What makes him think that a middle-aged actor, who’s played with a chimp, could have a future in politics? – Ronald Reagan on Clint Eastwood running for Mayor of Carmel
by S. Jayasankaran
Thou shalt always blame someone else.
It was a Golden Rule for the Chief. When confronted with a misstep – from deadly Texas floods to fatal air crashes into the Potomac – the reflexive go-to option was to blame Joe Biden. He even blamed his hapless predecessor for Gaza, a stretch if ever there was one.
All this in addition to the Golden Rule itself: he who holds the Gold, Rules. He’d never forget that. It was how he kept his bank balances healthy after his first term ended.
This reality seems to have eluded the Republicans. The same group used to pillory the Biden “crime family.” But Hunter Biden’s “lapses” are penny-ante stuff compared to the billions being raked in by his business empire.
When asked if this wasn’t hypocritical, a Republican Senator retorted that “at least, it’s done openly.”
Transparent conflict-of-interest behaviour is perhaps “manly” cheating” in the Republican Book of Ethics. Except there’s a small problem – it’s forbidden by US law.
The US Constitution’s Emoluments Clause expressly prohibits a sitting President from “accepting gifts, payments or any benefits from foreign governments.”
Truth be told, no one thought the Chief worried about trifling things like The Law, least of all the US Supreme Court.
He’d promised to go to Washington to “drain the swamp,” but there’d been too many friendly alligators there and he’d ended up being their King,
The Big Man had vowed to do everything sincerely he could for the working man, except become one. He was a profoundly religious politician who, when he assumed office, insisted on taking the oath of office upon the Bible. Yet his prudence dictated that he not touch it lest one or the other burst into flames.
His faith allowed him calm, nay, resolve, in the face of revelations that his Big, Beautiful Bill would add over US$4 trillion to an already colossal deficit.
Perhaps he had recited this in what he remembered from the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the children for they shall inherit the National Debt.”
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu tried to suck up to him by nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize, a grotesque endorsement that one late-night show host likened to “receiving a Husband of the Year nomination from O.J. Simpson.”
But maybe, seriously, the US Internal Revenue Service knew the truth and felt he should be nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. His income tax returns were the most imaginative works of fiction being written today.
The Commander-in-Chief was a modest fellow who was generous to a fault: he didn’t mind the strain of having to be right all the time. Actually, he enjoyed it so much he kept telling everyone how good he was.
Don’t believe me? Ask him.
The US legislative system was based on a simple principle – that no party could fool all of the people all of the time. That was why the US had two parties.
That was the theory. In practice, he never consulted Congress, issuing, instead, a slew of Executive Orders that few may have read, least of all, himself.
What’s amazing is that the American people not only put up with it, they accept his near-constant lying. They will have to put up with that for a very long time, even after he’s left the presidency.
Because, even in death, he will lie still.
The views of the writer are entirely his own