Quote of the Day (Elliot Ackerman, on ‘The Stories We Tell About War’)

“The stories we tell about war are really important to the decisions we make around war.”—American Marine veteran-turned-novelist Elliot Ackerman, quoted by Emily Bobrow, “Weekend Confidential: Elliot Ackerman,’” The Wall Street Journal, May 20-21, 2021

What stories did Donald Trump hear about war that led him to commit American forces to Iran? What made him think the outcome would be better than the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan that he criticized in his Presidential campaigns?

The image accompanying this post, of Elliot Ackerman at the 2015 Texas Book Festival in Austin, Texas, was taken on Oct. 18, 2015, by Larry D. Moore.

Photo of the Day: Two Kinds of Toxic Environment

I took the image accompanying this post a week ago while I was still on vacation at the Chautauqua Institution, a lovely enclosed upstate New York community with numerous Victorian cottages that have helped make this picturesque place a National Historic Landmark.

As much as its cultural and intellectual atmosphere, habitual visitors glory in its physical environment. For the 30-odd years that I have come up here, I have made it a point, as long as the rain is holding off, to take daily brisk walks by Chautauqua Lake.

Until the last three days of this vacation, that is.

In the background, a particle-laden, milky uniformity had replaced sunlight streaks of the morning horizon. Never mind a wide view of what lay upon the waters: as you can observe in this image, nothing could be seen beyond the boats lined up at the marina.

Probably at no time, I suspect, since the height of COVID-19 up here, masks were being distributed and gratefully worn by many visitors on the grounds.

The first day of the wildfire, the designation was “Dangerous for Certain Groups”; the following day, the label became simply “Dangerous”: and by the third, the bad air quality had turned sufficiently dreadful to earn the term “Hazardous.”

This photo renders in literal terms a toxic physical environment. But it symbolizes what has increasingly become a toxic diplomatic one, as well.

At this moment, Donald Trump has chosen to do what he does best: make a bad situation worse. He’s taking literally the satirical South Park song “Blame Canada,” but without an iota of logic. Our nation up north is responsible for not maintaining its forests properly, he claims.

That’s pretty rich, coming from a President who has already laid off thousands of U.S. Forest Service workers and whose 2027 budget includes cuts of more than 70% to the agency. But his rationale would be hideous in any case because he refuses to accept the reality of human-caused climate change.

Super-hot temperatures in the areas around the wildfires, together with dry vegetation, resulted in “functioned like a chimney, a super long chimney shooting smoke into the upper atmosphere and then the jet stream” and then found its way to the US, according to Ava Berger’s NPR report last week.

This is a situation that calls for international cooperation to address causes, not finger-pointing—unless you’re Trump. Then he tells citizens of a country that he has not-so-jokingly called to be annexed into the U.S. that he’s going to levy “a big tariff” on their nation for the wildfires crossing the border.

Trump has turned the Ugly American stereotype of the Vietnam War era into an actuality. His default reflex—to blow smoke every time he finds himself in a difficult situation—has become literal this time, and it’s losing the U.S. a neighbor and friend it could always count on.

The smoky air has cleared from beautiful Chautauqua Lake, as well as other areas affected in the northern part of the U.S. last week. But before the end of this second Trump term, you can count on it coming back, perhaps at more hazardous levels.

And Americans had better accept that it’s going to take longer before the effects of Trump’s careless, toxic rhetoric dissipate.

From now on, traditional allies like Canada are entitled to wonder what got into Americans that they put in the White House a charlatan like Trump twice—and whether the Republican Party he has remolded in his image will nominate as his successor someone equally wedded to his agenda of environmental callousness and diplomatic exploitation.

Quote of the Day (Pamela Paul, on ‘The Dudebro Candidate’)

“Broadly speaking, the dudebro candidate is more about vibes and style than about policy or platform. Picking up on the attitude and aesthetics of the manosphere, he is out to court attention, the tonal opposite of politic or cautious. This is a guy who openly disparages the need to watch what you say—and that's part of the appeal. Running for office almost as an act of defiance, the dudebro offers a potent brew of strong masculine energy, cross-party populist fury, frat-boy antics and straight-talk authenticity.”— American journalist, correspondent, editor, and author Pamela Paul, “Politics With Swagger. Meet the Dudebros,” The Wall Street Journal, June 13-14, 2026

First, the “Tech Bros”; now, “The Dudebros.” I wish the whole bunch would just bro away!

Well, one such “Dudebro,” reality TV star Spencer Pratt lost his bid for LA Mayor a month ago—and, by the end of the week, one more is likely to fall by the wayside. All kind of questions had been swirling about the Democratic primary winner for U.S. Senator from Maine, Graham Platner, even before the weekend.

