling Americans — and the world — to ignore the rhetoric, not of the North Korean dictator, but of his own boss, the president of the United States. It is probably what Trump’s associates have done for him all his life. They know that the guiding mantra for him has been not the art of the deal, but the art of the bluff.
Trump’s Syria Attack and Our Abject Media
it is when he orders the use of force that his judgment needs to be questioned more than ever. One reason that the U.S. can so easily and frequently resort to the use of force overseas is that the people that should be the first to question a president’s decision are instead among the first to cheer and celebrate it.
.. Zakaria’s statement is ridiculous, but unfortunately reflects a common assumption about what being the president means. For Zakaria and quite a few others, a willingness to deal out death and destruction to other parts of the world is what makes someone seem “presidential.” Worse still, they are most inclined to defer to the president when he is using (or abusing) military power, so that they are at their most credulous and indulgent when the president is at his most dangerous. That is all the more worrisome when we remember how obsessed this president is with how he is portrayed in the media, since it will probably encourage him to order other hasty attacks in the hopes of receiving more adoring coverage.
The media loved Trump’s show of military might. Are we really doing this again?
The cruise missiles struck, and many in the mainstream media fawned.
“I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night,” declared Fareed Zakaria on CNN
.. Brian Williams, on MSNBC, seemed mesmerized by the images of the strikes provided by the Pentagon. He used the word “beautiful” three times and alluded to a Leonard Cohen lyric — “I am guided by the beauty of our weapons” — without apparent irony.
.. Why do so many in the news media love a show of force?
.. “There is no faster way to bring public support than to pursue military action,” said Ken Paulson, head of the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center.
.. News organizations that are fearful of looking partisan can fall into the trap of failing to provide context.”
.. News organizations that are fearful of looking partisan can fall into the trap of failing to provide context.”
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria: Trump ‘Has Succeeded By BullSh-tting’
Zakaria said, “I think the president is somewhat indifferent to things that are true or false. He has spent his whole life bullshitting. He has succeeded by bullshitting. He has gotten the presidency by bullshitting. It’s very hard to tell somebody at that point that bullshit doesn’t work because look at results. Right? But that’s what he does. He sees something he doesn’t particularly care if it’s true or not. Just puts it out there and then he puts something else out. Notice again at the press conference, when pushed on it, does take responsibility. ‘I wasn’t saying that just quoting somebody else.’ When you have the White House press secretary quote somebody to prove a point, you’re endorsing that view.”