In this blog I refer to our current president as He Who Must Not Be Named (“HWMNBN”), taking my cue from J.K. Rowland’s characterization of the utterly evil Lord Voldamart. I also refer to him as the Orange Monster (the “OM”). And, as I pointed out in my last posting on Sunday, December 9, he now has a new name, this new designation being afforded him in recent legal court filings as “Individual-1.”
The filing by the Southern District of New York in last Friday’s sentencing statement regarding Individual-1’s lawyer Michael Cohen, stated that Cohen coordinated with, and was directed by the OM to commit two felonies in making secret and hidden hush money payments to both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal over his alleged sexual affairs with each of these ladies, both during the time when his wife Melania had given birth to the couple’s new baby boy. The prosecutors of SDNY indicated that “Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.” Essentially, these prosecutors said that they have the evidence to prove that our current president has committed two felonies. What a fool Individual-1 was to think he could get away with such felonious acts, and get away with so many other potential crimes, without eventually having to pay the piper.
Whether I refer to him as the OM, as HWMNBN, or as Individual-1, our current president is clearly a fool by any other name, and will always prove to be himself to be so.
As we learn more and more about the foolish, ignorant, impulsive, vile and cruel ways in which the OM has chosen to govern (or more to the point, not govern), his idiocy grows ever more transparent, as does the increasing danger in which his very presence at the head of our government threatens us all. Two of the OM’s most recent actions displayed his foolishness and utter incompetence for all who cared to see.
First, he announced on Saturday that chief of staff John Kelly was leaving, betraying his sacred promise to Kelly that the four-star general would be allowed to announce his so-called “retirement” in his own face-saving way on Monday. Then HWMNBN proceeded to announce Ayers as Kelly’s successor before he even had the young 36-year-old’s commitment to take the job. No doubt Ayers felt that he would prefer taking his young family back to Georgia, rather than face the legal battles that would no doubt encroach on his future plans, if he chose to take the thankless and humiliating job of working for this particular president. After Ayers turned down the OM’s offer, it left our current president with no Plan B, revealing the OM’s utter incompetence and foolishness. After this public humiliation, it left our president with no alternative but to ask Kelly to stay on into January 2019, if not longer—since no one with the least bit of sense or self-esteem wants the job. After all, who would want to work with such an utter fool? As former Secretary of State Tillerson said of the president he suffered public humiliation under, the man is a “fucking idiot.”
So much for the first incident revealing the OM as fool. Now comes the 17-minute televised debacle of a meeting in the Oval Office between the OM, a brain-dead Pence, and two politicians who know what they are doing, and are willing to take on our lying, cheating, compromised president.
As Jennifer Rubin points out in her Washington Post opinion column out today:
“For all those Americans who have pined for moments when someone would say, ‘That’s just false, Mr. President’ or ‘Excuse me, but you’ve been fact-checked on that repeatedly,’ Tuesday brought moral vindication. If you’ve found yourself defending the concept of objective truth or furious that the conservative movement has entered some postmodernist moment when facts are whatever you say they are, soon-to-be-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delivered in a face-to-face confrontation over funding for Trump’s border wall. (As an aside, I’m at a loss to understand how any Democrat could oppose literally the only elected Democrat who has publicly called out the president to his face, scoring a direct hit.)”
In other words, Pelosi called out the president’s lies, directly and to his face, all the while the cameras rolled and the public watched on television. The OM, who had no doubt manipulated Nancy and Chuck into a televised confrontation that he thought would serve him well, foolishly overplayed his hand and was shown on public TV behaving like a Buffoon. Other names also come to mind: Idiot, Moron, Clown, Know-Nothing, Ignoramus. And what this televised meltdown also clearly demonstrated that the OM who has been cashing in on the lie that he is a superb negotiator, is actually incompetent. The OM’s trap to catch Nancy and Chuck on TV backfired into his face, causing yet more humiliation and for all Senate Republicans, who now have to wonder how, since the president proclaimed, “I will shut down the government,” and “I will take the blame for it.” When Bugs Bunny frequently said, “What a maroon!”he was no doubt thinking of our current president.
Eli Stokols of the Los Angeles Times later reported,"It sort of spiraled out of control, and when the President left the Oval Office after Pelosi and Schumer left, a number of people saw him, he stormed out of the Oval, walked into an anteroom just off the Oval Office, and had in his hand a folder of briefing papers, and he just scattered them out of frustration, threw them across the room and expressed frustration to the people who were present.”
Indeed, Nancy Pelosi came out of this meeting triumphant. As Washington Post columnist Colby Itkowitz wrote, “Pelosi emerged from the meeting not some wilted flower, but a symbol of a woman who doesn’t have time for male posturing. ... Pelosi kept her composure throughout the charade, continually trying to bring the conversation back to a place where actual dialogue could occur.”How true!
Indeed, a fool by any other name--whether as the OM, as HWMNBN or as Individual-1—remains the same fool he proved himself to be during the presidential election campaign in 2015 and 2016, and as the fool that he has proven himself with every step he has taken as our president since he was inaugurated. And, since he never listens to anyone’s advice, he no doubt will remain that same foolish and arrogant fellow, undaunted by change, idiotic in the smallness of his humanity, when he either leaves the White House through resignation or removal from office.
