David Steinberg was a popular, fairly well known comic in the 1970's
In one of his comedy monologues, he shared the story of a guest appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson which also featured Dr. David Reuben, a physician whose trendy book, "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask)" was a best seller at the time. The book was a candid explanation of sexual activity and terms, fairly "risque" in those days, but written with a wit that made it both entertaining and palatable to those whose moral panties were easily bunched.
Steinberg shared that during the course of Reuben's segment with Johnny, the doctor took the conversation into the subject of masturbation and started out by offering, probably owing to more traditional values and ethics, there were, in fact, many people who experienced the guilt that accompanied the act of self gratification.
Cue considerable audience applause and laughter.
And now, hold that thought.
Pun unintended, but somehow almost predictable.
During my periodic guest hosting gigs on talk radio, I've pretty much made it standard operating procedure, of late, to steer away from any conversation having to do with Donald Trump.
Unless he says or does something "catastrophic", even on a Trumpian curve, I tend to choose from the five or six kabillion other crazy things going on in this life at any given moment and let America somehow make itself great again without any help from me or those who listen.
Not so much because the topic of Trump fails to generate calls from opinionated, if not particularly well informed, callers, calls which are, of course, the bread and butter of that particular format, putting the "talk" in talk radio.
Because, given the peculiar, and unique, nature of the Trump personality, unique to both life in general and this particular stint in the Oval Office, we've all, friend, foe, supporter, detractor, Hatfield or McCoy, reached a point where any and all conversations about the Donald tend to very quickly turn into nothing more than variations, most often unpleasant and unproductive variations, on the same, sad, tired theme.
Theme being...he is either God's gift to a nation desperate for bold, new direction and leadership...or he is very likely going to be the catalyst for the end of life on the planet as we have known it.
And, truth be told, in the beginning, it was fun, if a little psychologically exhausting fun, to listen to, and/or participate in, the kind of passionate, emotional, even a little psychotic banter/yammer/yada yada that Trump has inspired on the nation's talk airwaves.
Now, frankly, it has become like being involved in a brutal and contentious divorce, nerves ever raw, feelings ever sensitive, tempers ever flaring and ready, locked and loaded. And any attempts to have a reasonable, measured and meaningful discussion about anything immediately, if not sooner, tailspin into a pouting and/or shouting and/or screaming match.
And while that kind of primal spewing might make for what the consultants refer to as "compelling radio", it is, at least for this radio talk show host, what George Harrison long ago, in another context, referred to as "a drag....a well known drag."
So, the topic of Trump is on my no fly list. Because, at some point, screaming and squealing, even the screaming and squealing of a delighted child on Christmas morning, becomes the psychological equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard.
And compelling so easily, and inevitably, morphs into cringing.
If'n I was ever to, again, begin broaching the subject of he who shall not be named on air, though, I'm thinking I would re-open the Panderer's Box by offering up a point of view I think has been mentioned, in token fashion, from time to time, over the past year and especially since January 20, but, for my money, should, at this point in our story, be front and center, knocking out of the top spot on the charts all those headline generating, water cooler debate inspiring cherries of chat like his tweets and his personal and political tone deafness and his arrogance and his childishness and his petulance and a narcissism on a scale that makes any, even all, of the Kardashian clan look like clones of Mother Teresa.
And that particular point of view that needs to be at the head of a very long line of lacks, cracks and flaws in the presentation of this real estate developer who reality showed himself into a leader of the free world gig, is, like many of those lacks, cracks and flaws, an "ility".
As in accountability, responsibility, fallibility, instability.
No, kats and kiddies, ridin' high on our terrific, just terrific, top ten Trump ility's, here's that sour not sweet, can't be beat, inevitability.
Give it up for....inability.
Steve Chapman writes for the Chicago Tribune. Pretty sure from the tone and tenor of his writings that he doesn't show up all that often at the love and worship rallies nattily attired in wife beater T and Make America Great Again one size fits all, fits even better if you're a skinhead, cap. His not being a Trump cheerleader, though, doesn't automatically diminish, or disqualify, his slant on the situation.
No matter what Kellyanne Conway would, bet the farm, have to say about it.
