MARCH 1, 2017
Photo: Getty
I’d like to talk a little bit about wrapping paper.
Are you one of those people, like me, who have a wide array of presents to give to your loved ones at the holidays but find that one of those gifts just doesn’t quite cut it compared to the others? If you do what I do, I wrap that lesser present in the most dazzling wrapper paper I have so that it feels like something new and worthwhile.
President Trump brought his most dazzling roll of wrapping paper to Congress on Tuesday for his very first Presidential Address to Congress. Hours before the address, Trump hinted that perhaps he was open to some kind of immigration reform, so hopes were raised among the progressive community that perhaps there will be a crack that could open up both parties to a substantive reform discussion.
But when Congress opened up the brightly-wrapped box, all they saw was the same shit sandwich that Trump has been peddling to the American people for the last 21 months. And all of a sudden, they loved it.
At least they loved the wrapper. And the key word was “tone.” On cable news outlets immediately after the speech and all over the morning shows on Tuesday, pundits were falling all over themselves to praise Trump’s tone in delivering the speech as “Presidential.” Van Jones, progressive commentator at CNN (who should know better), absolutely swooned at Trump’s delivery:
“That was one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics, period, and he did something extraordinary. And for people who have been hoping that he would become unifying, hoping that he might find some way to become presidential, they should be happy with that moment.”
The moment to which Jones referred was Trump’s salute to Carryn Owens, the widow of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens, who was killed in the first Trump-ordered raid into Yemen on January 29. Mrs. Owens, who appeared to be overcome with emotion as she looked up (presumably to heaven) in the memory of her husband, was reassured by President Trump that an enormous amount of important information was obtained in the raid in which Ryan Owens gave his life.
If it sounds like Trump was using the Owens as a prop, maybe, but all Presidents since Reagan (including Clinton and Obama) have done the same thing. It’s creepy, but it’s now become a tradition. The difference, however, is that all those other Presidents had no personal connection to the people whom they celebrate.
That’s not the case for Trump. He approved the Yemen operation, yet when time came for accountability for its failure, Trump initially blamed Barack Obama. When that didn’t fly, he then shifted the blame to “his Generals.” To top it off, even while turning toward Carryn Owens, who watched the speech from the gallery, Trump lied to her face when he said that an enormous amount of information was obtained from the raid. (Ten senior officials from several areas of the Government familiar with the details of the raid announced on Wednesday that little valuable information was actually obtained.) I guess that lying in front of Congress while speaking in a low voice is “Presidential.”
All of the other items in the dazzlingly wrapped box were distressingly familiar. Wall paid for by Mexico? Check? Travel (e.g.) Muslim ban? Check. Repeal Obamacare!! Check. Demonization of undocumented immigrants? Double check! (Trump reintroduced his tiresome depiction of them as murderers.) And all of these wonders were presented in that dazzlingly wrapped little box.
Presidential!