But now, with a claim from a woman he dated that he had raped her several years ago—and the subsequent withdrawal of endorsements by prominent Democrats and a threat by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee not to invest in his campaign if he remains on the ballot—it’s hard to see him continuing.

Pamela Paul identifies Donald Trump as the prototype “dudebro candidate,” though I would argue that the real forerunner of this type was former wrestler turned Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura.

In any case, Trump won’t be going away any time, insulated from accountability by an acquiescent Supreme Court and GOP majorities in the House and Senate, as well as from so many gaffes and missteps that anyone else would have disappeared from the scene a long time ago. 

(Consider this: while Platner has one unadjudicated sexual assault charge against him, Trump has had at least two dozen women who accused him of sexual misconduct---and a civil jury found him liable for sexual abuse against E. Jean Carroll.)

The “Tech Bros” are unlucky to go away any time soon, either—unless one or more fall out with Trump, as almost happened with Elon Musk.

“Frat-boy antics” might be one description for this entire crew, but I prefer “obnoxiousness.” It’s an indictment of our time that these men are able to come out of nowhere and be seriously considered for high positions in government or business.

(The image accompanying this post, showing Pamela Paul at the 2019 Texas Book Festival in Austin, Texas, was taken Oct. 26, 2019, by Larry D. Moore.)

Britain’s Gamble 10 Years Ago—and Ours

I don’t imagine the British know much baseball history. More’s the pity, because if they had, this week’s major political event might have reminded them of the adage of the great New York catcher and philosopher, Yogi Berra: “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

For my mostly stateside readers, I’m talking about Monday’s announcement by Keir Starmer (pictured) that he would step down as Prime Minister. Wouldn’t you know it, it was almost 10 years to the day that David Cameron did likewise.

Cameron’s decision immediately followed his failed gamble that a defeat of a referendum calling for Brexit would deflate the anti-free trade movement within his Conservative Party.

Instead, the yes vote to withdraw from the European Union precipitated his own fall from power, and overshadowed the terms of five subsequent PMs (including, now, Starmer) who eventually stood in front of 10 Downing Street to say, too, they would be stepping down.

Six leaders in 10 years represent no way to run a government, let alone a business. Coalition fractures mean at minimum that long-term projects won’t start, and that unscrupulous leaders will make a money or power grab while they can. At worst, they encourage a voter perception of anarchy and the need for a strongman to quell the chaos.

Sifting through the controversies that eventually engulfed Starmer in an article last month in The Financial Times, Anthony Seldon, co-founder of the Museum of the Prime Minister, summarized questions related to this streak of ineffective British leaders:

“Is it the incumbents or the system that is responsible? Are the problems the prime minister faces simply greater than before? Has the job now become impossible?”

Seldon cites three government structures in decline that are contributing to the current “churn at the top”: the replacement of Members of Parliaments motivated by the public interest by ones acting in their own private one; a deterioration of the civil service; and an electorate susceptible to instant gratification.

He also fears current developments in the two established parties, the Conservatives and Labour: “It is entirely possible that one or both will cease to exist as exist as mainstream parties in the next 10 [years]. If that happens, another source of national stability will be swept away.”

Seldon’s sweeping historical overview is fine, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t take into account how the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-09 stoked popular resentment on both sides of the Atlantic against international trade arrangements that millions came to regard as inequitable.

That popular unrest was manifested in the successful Brexit campaign, which produced its own inevitable lamentable consequences in the public sphere, according to The New York Times’ Michael D. Shear and Megan Specia:

“Perhaps no part of British society was changed more by Brexit than its political landscape, which has fractured into a chaotic tug of war in which no party seems able to satisfy the demands of an angry and disillusioned public for long.”

With all the hang-wringing by Seldon, Shear and Specia over volatility in the British government, they should cast their eyes “across the pond.” Here, unsteadiness over the past decade was generated not by six people, but by just one, driven by rage and retribution?

Yes, just as Britain took a flyer on a major shift in government, so did the United States 10 years ago this fall, when it elected Donald Trump—a candidate with no governmental or national security experience—President. Anger over two major issues that landed him in the White House also propelled the Brexit campaign: immigration and unequal class outcomes over trade policy.

In the last 10 years, Britain has only had one leader who remotely resembles Trump: Boris Johnson. As I wrote in this post from 10 years ago, when it looked like Johnson would not seek the brass ring, their shared traits include brashness, lying, an overactive libido, non-ideological conservatism, irresponsibility, a brand name, and faux populism.

Even so, Johnson has been no match over time for Trump, who, even after being cast out of the White House in the 2020 election, darkened American politics with ceaseless conspiracy mongering and his bid to return to power to avoid criminal and civil responsibility for his misdeeds.

