Peggy Noonan was encouraged by Trump’s address to Congress and wrote in A Surprising Show of Confidence—Trump’s speech was clear, plain, even warm at times. Could we be seeing a capacity to grow?:
It marks, if not a new chapter, a turning of the page. It suggests Mr. Trump may have a capacity to grow into the office, which is so surprising to me as a thought that I hardly want to commit it to paper. But here it is, in the paper.
Alas, it was not to last.
President Trump was still upbeat Wednesday night, as he settled into dinner in the White House residence with his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, some 24 hours after giving the most consequential speech of his brief presidency.
But not long afterward, the glow from Mr. Trump’s best day in office began to fade with the breaking news that his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, had met with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 campaign. Mr. Sessions failed to mention those conversations in his Senate confirmation hearing, or, according to presidential advisers, to tell Mr. Trump at all.
—The New York Times
That news overshadowed Trump and he was fuming by Friday evening. Saturday morning he started tweeting that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during the election.
If you’re interested, The Guardian goes into more details. The main thing is Trump’s presidential mode has passed, for a while at least.
We all want to believe that anyone is capable of changing, given the right circumstances. But it’s less likely to see great changes as we grow older, so we should not be too surprised by the President’s reversal to old ways. So everyone should just uncross those fingers, and accept what is, I think.
Mine are still crossed. Even his allies are skeptical of his wiretapping claim. They would like to see some evidence.
And it’s not likely that Congress will completely go along with his promised replacement of the Affordable Care Act, whatever that proposal is. He won’t get his way on a lot of things, so we will just have to see how it plays out.
Edward Luce is a remarkable writer who I have been following ever since his book on India – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/aug/20/shopping.society
This piece in the Irish Times is worth its weight in gold. http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/how-long-can-donald-trump-last-as-us-president-1.2982013
Thanks for the links. Bannon, Trump’s strategic advisor, has made it clear he wants to “deconstruct the administrative state”. We will have to see how effective the administration will be in doing that.
really?
when he blabs off the top of his own head at any given moment?
I hardly think anyone would ever bother to wire tap him or his cohorts…
least of all a respected former president.
AND…
it strikes me as odd how easily and readily they impeached president clinton over the monica lewensky episode… when they continue to allow a president such as trump who has all manner of ‘conflicts of interest’ and who also hasn’t got a clue about the constitution and doesn’t even seem to be interested in it … to continue this charade of office.
it’s incredible. and insufferable.
People knew he didn’t have the temperament to be president before he was elected, so his actions now are no surprise. Too many people thought Clinton would have been even worse.
funny that some called it “presidential”. I wish they’d say: experienced reality TV actor in 1-hour role as President. I keep hearing that ordinarily he doesn’t want speechwriters, but for such an important role, he of course asked for the script. And then it was back to his usual behavior with tweets and all.
What amazed me, since I don’t read altright news, was the info that the wiretapping idea came straight from them. I bet Bannon assured him with a straight face that it was fact, and more evidence of crooked Hillary and Demos.
I don’t think Bannon had to convince him. That’s a main source of news for him and where he gets a lot of his ideas.
So far no one is denying that the Trump Tower was bugged, and the three letter agencies have been incredibly leaky. Looking forward to more entertainment on this front.
Not so, from The Guardian:
It sounds to me like lawyerly word parsing. A FISA order would formally have to come from a judge. It is certain that the White House ordered spying on the Trump campaign, since they admitted it: http://ktla.com/2016/12/09/obama-orders-review-into-russian-election-hacking-allegations/.
Since the White House/media/Democrats never offered any evidence regarding their Russia interfered in the elections accusations, Trump has the high ground in this fight.
??? That article doesn’t say the Obama administration was spying on the Trump campaign, just that it was looking into Russian’s meddling.
Nunes, of course, is a Republican.
“??? That article doesn’t say … just that it was looking into Russian’s meddling”
Exactly! The alleged meddling/crime is that the Russians talked to the Trump campaign, which we all know is a huge crime in alternate reality #516. (ref. Senator Franken’s line of questioning of Sessions.) Since the US has been concerned about Russian meddling ever since the Rosenbergs, the only possible way to translate the official weasel speak into plain English is that the White House ordered spying on the Trump campaign.
and repeat, repeat and repeat again – just like some knitting patterns…
it (being the whole cabdoodle) seems to be all over the place, so maybe it’s a random knitting pattern made into a saleable item…
It’s sad. 🙁