Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at “Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia: A Deeper Look,” part of the March 21 Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), Washington, D.C. Courtesy POMED>
The grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi – for which the Saudis have now accepted responsibility (sort of) with some cockamamie blame-the-victim scenario – proves Benjamin Disraeli’s Macchiavellian dictum that there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.
Read MoreI once had a job in which the staffers liked to say that we all had a timeshare on the doghouse. We called it “the Pomeranian palace,” which lent – as Jane Austen might’ve observed – such an elegance to our misery, for no matter how talented you were or how much you worked, eventually the wheel turned to you, because that was the way our bosses rolled.
Read MoreIl Sodoma's "Marriage of Alexander and Roxane" (1517), a fresco in the Villa Farnesina. Alexander and Roxane figure in Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King," a cautionary tale about demagoguery.
The Fresno Bee columnist Victor Davis Hanson has written a column comparing President Donald J. Trump’s slash-and-burn style with the Greco-Macedonian conqueror of the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, cutting the Gordion knot impatiently with his sword, thus ensuring the prophecy that whoever did so would become lord of Asia.
Hanson’s gotten some bristling responses from history buffs, and my first thought was to lend my voice to the chorus, being rather protective of Alexander myself. More than anything I wanted to say: “I knew Alexander. Alexander was a friend of mine. Trump, you’re no Alexander.” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the issue is deeper than Hanson and his critics might’ve realized. ...
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Christianity teaches you that there’s no Resurrection without the Passion – no triumph without the suffering of the cross.
But then, Jesus never met President Donald J. Trumpet.
On Easter Sunday – which celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus, the central feast of Christianity, when God’s love for man conquered the grave – it was all doom and gloom from El Presidente as he once again proclaimed DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that buttresses those who came here illegally through no fault of their own, dead; and blamed two of his favorite whipping boys for it, Mexico and the Democrats. ...
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In the through-the-looking-glass world of Trumpian lunacy, it was perhaps inevitable that President Donald J. Trumpet should tilt his lance at one of the corporations that he was supposedly trying to help with his tax cuts and defend a business that has been laying off the very kinds of workers he swore to protect.
But then, little makes sense about Donnie Two Scoops’ attack on behemoth Amazon. ...
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The continuing Revolving Door Policy of the Trump Administration has thrown the systemic failure of Alexandrian leadership – leadership from the front – into sharp relief.
President Donald J. Trumpet has surrounded himself with Trumpettes – yes-men and, to a lesser extent, yes-women – and distanced himself from the No, No, Nanettes. Which is odd, considering his professed love of chaos. Wouldn’t you want some tension, some conflict? ...
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