John Bolton – Memphis Flyer

It seems all so obvious now.

Last January 31st, Lamar Alexander, Tennessee’s senior senator, voted to dismiss John Bolton’s testimony at the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Had Alexander voted for presentation of further evidence, several others in the Republican Party may well have joined him. And we as a country might be in a very different place than where we are today.

Now that everyone knows the contents of Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened, the testimony that the former National Security Advisor was willing to give might well have tilted the Senate toward a Trump conviction, resulting in a Pence presidency.
Six months later, there is no point crying over spilt milk. But it is worth taking a moment to think about what might have been, had Donald Trump been removed from office last winter.

Lamar Alexander

The past six months under a Pence presidency would have been difficult — the pandemic could care less who’s in the White House — but perhaps he would have handled the virus’ omnipresence differently. He’s no favorite of mine, but I believe a President Pence would have approached the crisis altogether differently. He certainly would have listened more closely to the doctors. And he wouldn’t have played so much golf.

Pence would have made mistakes; after all, everyone on the front lines did at first. But he and the governors, I feel confident, would have put together a cogent federal/state pandemic plan. Having been a governor himself, he would have worked closely with others from both parties.

I also believe that a President Pence would consider hourly tweeting beneath the dignity of his new position. And he would know that his new job was way bigger than his ego, well aware of where the buck stops.

By now, President Pence’s policies might have saved 25,000 lives, maybe more. At the moment, he would be in the middle of a closely contested election race, just 77 days away. The outcome would be a toss-up at this point.

The interim President would be well liked, and so would Lamar Alexander, the man who demanded that John Bolton’s testimony be heard. The retiring Tennessee senator forever would be remembered for not letting the Bad Cat out of the impeachment bag.

Lamar Alexander was our governor for eight years in the Eighties, our senator now for the past eighteen. I don’t know a Democrat in Tennessee who hasn’t voted for him a time or three. Alexander’s public service reflects competence, dedication, and civility.

Sad, isn’t it, then, that his distinguished Senate career is ending on an ambiguous note. Sad that all but one GOP senator chose to ignore evidence of the President’s criminal behavior regarding the Ukraine. Shortly after his acquittal, Donald Trump rode a victory lap in his limo at the Daytona 500, and the rest is history. Real history, unfortunately, not what-might-have-been.

Things have gone from bad to worst this past week, with President Trump’s blatant attempt to disrupt the USPS so completely in the weeks and months ahead as to make voting by mail well nigh impossible. This President’s bald attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election goes far beyond what any of his 44 predecessors had ever contemplated. Most contemporary American historians now speak with one voice, already calling Trump’s blatant power grab one of the darkest political gambits in our country’s history.

Here’s how I think our state’s senior senator could achieve a degree of redemption for his January vote. Lamar Alexander could recover much of the integrity for which he has always been admired, if he simply announced his retirement now, rather than waiting until January 2021, and by just stating the obvious: “I have lost confidence in Mr. Trump’s ability to govern these United States.”

He need not say another word; let others whose political futures are in the balance slice and dice Donald Trump’s decidedly dangerous behavior. I believe a one-sentence resignation would be well-received by most Americans, a large percentage of whom remain terrified by this human loose cannon, still rolling around in the White House.

It’s a small gesture, but perhaps Senator Alexander’s resignation would inspire others in his party to stand up to the President’s blatant attempt to meddle with our country’s electoral process. We find ourselves now in a very dark place; our retiring senator has a genuine opportunity to make things inside that place a little bit brighter.

Kenneth Neill is publisher emeritus of the Memphis Flyer, which he helped launch in 1989.

By the time you read this, Mohammed bin Salman may have given President Trump orders to attack Iran. If so, throw this paper away (or click to another website — if there are any websites after a nuclear conflagration) and consider this column out of date.

Actually, you can consider almost any column I write about this president out of date by the time you read it. We’re averaging, what, six outrageous things a news cycle now? More than that, actually.

In such a news climate, is it possible that we can remain outraged for more than 24 hours by a president who teases potential war in the Mideast like it’s a Bruce Willis movie? I’m talking about this tweet:

“Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!”

So now, the “Kingdom,” led by Mohammed bin Salman, the man who authorized a vivisection/butchery of a Washington Post journalist and from whose country 11 of the 9/11 hijackers came — this guy! — is going to let us know under “what terms we would proceed” to war in the Mideast?

This tweet came on the heels of one from Trump about a proposed meeting with the Taliban at Camp David on the eve of 9/11. Opposition to that meeting apparently cost National Security Advisor John Bolton his job. Trump said Bolton was fired. Bolton says he resigned. Like so many things that have happened during this chaotic administration, it’s one person’s word against the president’s. But it’s extra ironic because Bolton would be loving this week’s action. War! Locked and loaded! Yeehaw! His mustache would be erect.

But seriously, when do we admit that we are all being held captive by someone who is the polar opposite of a “stable genius”?

Consider: I just scrolled through 24 hours of the president’s tweets from Sunday and Monday. There were 38 of them, covering such subjects as Brett Kavanaugh (He should sue for liable [sic].), Joy Reed (Doesn’t have the it factor for show biz.), the Deep State (It’s after him.), columnist Kathleen Parker (Good!), Saudi Arabia again (Maybe war! Maybe not!), General Motors (Make a deal with the UAW!), Lou Dobbs and Joe DiGenova (Good!), the House Judiciary Committee (Crooked!), investigating President Obama’s book deal (Do it!), the judges he’s appointed (I’m a great president!), China (They’re losing the trade war!), the Federal Reserve (They don’t have a clue!), the Democrats (They might TAKE YOUR GUNS!), the Mueller Report (Fail!), his hotels (I don’t make a profit. I’m too rich.); the Democrats (They are watching “Obama Netflix.”), Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera (I’m presenting him the Presidential Medal of Honor!).

That’s not even half of them.

Dreamstime | Alexstar

It is undeniable to anyone looking at this situation even half-objectively that these are the ramblings of someone who is mentally ill. The emperor not only has no clothes; the emperor has the attention span of a goldfish on Adderall.

I’m old enough to remember when this president spent six days obsessing about a muffed hurricane prediction that finally resulted in his having a cabinet member order the NOAA to back him up. The media can’t possibly keep up with this frenetic pace of “policy” statements followed by insults to media personalities followed by threats of war followed by references to Obama Netflix — whatever the hell that is. The American presidency is in the hands of a genuinely disturbed individual.

There’s no foreign policy strategy. There are no strategies of any kind that I can discern. Trump regularly contradicts his own secretary of state, his own vice president, his own spokespeople. Most department heads are temporary appointees. There aren’t even press briefings anymore, because they became pointless. This administration — this Republican Party — is just Trump and his id and his impulses, all the way down.

It’s a pinball machine presidency, and Trump has all the quarters. The president’s not “owning the libs.” He’s not playing three-dimensional chess. The truth is, he’s not playing with a full deck. And he’s got the fate of the world in his hands.

And this column is probably already out of date.