And now, when he’s not busy earning nicknames like “Landscaper in Chief” and “The Creature From the Green Lagoon,” the Trump Presidency has created a vortex of instability characterized by longtime friends and allies insulted and alienated, promises made and broken, policy positions taken before being forsaken, including:

*Republican Senators cozy up to him unashamedly, only to find themselves “primaried” and losing their seats for no reason they can account for.

*The same senators are assured by White House aides that Trump will support a housing bill they’ve been working on with Democrats for over a year, only for the President to cancel the signing event at the last minute, insisting he won’t put his signature on it until Congress passes his pet voter ID legislation.

*Trump publicly speculated about making Venezuela the 51^st state.

*Even as the Trump administration negotiated with Iran, it prepared and launched a surprise invasion.

*With the “Memo of Understanding” (not yet a treaty, let alone one fulfilling initially stated war aims), Trump is teaching Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu what US observers have known for years: don’t count on his loyalty when he finds it disadvantageous.

*By exempting many agricultural commodities he announced last year, Trump has “raise[d] questions about the coherence of the president’s tariff initiatives as a whole,” according to a report this month by the American Enterprise Institute.

*At the start of the Iran War, he called for “unconditional surrender”—a demand long-since dropped.

I wish the British all the best as they look for a competent leader who’ll last more than Boris Johnson’s three years or Starmer’s two. But it could always be worse. They could choose a Trumpian leader desperate and able to stay on longer, perpetrating untold damage in the process.

(The image accompanying this post, of Keir Starmer, is his official portrait, taken July 5, 2024, on his appointment as Prime Minister, by Simon Dawson/ No 10 Downing Street.)

TV Quote of the Day (‘Yes, Prime Minister,’ on a Looming Financial Scandal)

[The investment bank Phillips Berenson has collapsed, and rumors circulate in “The City,” London’s central business district and financial center, that it’s due to financial chicanery. Another bank, the more venerable Bartlett's, is also in trouble, having lent it so much money. Its chair, Sir Desmond Glazebrook, confers with Prime Minister James Hacker about a government bailout for his institution.]

James Hacker [played by Paul Eddington]: “What do you know about Phillips Berenson?”

Sir Desmond Glazebrook [played by Richard Vernon]: “What do you know about Phillips Berenson?”

Hacker: “Well, uh... only what I read in the papers.”

Glazebrook: “Oh, good. Yes, well, they're in a bit of trouble, that's all. They lent a bit of money to the wrong chaps. Could happen to anyone.”

Dorothy Wainwright [Hacker’s political adviser] [[played by Deborah Norton]: “So you haven't heard any rumors?”

Glazebrook: “Oh well, there are always rumors.”

Dorothy: “Of bribery, embezzlement, misappropriation, insider dealing?”

Glazebrook: “Oh, come, come, dear lady, those are strong words.”

Dorothy: “So they're not true?”

Glazebrook: “Well, there's... there are different uh, different ways of looking at things.”

Dorothy: “What's a different way of looking at embezzlement?”

Glazebrook: “Oh, well, of course, if a chap embezzles, you have to do something about it.”

Hacker: “Have a serious word with him?”

Glazebrook: “Absolutely. Usually it's just a chap who's advanced himself a short-term, unauthorised, unsecured, temporary loan from the company's account, and, uh, invested it unluckily. You know, horse falls at the first fence, that sort of thing.”— Yes, Prime Minister, Season 2, Episode 4, “A Conflict of Interest,” original air date Dec. 31, 1987, teleplay by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, directed by Sydney Lotterby

You can keep your Benny Hills. When it comes to British TV humor, Yes, Minister, and its equally waggish follow-up, Yes, Prime Minister, are the shows for me. These UK political satires aired in the Eighties, and the closest we’ve had stateside has been the more potty-mouthed Veep. I wish they would be broadcast as often this side of the Atlantic as The Honeymooners.

The government bailouts of risk-happy financial institutions at the heart of the above dialogue is something that has rightly enraged American taxpayers, with the Bush I-era savings and loan scandal and the Global Financial Crisis of the “oughts.” But something else intrigued me about this episode: that title, “A Conflict of Interest.”

That concept has been a part of American life since the founding of the republic, including the establishment of the First National Bank and, more starkly, slaveowning lawmakers who passed legislation benefiting themselves at the expense of other human beings.

But these ethically questionable interactions of government and business have ramped up, to an unprecedented degree, under the current administration.

President Trump, his family, and his Cabinet have profited so abundantly and shamelessly from such transactions—and following their trail has been so complex—that many, if not most, Americans have given up trying to keep track of it all. It’s much easier to follow the Epstein files (though, truth be told, financial interests are an often-overlooked part of this still unresolved scandal).

