A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
Here are some observations on last week’s developments in the American political scene.
First, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wrote to President Trump disinviting him from giving the State of the Union address, citing concerns over security during the shutdown. This was clearly designed to prevent the President fromlauding his achievements and from pointing out the perfidy of the Democrats over the border wall negotiations.
President Trump immediately cancelled her taxpayer-funded junket overseas, citing the need for her to remain in Washington whilst the shutdown was ongoing and there was a need for her to be available to negotiate a deal. Norman Maclean would have labelled President Trump a childish nincompoop for retaliating in this way and indeed Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted that “one sophomoric response does not deserve another”.
Now, here’s the thing. For years establishment Republicans have refused to engage in mudslinging whilst savvy operators from the progressive left Democratic side have continued to smear and slander them and their friends. They don’t seem to have realised that the only Republicans the mainstream media and the Democrats seem to respect are the dead ones — John McCain and George H.W. Bush.
President Trump has realised that the only way to deter such base attacks is to respond in kind. He trolls the Democrats and the mainstream media mercilessly, deploying their tactics more skilfully and sending them into frenzies of frustration. He will continue to play hardball with Nancy Pelosi.
Second, Buzzfeed’s story that President Trump had asked his lawyer, Cohen, to lie was proved to be the usual “fake news” when Mueller’s special counsel office let it be known that the story was false.
Don’t go concluding that the vaunted Robert Mueller has come over all touchy-feely. His reputation was at stake. Had he allowed the “fake news” to continue in the public domain uncorrected at a time when President Trump is wrestling with the shutdown and proposing to meet the North Korean leader very shortly, when the scurrilous story was eventually proved to be fake, his reputation for moral rectitude would have suffered.
