The permanent interests of the House of Trump

July 12, 2017

With all due respect to Wilde, I think dear Oscar got it backward: Each man doesn’t kill the thing he loves. Each man is killed by it.

For the House of Trump – which is not quite the House of Atreus, Aeschylus not being an American strong suit – the love of all things Slavic has proved a fateful attraction and distraction. There is nothing wrong with admiration for foreign cultures. There is much, however that is wrong with accepting aid from a foreign government, particularly an adversarial one, particularly when you are running for president of the United States. ...

When Donnie met Vladdie (And Manny reunited with Justy)

July 8, 2017

Smit-ten.

That was the mutual word. Donnie said it was an “honor” to meet Vladdie. Vladdie, looking out from under shy eyes – or should that be sly eyes? – kept calling Donnie “Mr. President.” It must’ve been like the moment Mark Anthony reunited with Cleopatra on her barge. For so long the meeting had been a foregone conclusion. Now, here it was at last.

They shook hands. They leaned in. The chemistry was described as “warm.” (Try hot.) And when Melania tried to break up the meet to keep her hubby on track, she was – what a surprise – ignored. Oh, Melania, will you become like the embittered Michelle Williams character in “Brokeback Mountain”? Is there a Slovenian word for “triangle”? ...

He just can’t quit him: Trump, Putin and ‘Brokeback Mountain’

July 7, 2017

A shout-out to Frank Bruni of The New York Times for a truly terrific column about President Donald J. Trump and Vladimir Putin and the bromance of the century (although French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may yet give them a run for their money).

Brilliant though the column is in comparing Pump (Putin-Trump) to the great love stories (“Romeo and Juliet,” “Casablanca”), Bruni missed one, “Brokeback Mountain.” When the haunting movie of Annie Proulx’s sparely beautiful story came out in 2005, much was made of the gay love story. ...

The wayward gaze: Trump and the ‘other’ perspective

July 6, 2017

It’s interesting – and not entirely coincidental that Mika-gate exploded right at the end of Pride Month and in a summer that has seen the release of “Wonder Woman” and “The Beguiled,” a movie told from the female viewpoint. Culture continues to consider women even if President Donald J. Trump rarely does (though he did take a shine to blond Irish reporter Caitriona Perry.)

That he fails to take a shine to blond journalists who challenge him like Megan Kelly and Mika Brzezinski is more the material point. ...

Chris Christie: ‘From Here to Eternity’ (And Bridgegate to Beachgate)

July 4, 2017

Too, too funny: Back in the day when Gov. Krispy Kreme, er, Chris Christie was my CPWB (Chief Pretend Weekday Boyfriend), I would fantasize about my love gov and me “under the boardwalk, down by the sea,” the waves of the Jersey Shore caressing us with their Aphrodite-ish foam as we embraced like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in “From Here to Eternity” – OK, more like two beached whales – to the soundtrack of Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.”

Now, it has all come true. Sort of. ...

The Senate health care bill and the disease of the disconnect

June 29, 2017

Sen. Mitch McConnell hopes to tweak the Senate health care bill so that he can submit it Friday to the Congressional Budget Office, the same Congressional Budget Office that torpedoed the bill in its current form when it announced that the bill would result in 22 million more people being uninsured by 2026.

That sent the Repubs into overdrive to get the bill revised in time for their Yankee Doodle break, because if anyone deserves a Fourth of July break, it’s hard-working Congress. ...

Mitch McConnell is no Federer

June 24, 2017

In tennis, one way to serve an ace is to serve right down the middle. But what works in sports doesn’t always work in politics. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – how I love it when WaPo posters (that’s Washington Post posters to the uninitiated) call him “Kentucky Fried Voldemort” – tried to serve one right down the middle with the Senate’s health-care bill. But all he’s gotten so far for his troubles is a double fault as Conservatives, that world of No Theater, balk at “Obamacare Light” and liberals decry the bill’s meanness toward, well, everyone but rich people.

Will Mitchie prevail? As he serves for the match, he’ll need every Republican vote – and he’s no Federer. ...