The outcome is what you might expect. None of the departments in the executive branch make even a pretense now at the relatively gentle coaxing of the truth from Sir Desmond employed by PM Hacker and his aide Dorothy. The regulatory agencies that could have raised alarms were emasculated by Trump and Elon Musk’s Orwellian-titled Department of Government Efficiency.

The path was paved for this through three Supreme Court decisions that gave the Trump Administration virtual carte blanche to transform the government into an endless slot machine for themselves and their allies:

*In Trump v. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Trump v. District of Columbia) (2021), the justice vacated lower courts’ rulings involving allegations that, as president, Trump benefited from the hotels and restaurants that he owns, violating two anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution known as the emoluments clauses.  

* In Trump v. United States (2024), the GOP-appointed majority ruled that former presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within their core constitutional powers, and at least presumptive immunity for all other official acts—a decision opening the door to Trump lawlessness in his return to power.

* In Murphy V. NCAA (2018), the court invalidated a federal ban on states legalizing sports gambling—opening the way to, as Drew Hutchinson’s May Bloomberg Law article noted, is opening companies to “questions about insider trading, reputational and legal risk, and whether internal policies address this new environment.” And what do you know—Donald Trump Jr. is an adviser to Kalshi, one of the two major prediction market platforms, and a major investor in another, Polymarket.

As Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett noted, “If Trump dictates how prediction markets develop, while his family profits, it will make Washington look (even more) like a corrupt casino. So, too, if insider trading goes unchecked.”

Over the last 560 days, the Trump family has taken in an estimated $2.7 billion, according to “Trump’s Take,” a real-time financial tracker documenting the cash and gifts that the President and his family have received by selling the presidency.

All the money-making schemes—ventures that would have been certainly regarded as undignified under all his predecessors, and even unconstitutional—have just kept coming: Trump Bibles, fragrances, gold cell phones; the $TRUMP Meme Coin; "America's 250th Anniversary" hats; and a luxury resort proposal by son-in-law Jared Kushner in Albania that has drawn more than a week’s worth of protest in that nation over the potential environmental damage it may cause.

Then there is the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) scheduled for the White House South Lawn on June 14—not so coincidentally, Trump’s birthday.

Leave aside whether this tacky $60 million spectacle would have been better staged in the Roman Coliseum under an ancient emperor’s gaze, or even whether the event offers Trump ally and UFC chief executive Dana White direct access to the White House for a prime marketing opportunity.

Lost in all of this is that Trump bought between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in the parent company of UFC, TKO Holding Group—a little more than two weeks after he began promoting the event.

Conflict of interest, anyone? Well, as Sir Desmond might say, there are “different ways of looking at things.”

Though they will never be able to overtake their lord and master when it comes to quantity and audacity, the Trump Cabinet is doing its best to do well financially at the country’s expense. This online resource from the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) itemizes all the ways that each Trump Cabinet member has engaged in conflicts of interest. They are worth exploring in depth, but I’ll just highlight some of the more egregious ones:

*Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (who, after his evasive talk about his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, should change his surname to “No-Good-Nick”) is now coming under scrutiny for his relationship with Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer.

* Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earned around $2.5 million in referral fees from 2022 through September 2025 from Wisner Baum, a law firm suing Merck, the maker of the HPV vaccine Gardasil—putting RFK Jr.’s vaccine skepticism in an ever worse light, if that’s possible.

* Education Secretary Linda McMahon was required to divest from financial holdings that posed possible conflicts of interest, but does not appear to have done so as of July of last year, according to a complaint filed with the Office of Government Ethics by the CLC.

In keeping with PM Hacker’s question—“Have a serious word with him?”—if the “him” in question is Trump, I say “Yes.” And let that word, as soon as mathematically and electorally possible, be “impeachment.”

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Reinhold Niebuhr, on ‘The Illusion of Strong Men and Nations’)

“It is the illusion of strong men and nations that power is the basis of security. There is some justification for the illusion, for, in so far as human society is governed by physical force, obvious strength, whether it be military or economic, may be counted upon not only to defeat the actual foe, but to reduce the potential foe to the impotence of fear. The strongest bully in a gang is rarely challenged to prove his prowess, and a nation which possesses obvious economic or military advantages may indulge in idiosyncrasies and commit errors which would prove fatal to less favored nations…..Power is dangerous both to those who wield it and to those who are affected by it. It gives those who wield it a false sense of security which absolves them of the necessity of thinking carefully upon the issues involved in their action.”— American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), “Perils of American Power,” originally published in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1932, reprinted in The American Idea: The Best of “The Atlantic Monthly” (2007)

Niebuhr wrote this passage not long into the Age of Dictators that ensued in Europe after the bloodshed of World War I and the resulting socioeconomic collapse. The truth he propounded is emerging ever more strongly now, in another period when strongmen learn that the omnipotence of mortals, even those with seemingly absolute power, is an illusion.

