A depiction of the murder of St. Thomas Becket by knights of his friend King Henry II of England. From the Carrow Psalter, 1250, ink, gold and parchment. Courtesy Walters Art Museum.
OK, so who had Pope Leo XIV versus President Donald J. Trump on their fight card, let alone bingo card?
Today, many shocked posters on the internet are saying they didn’t. But I did.
Read MoreFrom left, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, American President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance in a heated exchange at the White House Friday, Feb. 28. Courtesy the White House.
As I’ve written many times on this blog — too many times but it bares repeating — there is much discussion of various “isms” when it comes to President Donald J. Trump, from communism to socialism, racism and sexism. But the only “ism” that matters is narcissism, and the failure to understand this prevents us from having any hope to dealing with him effectively.
Read MoreAt the Democratic Convention Thursday, Aug. 22, Vice President Kamala Harris made her case for why she should be president. Courtesy the White House.
Well, the Democratic Convention has me feeling a lot better about the Democrats’ chances in the November election and Kamala Harris’ chances to be the first woman — and woman of color — to become president of the United States. To says she has surprised me with her sheer focused magnificence is the understatement of the year.
Did the first couple of nights run long? Sure, but then it’s always prime time somewhere in the world. Do some politicians love the sounds of their own voices? Always.
At the convention, though, we got not only joy — in short supply in the “American carnage” years — but the sorrow of officers assaulted in the Jan. 6 insurrection, parents waiting for the American hostages of Hamas to be released and women whose health was risked by abortions denied. And we got the sobriety of what we’re up against — the autocracy of the Republicans’ Project 2025 and the lunacy of former President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs. As former President Bill Clinton — still as shrewd a pol as they come — said, we underestimate the opposition at our own peril.
Read MoreJulius Kronberg’s “Hypatia” (1889), oil on canvas. The particularly brutal murder of this fifth-century Alexandrian philosopher and mathematician shocked even the Roman Empire. It’s recounted in Islam Issa’s new book “Alexandria: The City That Changed the World” (Pegasus Books, $35, 476 pages).
When I was thinking about what my next blog post should be, there was no lack of ideas. Should it be about the student protests, which, however sincere, lack historical perspective, or dog-, goat- and horse-shooting Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota or the Republicans’ “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” at former President Donald J. Trump’s trial in New York or the continuing wars in Ukraine and Gaza? Or how about Speaker-vacating Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene going after Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s eyelashes verbally, which led to Crockett’s sly rebuke “about somebody’s bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body”?
Then I had an unsettling personal experience that made me realize that what all these events and people have in common is further proof that despite the upward arc of civilization, we live in cruel world.
Read MoreFrom left, A 73-year-old President Ronald Reagan meets with Sen. William Cohen and a 42-year-old Sen. Joe Biden in the Oval Office in 1984. Though Americans discussed Reagan’s age and mental agility at the time, the discussion of age and politics did not have the desperation it has now. There was also a bipartisanship that doesn’t exist now. Courtesy the White House Photographic Collection.
Recently, I was talking with two of my writers about an older person in the workforce. When asked how old this person was, I said, “88,” and the two, a married couple, let out shrieks of horror.
“Isn’t there a rocking chair and a porch somewhere?” the husband asked. Just so. These are not the best of times for older people in the workplace, particularly when that workplace is American politics. Many Americans polled are worried about an 81-year-old President Joe Biden squaring off yet again against a 77-year-old former President Donald F. Trump.
Read MoreDonald J. Trump, seen here in his 2017 presidential portrait by Shealah Craighead, has become the first American president to be indicted by a grand jury.
I’ve just returned from one of the worst meals of my life. A bit of background: I meet virtually every week with two couples — one liberal, one conservative, with me as the swing vote — for dinner at a local restaurant. Indeed, we used to all eat at separate tables until a waitress put us together — an arrangement that has proved mostly harmonious. Mostly.
Tonight things got a bit acrimonious as the conversation turned to former President-turned-writer-and-editor Donald J. Trump. I was accused of hitting the subject hard by the conservative bloc. But I think that’s because I insisted on delivering a message that they and other conservatives and Republicans don’t want to hear: You’re screwed.
Read MorePresidents Vladimir Putin and Donald J. Trump during the G20 in Osaka, Japan in 2019. Shealah Craighead/White House.
Well, we’re all walking on eggshells aren’t we, waiting for the Gucci pump to drop. No sooner was Russian President Vladimir Putin indicted as a war criminal in the International Court of Justice for forcibly bringing Ukrainian children to Russia — an utter disgrace — than new BFF, Chinese President Xi Jinping, showed up in Moscow offering his support and a joke of a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine that would keep Russian troops in place.
Meanwhile, erstwhile Putin BFF, former American President Donald J. Trump, is facing an indictment of his own in New York over his alleged coverup of hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, a misdemeanor that could be bumped up to a felony if it is tied to campaign finance. For Trump — a man for whom there is no such thing as bad publicity — this plays into the martyr aspect of a paradoxical personality in which everything he is and has is the best but yet, poor, poor, poor, poor him.
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