Well, after a big week of two indictments and one arrest in Robert S. Mueller III’s Russkie investigation, quelle ironie: President Donald J. Trump will be meeting with President Vladimir Putin during Trumpet’s big “if it’s Tuesday, it must be Vietnam” Asia swing this week.
Oh, to be a fly on that wall. No, really, to be a fly on that wall. Donnie and Vladdie tend to meet with no one but interpreters, the better to look under their eyes at each another and say breathlessly, “It’s an honor to see you again, Mr. President.” Cue the theme of “Brokeback Mountain.”
Or should we cue Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball”? ...
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Read MoreThe year 2017 isn’t quite over, but I think it’s fair to say that it has been the year of the “C” word.
Collusion. (Wait, what did you think I meant?) You hear it applied to the Russkie investigation. And you hear it applied to the NFL owners’ possible blackballing of Colin Kaepernick over his National Anthem protest. The latest is that Kaepernick’s attorney has subpoenaed the phone records and emails of certain key owners. I for one can’t see what good this will do. Collusion – the legal term would be conspiracy – is difficult to prove. ...
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Read MoreSay who?
Sayfullo Saipov. He now joins the long list of terrorists, mass murderers, assassins and dictators who are part of what I call “the literature of rejection.”
The terrorist who mowed down 20 on a Manhattan bike path, killing eight and injuring 12 on Halloween, is yet another man – it’s virtually always a man – with a disproportionate rage at rejection. ...
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Read MoreAh, the emails.
Not Hill emails this time but Russkie emails. We know they are Russkie emails, because the subject line of George Papadopoulos’ emails to three Trump campaign officials was “Russia updates.” In hindsight, that was probably not a good idea.
On Monday, we learned that Papadopoulos had pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his efforts to broker a relationship between the Trump campaign and Russian President Vladimir “Vladdie Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin in his guise as an unpaid foreign policy adviser. Papadopoulos is now cooperating with Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trumpettes and the Russkies. This is not good news for Trumpet.
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Read MoreThe fog of war – or of “advising and assisting,” as every student of the Vietnam War knows – is such that the truth of what happened isn’t immediately apparent. What is apparent is that Trump handled the situation’s aftermath with less than Alexandrian leadership, first by not commenting on it for more than a week and ultimately by saying he did not “specifically” authorize it. (Dude, you are the president. You are responsible for everything that happens in your administration.)
Then he got involved in a typically Trumpian tone deaf controversy with Sgt. La David Johnson’s widow, in which he consoled her by saying that this was what her husband “signed up for. But I guess it still hurts.” ...
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Read MoreThe game of tennis has always served the arts brilliantly.
Combining the elegance of chess and the brutality of boxing – or should that be the brutality of chess and the elegance of boxing? – tennis relies on an individualism that appeals to the writer and a balletic motion that captivates visual artists.
The Roundabout Theatre Company production of Anna Ziegler’s new play “The Last Match” – which opens Tuesday, Oct. 24 at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre in Manhattan – does not stint on the visual. ...
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Read MoreAmong the questions to emerge from the Harvey Weinstein scandal is one that human beings of conscience have been grappling with forever: Is it ethical to support the work of a scoundrel?
At first glance, the answer would appear to be simple: Art transcends biography. You wouldn’t rebuff a child because his father was a murderer, would you? So why hate the brainchild of a Weinstein or a Woody Allen – who, tellingly cautioned about a “witch hunt” against Weinstein – or a Mel Gibson or any other artist/athlete accused of heinous behavior?
But it’s more complex than that, isn’t it? ...
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