Quote of the Day (Plutarch, on ‘Uneducated Generals and Leaders’)

“Uneducated generals and leaders are oftentimes tripped up and toppled over by their innate foolishness. For they establish their lofty power upon a pedestal that has not been leveled, and so it cannot stand upright. Moreover, just as a builder’s rule is first established straight and unbending, and then is used to correct the alignment of everything else through adjustments and juxtapositions with respect to it, in the very same way those who govern must first achieve governance of themselves, straighten out their souls, and set their character aright, and then they should assimilate their subjects to themselves. For the one who is tipping over cannot straighten up someone else, nor can the ignorant person teach, the disorderly establish order, the disorganized organize, the ungoverned govern.”— Greek historian, biographer, and essayist Plutarch (c. 46-120 AD), "To an Uneducated Leader," in How To Be a Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership, translated by Jeffrey Beneker (2019)

The Liars’ Club and a Senator Who Enables It

In the 1993 thriller The Liars’ Club, a circle of teens is forced to maintain even greater loyalty than before because of one member’s involvement in a sexual assault. When the victim is murdered, the web of complicity tightens. An attempt to call an end to the deceit only results in worse transgressions.

The Republican Party under Donald Trump has transformed into own version of The Liars’ Club. Only this time, it encompasses not a small group of entitled jocks (though Secretary of War Pete Hegseth seems like an alum of such a group), but an organization of politically engaged adults.

Their silence in the face of assaults on the Constitution and democracy—from Cabinet members (like the ones in this picture, joined by Veep J.D. Vance) down to local officials asked to violate time-honored election laws and regulations—is being enforced by a President with a code of omerta worthy of a sullen crime boss.

This week’s primary losses by Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, after their undistinguished challengers were flooded with funds and endorsements by the President and his spineless surrogates, will only confirm the sense of helplessness felt by any Republicans hoping for even an inch of space from a leader bent on remolding the Grand Old Party in his own scowling image.

There is a double danger affecting the nation’s Democrats: desperation that they can no longer rely on a single member of the opposite party to rein in the President, and that a defection by one of their own might further embolden him.

Which brings us to the curious case of John Fetterman.

Lack of Prudential Judgment

A relative of mine recently noted that, though he abominated Fetterman during his successful 2022 campaign for the U.S. Senate, his views about the former Pennsylvania lieutenant governor have moderated since then. “He makes more sense than many Republicans or Democrats,” he said, observing that Fetterman had won praise for his efforts on behalf of Western Pennsylvania.

In fact, late last July, Fetterman commended the Trump administration for delivering over $1 billion in infrastructure funding to the state. Surely it didn’t escape his notice how the President interfered with funding projects to build new Hudson River rail tunnels and Army Corps of Engineers plans in cities like New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore—areas controlled, not coincidentally, by Democrats.

That’s the most charitable case for why, as Jonathan Martin’s column earlier this month for Politico laid out, Fetterman has become a tempting target for Presidential courting:

“He largely ignores Trump’s transgressions, finds ways to support the White House in high-profile moments and is increasingly ubiquitous when criticizing his own party on right-coded media in ways that affirm conservative views about liberal excess.”

I am not one to disown a Democrat or progressive for wandering off the reservation when compelled by conscience. In an age of polarization, independent thinking in a public official is as important now as it was back in 1774, when father of conservatism Edmund Burke extolled the ideal of a representative who “owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

But the independence that Burke advocated depends on a sense of prudential judgment that Fetterman, in backing the Iranian War—and in even more ludicrously supporting President Trump’s plans for a White House ballroom on national security reasons—sorely lacks.

Fetterman disregarded the bona fides of Trump and his lackeys in evaluating these two propaganda offensives. That’s important, because, if administration figures are prone to congenital misleading, then an elected official must work harder to verify claims and supporting evidence.

That fails utterly with the Iranian War and the White House Ballroom, as they have been started and supported by a Liars’ Club at the highest level of the nation: Trump and his advisers.

Ballroom BS

The $200 million for the ballroom, its financing through private donors currying favor with the President, and the complete East Wing demolition required to make way for it should have concerned Fetterman. Instead, in an interview last August with Fox News Digital, he predicted that the plans would be “done in a tasteful and historical kind of way.”

“Tasteful” and “historical” in the same sentence as the President who destroyed the Rose Garden? That would be enough to make many people gag. But Fetterman compounded his error this April by spreading Trump’s claim, with no evidence, that the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner further justified the ballroom plans on security grounds.