He wrote the following, early this past summer.
The people who voted for Trump knew they would be getting a disrupter, a critic of business-as-usual and an enemy of political correctness. Many also realized they were electing a bully and a braggart.
But they may not have known what they were getting above all else: an incompetent.
There is no other way to explain most of what he has done in the White House. His most formidable opponent couldn't do half as much to foil Trump as Trump himself has done.
His travel policy was rushed out, blocked by courts, withdrawn, revised and blocked again.
Administration lawyers, who hope to convince the Supreme Court it had no unconstitutional anti-Muslim motives, have been undercut by his tweets, which convey the opposite.
So flagrant is the contradiction that some analysts suspect he has a hidden logic. They speculate that Trump might prefer to lose his ban so he could blame the courts if there were a U.S. terrorist attack carried out by foreigners.
Let me suggest that they are overthinking this. Trump has no record of being deviously clever. He has a record of acting rashly out of ignorance, fury and hubris. He makes needless statements that harm his legal case because he's a self-destructive oaf.
His dismissal of FBI Director James Comey followed that pattern. The White House claimed that Trump fired him at the recommendation of the Justice Department because he botched the investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails.
But Trump then admitted making the decision before he got the Justice memo, saying he objected to Comey's probe of connections between his presidential campaign and the Kremlin. He thus helped bring on a special prosecutor, which could be fatal to his presidency.
Nothing about his performance suggests he has any idea how to handle his office. Trump complains that the Senate is obstructing his nominations. But at last count, he has yet to pick anyone for nearly 80 percent of the positions that require Senate confirmation.
On one issue after another, he has had to flee from ill-considered positions. He said the U.S. might junk its "One China" policy — only to be forced to back down by Chinese President Xi Jinping. He lambasted President Barack Obama's "dumb deal" to take refugees from Australia but eventually decided to honor it.
In April, Trump announced that the following week, he would unveil his tax reform plan. This promise, reported Politico, "startled no one more than Gary Cohn, his chief economic adviser writing the plan. Not a single word of a plan was on paper, several administration officials said." The "plan" the White House released was one page long.
Trump promised to repeal and replace Obamacare but had great trouble getting a bill through the House, partly because he didn't know enough about the substance to negotiate with any skill. The legislation finally approved by the House was pronounced dead on arrival in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said recently he doesn't know how a repeal bill would get enough votes to pass.
Trump's incompetence is self-perpetuating. A clueless executive is forced to rely on aides who are mediocre — or worse — because better people are repelled. Vacant jobs and poor staff work, aggravated by bad management, lead to more failure, which makes it even harder to attract strong hires — and easier for opponents to get their way.
Expect more of the same. Trump came to office uninformed, unprepared and oblivious to his shortcomings, with no capacity to recognize or overcome them. He is in way over his head, and not waving but drowning.
My own research and writing could, of course, have me piling on with a couple of blogs and/or podcasts worth of backup examples, capable, I have no doubt whatsoever, of proving beyond any shadow of a reasonable doubt, to any jury made up of even marginally functioning human minds that this defendant is guilty of inability in the first degree.
But any further flagellation would be like continued pounding of the meat when its already ready to be cooked. And, of course, additional analysis would, at this point, tailspin us into yet another pouting and/or shouting and/or screaming match.
So, I'll just let Chapman's words serve the purpose of my including them.
And add only two wrap up thoughts.
First, yeah, what he said.
Second, were I to suddenly find myself sitting next to Johnny and Dr. Reuben, I'd almost certainly be unable to resist interjecting into the conversation my own satirical slant, adapted, and adjusted, of course, to fit the topic of Chief Executive chastising as opposed to chicken choking.
"actually, Johnny, that's correct. I don't like Donald Trump and probably wouldn't want him within a mile of my house, let alone in my life, let alone pretending to be a leader of my country, because, frankly, John, I think he's a reprehensible, more than a little pathetic and not just a little sad excuse for a man.....but, personally, the reason I don't like him being president.....
...is that he's so bad at it."
Cue considerable audience applause.
Laughter, not so much.
No comments:
Post a Comment