The filing by the Southern District of New York in last Friday’s sentencing statement regarding Individual-1’s lawyer Michael Cohen, stated that Cohen coordinated with, and was directed by the OM to commit two felonies in making secret and hidden hush money payments to both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal over his alleged sexual affairs with each of these ladies, both during the time when his wife Melania had given birth to the couple’s new baby boy. The prosecutors of SDNY indicated that “Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.” Essentially, these prosecutors said that they have the evidence to prove that our current president has committed two felonies. What a fool Individual-1 was to think he could get away with such felonious acts, and get away with so many other potential crimes, without eventually having to pay the piper.
Whether I refer to him as the OM, as HWMNBN, or as Individual-1, our current president is clearly a fool by any other name, and will always prove to be himself to be so.
As we learn more and more about the foolish, ignorant, impulsive, vile and cruel ways in which the OM has chosen to govern (or more to the point, not govern), his idiocy grows ever more transparent, as does the increasing danger in which his very presence at the head of our government threatens us all. Two of the OM’s most recent actions displayed his foolishness and utter incompetence for all who cared to see.
First, he announced on Saturday that chief of staff John Kelly was leaving, betraying his sacred promise to Kelly that the four-star general would be allowed to announce his so-called “retirement” in his own face-saving way on Monday. Then HWMNBN proceeded to announce Ayers as Kelly’s successor before he even had the young 36-year-old’s commitment to take the job. No doubt Ayers felt that he would prefer taking his young family back to Georgia, rather than face the legal battles that would no doubt encroach on his future plans, if he chose to take the thankless and humiliating job of working for this particular president. After Ayers turned down the OM’s offer, it left our current president with no Plan B, revealing the OM’s utter incompetence and foolishness. After this public humiliation, it left our president with no alternative but to ask Kelly to stay on into January 2019, if not longer—since no one with the least bit of sense or self-esteem wants the job. After all, who would want to work with such an utter fool? As former Secretary of State Tillerson said of the president he suffered public humiliation under, the man is a “fucking idiot.”
So much for the first incident revealing the OM as fool. Now comes the 17-minute televised debacle of a meeting in the Oval Office between the OM, a brain-dead Pence, and two politicians who know what they are doing, and are willing to take on our lying, cheating, compromised president.
As Jennifer Rubin points out in her Washington Post opinion column out today:
“For all those Americans who have pined for moments when someone would say, ‘That’s just false, Mr. President’ or ‘Excuse me, but you’ve been fact-checked on that repeatedly,’ Tuesday brought moral vindication. If you’ve found yourself defending the concept of objective truth or furious that the conservative movement has entered some postmodernist moment when facts are whatever you say they are, soon-to-be-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delivered in a face-to-face confrontation over funding for Trump’s border wall. (As an aside, I’m at a loss to understand how any Democrat could oppose literally the only elected Democrat who has publicly called out the president to his face, scoring a direct hit.)”
In other words, Pelosi called out the president’s lies, directly and to his face, all the while the cameras rolled and the public watched on television. The OM, who had no doubt manipulated Nancy and Chuck into a televised confrontation that he thought would serve him well, foolishly overplayed his hand and was shown on public TV behaving like a Buffoon. Other names also come to mind: Idiot, Moron, Clown, Know-Nothing, Ignoramus. And what this televised meltdown also clearly demonstrated that the OM who has been cashing in on the lie that he is a superb negotiator, is actually incompetent. The OM’s trap to catch Nancy and Chuck on TV backfired into his face, causing yet more humiliation and for all Senate Republicans, who now have to wonder how, since the president proclaimed, “I will shut down the government,” and “I will take the blame for it.” When Bugs Bunny frequently said, “What a maroon!”he was no doubt thinking of our current president.
Eli Stokols of the Los Angeles Times later reported,"It sort of spiraled out of control, and when the President left the Oval Office after Pelosi and Schumer left, a number of people saw him, he stormed out of the Oval, walked into an anteroom just off the Oval Office, and had in his hand a folder of briefing papers, and he just scattered them out of frustration, threw them across the room and expressed frustration to the people who were present.”
Indeed, Nancy Pelosi came out of this meeting triumphant. As Washington Post columnist Colby Itkowitz wrote, “Pelosi emerged from the meeting not some wilted flower, but a symbol of a woman who doesn’t have time for male posturing. ... Pelosi kept her composure throughout the charade, continually trying to bring the conversation back to a place where actual dialogue could occur.”How true!
Indeed, a fool by any other name--whether as the OM, as HWMNBN or as Individual-1—remains the same fool he proved himself to be during the presidential election campaign in 2015 and 2016, and as the fool that he has proven himself with every step he has taken as our president since he was inaugurated. And, since he never listens to anyone’s advice, he no doubt will remain that same foolish and arrogant fellow, undaunted by change, idiotic in the smallness of his humanity, when he either leaves the White House through resignation or removal from office.