Periodically, Trump officials should be subjected to The Pinocchio Test: i.e., the louder they scream that they are telling the truth, blameless, and innocent, the faster we should whip out rulers to measure their noses for unexplained elongations.

Administering the Pinocchio Test should be normal business on Capitol Hill in maintaining the government’s system of checks and balances. Predictably, Republicans have abdicated this role except in the cases of Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi, who so embarrassed or disappointed the President that Congressmen and Senators could safely attack them.

But it is shocking to find a Democrat like Fetterman who commits the same sin. His support for Israel’s offensive against Gaza might be excused as backing for a nation subjected to a horrendous attack.

The Iranian Insanity

But the campaign against Iran was a war of choice, the logical consequence of breaking the 2015 Iran-US nuclear treaty negotiated by the Obama administration that allowed unprecedented monitoring of uranium stockpiles.

Once Trump, at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s urging, pulled out of the pact, assessing any potential nuclear buildup became a matter of guesswork—which, as seen after the fall of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, can prove wildly mistaken.

In assessing Netanyahu’s arguments for a widened conflict that no President from either party in the prior three decades had accepted, Trump—and, consequently, Fetterman—might have thought of an exchange between Pat Riley—at that time, before becoming a Hall of Fame coach, a secondary offensive weapon for the Los Angeles Lakers—and Wilt Chamberlain.

The superstar center, according to a speech I heard Riley give at a nonprofit trade association when he was with the New York Knicks, was incredulous that his teammate had taken and missed a shot that would have won the game. What was he thinking?

“I was wide open,” Riley answered.

“Did you ever stop to think there might be a reason for that?” Chamberlain shot back.

Indeed, in reviewing past reluctance to authorize American military operations against Iran, Trump should have thought “there might be a reason for that.” Instead, with the Israeli leader feeding his fantasy of one-upping prior Presidents, he decided to join Israel in the attack.

He did so even though, according to a New York Times account of a crucial planning meeting, CIA director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed Netanyahu’s expectation of a mass Iranian uprising as fantasy, and Trump’s military advisers warned that the Strait of Hormuz could be seized.

Following the invasion, Trump, Pete Hegseth, and other officials tried out a series of shifting rationales—defeating Iranian proxies in attacks on Israel, neutralizing ballistic missiles, and regime change—before settling on what seems to be the current motivation: annihilating Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

The nuclear question seems to be the best way for punching one’s ticket for admittance to the Liars’ Club. Following last June’s “Twelve-Day War,” a US-Israel joint air attack launched for this very purpose, Trump announced that Iran’s nuclear program had been “totally obliterated.”

If that was the case, why the need for another operation, particularly since no evidence has emerged of Iran restarting nuclear enrichment?

Fetterman would be far better consuming shredded lettuce than the shredded war justifications of Trump and Pete Hegseth. And someone should ask why he muted his rhetorical trumpet when Trump issued this genocidal ultimatum to Iran: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" unless a deal was reached.

At this point, it’s worth asking: Is there any use of military force by the administration that Fetterman regards as unwise, let alone immoral?

It’s hard to tell what’s more infuriating: the Fetterman negative vote against invoking the 1973 War Powers Act that ensured its Senate defeat, or his justification for it: “I would never want to restrict any future president to do this kind of military exercise that was very successful.”

Come again? “Successful” how?

Leave aside that Fetterman doesn’t seem disturbed by an administration and its congressional lackeys who, as this “military exercise” has evolved, have claimed: a) that the war is over; b) acknowledged that the war could continue for quite some time; and c) that a deal was within reach (this, often after the Trump Organization bought stock in companies that benefited from the war).

But what can you say about an “excursion” in which the Islamic regime remains in place, having discovered an effective tool of retaliation in closing the Strait of Hormuz that it had never attempted before—and reduced the President of the United States to a tweeting, cursing madman on Easter?

Like many of his fellow Trump supporters, a longtime friend of mine has consistently derided “globalists.” But what is the President now if not a globalist, except that his inclination is based on self-aggrandizement rather than the rules-based international law that long sustained Pax Americana?

In dealing with Russia and China, Trump’s attitude has been, “We’ll grab what we can, and let you do the same.” While busy taking over Venezuela, enforcing an embargo that has reduced Cuba to a shambles, and even threatening the NATO alliance by screaming for the annexation of Greenland, the President has signaled to Vladimir Putin that he doesn’t mind if Russia takes over Ukraine.

Where has Fetterman been in all of this? On Fox News last year, he said that if the President secured a lasting peace in the Ukraine conflict, he’d gladly nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize. This then begs the question: how would Putin accept any deal that did not provide him with a net territorial gain at the expense of Ukraine?

Trump Derangement Syndrome—or Fetterman Derangement Syndrome?

