From a blog post I wrote on November 15th, one week after the election:
“To the conspiracy theorists: I never thought I’d join you, but something about this election stinks. Along with GOP redistricting, gerrymandering, and voter suppression, there’s more than a whiff of Russian manipulation of electronic vote results in a few key states. I’m not saying Putin had his thumb on the scale, but I can’t help thinking he might have. I’ll just leave that there for now.”
Okay, I was wrong about electronic vote manipulation, but I was right about Putin. Russian involvement has grown from a worrisome whiff to an overpowering stench.
With confirmation that the FBI is investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians (and has been since at least last summer), this election is irrevocably tainted. Trump will never be a real president. At best, he’s the wrongfully-elected and temporary occupant of the White House … the more temporary the better. At worst, he’s a traitor.
And the people who knew better but voted for him anyway? I’m still struggling with the fact that people I care about voted for this smirking Elmer Gantry, this utter fraud.
Speaking of the FBI and Director James Comey’s testimony, I watched some of it on the news last night and was struck by the similarity between Comey’s smile and and that of the Stan Beeman character on The Americans, also an FBI man. This is not good, because it makes me want to like Comey, a snake in the grass if ever there was one, the man who torpedoed Hillary Clinton a few days before the election (while saying nothing about the ongoing and far more serious investigation of her rival).
Here’s another selfie for you, taken yesterday at Pima Air & Space Museum.
The backdrop is a postage stamp commemorating the US Air Force’s 50th anniversary in 1997. For that anniversary, rather than have several base open houses and air shows around the country, the USAF decided to have one big blowout at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, where I was then stationed. One of my last active duty assignments was to help organize the event; I retired a couple of weeks after it was over.
And damn, I turn around and here it is 2017, and the USAF will soon be celebrating its 70th. Another sobering thought: the entire lifetime of the Air Force fits inside mine: I’m one year older. We all can rest assured, though, that it’ll still be around after I’m gone.
Let’s hope the current occupant of the White House is not.
Really liked your Elmer Gantry reference but The Man Who Would Be King is no Burt Lancaster. Unless he’s impeached or resigns and his ego won’t allow him to do that he’s here and in that position for the next four years minus time served. The people who believed in him and many still do just proved P.T. Barnum right.
Cheers,
B