Senator John McCain released the following press release earlier today. It is worth repeating in its entirety. It is also entirely in the Public Domain:
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released the following statement today on President Trump’s meeting and press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki:
“Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate. But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.
“President Trump proved not only unable, but unwilling to stand up to Putin. He and Putin seemed to be speaking from the same script as the president made a conscious choice to defend a tyrant against the fair questions of a free press, and to grant Putin an uncontested platform to spew propaganda and lies to the world.
“It is tempting to describe the press conference as a pathetic rout – as an illustration of the perils of under-preparation and inexperience. But these were not the errant tweets of a novice politician. These were the deliberate choices of a president who seems determined to realize his delusions of a warm relationship with Putin’s regime without any regard for the true nature of his rule, his violent disregard for the sovereignty of his neighbors, his complicity in the slaughter of the Syrian people, his violation of international treaties, and his assault on democratic institutions throughout the world.
“Coming close on the heels of President Trump’s bombastic and erratic conduct towards our closest friends and allies in Brussels and Britain, today’s press conference marks a recent low point in the history of the American Presidency. That the president was attended in Helsinki by a team of competent and patriotic advisors makes his blunders and capitulations all the more painful and inexplicable.
“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant. Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary; but speaking for America to the world, our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are—a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad. American presidents must be the champions of that cause if it is to succeed. Americans are waiting and hoping for President Trump to embrace that sacred responsibility. One can only hope they are not waiting totally in vain.”
One either believes the evidence of one’s eyes, or one believes in a self-constructed fantasy about how life “is” and “should be” which is called “ideology.” Technically it’s the substitution of ideation and imagination for observed events, the latter of which is sometimes termed empiricism, or pragmatism.
[Note: there is no bright dividing line. All humans depend on some narrative to hold their world together. But there is a clear spectrum. For instance, many esteemed leaders in the United States of America and throughout the West openly claim to have an invisible friend, and no one considers them insane. There are many churches constructed in that name, as well, but the friend REMAINS invisible.]
In the former case of the prior paragraph, I observe that 1) Donald Trump is as deferential to Putin as any “made man” ever was to the boss of bosses, the capo de tutti capi. And 2) see 1.
Mister Trump is compromised, and his actions on this demolition derby tour of Europe were not at all accidental.
Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Statue of George Washington outside of
Independence Hall. Photo by author ©
In a week in which “Guccifer 2.0” is in the news, readers ought to take my conclusion with a tad more seriousness than those-without-a-track-records’ “informed” opinions might be weighted.
As Roger Thornhill/George Kaplan (Cary Grant) tells Philip Van Damme (James Mason) in Hitchcock/Lehman’s North By Northwest:
Van Dammme: I'm curious, Mr. Kaplan. What made you think that my feelings for her may have deteriorated to the point where I would trade her in for some peace of mind? Thornhill/Kaplan: I don't deduce. I observe.
Courage.
Cross-posted from his vorpal sword
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.