Like the President, Fetterman has unleashed a round of vitriol against anyone who holds good-faith reservations about initiating a war against a nation nearly four times the area and twice the population of Iraq—a land in which, it might be remembered, the US became involved in a quagmire.

This month, with rhetoric earlier retailed by the masterminds who brought us the Vietnam War, he accused the Democratic base of becoming “increasingly anti-American.”

It didn’t stop there. In a March interview, he saw this cohort as being “governed by the TDS”—Trump Derangement Syndrome.

It’s not enough that the senator is using a shopworn version of columnist Charles Krauthammer’s “Bush Derangement Syndrome” coinage from 2003.

But he might have more profitably reflected that “TDS” refers not to administration critics but to a President who stays up all night tweeting the most absurd, bigoted, obscene memes and rants—as well as one who has started his very own Mideast forever war to go along with his domestic endless retribution campaign.

“I’m going to disagree with [Trump], but I’m always going to disagree with respect,” Fetterman vowed. That disagreement has been decidedly low-key. 

Aside from that, though, why would the senator accord respect to a head of government who doesn’t respect the dignity of the Presidency, let alone his predecessors, popes, officeholders, journalists, entertainers, economists, business leaders, and ordinary citizens?

In the face of a daily cascade of personal insults and envelope-pushing violations of the law, outrage is the more appropriate response.

“I’m never going to call people Nazis or fascists or authoritarianism and all those extreme terms,” Fetterman said on Fox News in late April. But if Trump does not crave authoritarian rule, how else to describe someone who:

*puts his image on currency and photos;

*says that the only thing restricting his conduct in office would be his own “ethics”;

*enables a tech billionaire outside government to remove congressionally authorized agencies and their staffers at will;

*threatens businesses with tariffs or lawsuits, or demands a share of profits as leverage, to pressure companies into political alignment with the administration;

*pursues prosecutions against the likes of James Comey, Mark Kelly, Governor Tim Walz, Jerome Powell, Adam Schiff, John Brennan, and Letitia James on thin to non-existent evidence;

*authorizes government agencies to harass universities, law firms, even networks with late-night talk-show hosts who joke about them.

If the pattern of Fetterman’s statements sounds familiar, it should: Robert Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard started out as progressive Democrats until their criticisms of others in their movements became louder and more frequent while their complaints about Trump turned mute before being totally abandoned.

Never mind saving his political career: If Fetterman wants to preserve his self-respect, he can look at what happened to Kennedy and Gabbard once they fell into Trump’s embraces, which ended up involving:

*shamelessly praising the President beyond what they would ever have for any Democratic leader;

*keeping silent about major policy differences with the President;

*for RFK Jr., saying nothing while one of the primary tributes to his clan, the Kennedy Center, faced physical dismantling and creative emasculation;

*for Gabbard (before her just-announced resignation), investigating preposterous 2020 electoral claims of Presidential election that were outside her authority as director of national intelligence.

As with RFK Jr., it has to be asked how much Fetterman’s move towards the right resulted from genuine policy disagreements as opposed to an erratic personality. His attempt to carry on his senatorial duties following his stroke and the depression that followed is commendable.

But the behavior catalogued in a New York Magazine article last year (e.g., driving at recklessly high speeds, as well as what a former chief of staff listed as “Conspiratorial thinking; megalomania…high highs and low lows; long, rambling, repetitive and self-centered monologues; lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious”) calls into question whether he should continue in office.

In his interview with Martin for Politico, Fetterman wondered how Trump and the GOP could tolerate a social liberal like himself when they had forced out Tom Tillis and Bill Cassidy for far less.

As a public official, if you accept and spread the arguments of The Liars’ Club, you’re only one small step from joining it. Unlike a private citizen, you have access to information that might make you change your mind. Only willful ignorance, not naivete, could cloud a failure to perceive that the paramount issue of our time is preventing the most powerful man on earth from doing whatever he likes.

That should be as good a reason for any as why Fetterman should not accommodate an ignorant, loutish billionaire with a thirst for political dominance and a gift for demagogy.

Well, maybe one more: Caligula, according to the ancient historian Suetonius, had thought so highly of his horse Incitatus that the Roman ruler thought of naming him a consul until his assassination. 

Take your pick for why: either as an example of the emperor’s madness or of his contempt for the Senate—two traits typical of America’s current aspiring authoritarian.

Quote of the Day (W. H. Auden, on Propaganda)

“Propaganda is a monologue which seeks not a response but an echo.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning English-born American poet-critic W. H. Auden (1907-1973), “A Short Defense of Poetry,” originally delivered at the International PEN Conference in Budapest, October 1967, printed in The New York Review of Books, Jan. 30, 1986

Over two days in Beijing this week, two 24/7 practitioners of propaganda, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, met. These leaders of America and China, so used to employing this “monologue” on their countrymen, wielded it on their foreign counterpart.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that these efforts were aimed at establishing their countries as superpowers. Rather, in their blatant legacy-building, these septuagenarian strongmen were engaged in the final rites of their own cults of personality.

Movie Quote of the Day (‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,’ With a Typical Executive Disclaimer of Responsibility)

J. B. Biggley [played by Rudy Vallee, on the left with Robert Morse]: “I realize that I'm the president of this company, the man that's responsible for everything that goes on here. So, I want to state, right now, that anything that happened is not my fault.”— How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967), based on the novel by Shepherd Mead, adapted into a Pulitzer and Tony-winning musical with book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, movie written and directed by David Swift

For years, I’ve heard many politicians—I won’t say from which party—express their belief that government should be “run more like a business.” I wonder if the business they have in mind is J.B. Biggley’s World Wide Wicket Company?

Well, I’ll tell you: that statement of his that I’ve highlighted here is, for all intents and purposes, the continued default option for corporate executives who run into trouble, whether in the form of product or service failure, a disastrous earnings report, even fraud or misconduct. Their most common method for avoiding responsibility is to blame a predecessor.

Now that I think of it, a politician I can think of immediately has also taken this very course.

Quote of the Day (Lawyer Allen Grubman, on the Best Results of a Negotiation)

“When you walk away from negotiation, both sides should feel the same way—happy, but also a little sad that they didn't get everything they wanted. That's a success. If you walk away delighted that you got everything, the guy who got screwed will be waiting for the opportunity to get you back. Getting everything you want is the beginning and end of the relationship.”—American celebrity entertainment lawyer Allen Grubman quoted by Holly Peterson, “Earn Your Luck: Allen Grubman,” WSJ. Magazine, Spring Women’s Fashion Issue 2026

This observation holds as true in high-level diplomacy as in business contracts or divorces. There’s at least one public figure I can think of (and I’m sure you can, too) who’s familiar with all three situations. These days, let’s hope he’s taken this advice to heart.

Pope, Pentagon, and Imperial Impiety

So much chaos erupted on multiple fronts with the Trump Administration in the last 10 days that it’s easy to lose sight of the astonishing Free Press report that in January, Pentagon officials issued a veiled threat to the former papal nuncio that the Vatican had better side with the President on foreign-policy issues—or else.

This news item should concern all Americans, but especially Roman Catholics, one of the key electoral swing groups of the Trump era. (An estimated 56% of American Catholics voted for the President in 2024.)

Although it can be problematic to ascribe a single motive to a demographically diverse group like Catholics, GOP officials have surely been pleased that the church’s hierarchy emphasized so-called cultural issues like abortion and LBGTQ.

It encouraged voters to put in the background matters of relatively secondary interest to the archbishops, such as the rights of labor, economic justice, international peace, and humane treatment of immigrants—to say nothing of a return to power by the lone Presidential candidate since the Civil War to contest election results and foment a domestic insurrection.

I wish but don’t expect that archbishops and parish priests will use their sermons to address the disquieting report about the Pentagon meeting with the papal nuncio (a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See, in effect an ambassador).

Administration officials and voters still in their thrall have predictably dismissed it as—take your pick—“fake news,” “uncorroborated” or “highly exaggerated.”

Those terms cannot be applied to what has happened since Sunday, however, including:

*Trump’s remarks to a reporter that he was “not a big fan” of Pope Leo XIV, adding “He likes crime, I guess”;

*The President’s lengthy, deranged—and, of course, spectacularly self-centered—Truth Social post claiming, among other things, that Leo “wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump”;

*A later Truth Social post—equally demented, but this time blasphemous—depicting Trump as Jesus ministering to the sick (the image accompanying this post);

* A subsequent news conference in which the President ludicrously declared that this latter AI-generated meme didn’t show him as Jesus but as a doctor.

A confession here: I have never voted for Trump, and it would not be hard to find posts of mine that have criticized him. 

At the same time, accepting at face value any report that confirms one’s biases—including those that, like this one, cited anonymous sources— damages a writer’s credibility and persuasiveness. 

So, when I first heard the Pentagon meeting news in fragmentary form, I wanted to know how much, if any, of it could be validated.

My conclusion, after reading the initial Free Press story, follow-up accounts, and other reports on the principals involved, is that, while not all details are demonstrably true, enough are verifiable that they should prompt soul-searching among past and present Trump-leaning members of the American hierarchy and the faithful who followed their electoral cues.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni has issued a formal statement declaring that “the narrative offered by some media outlets about this meeting is completely untrue.”

“Completely untrue”? Not so fast. 

Possibly, despite what the Free Press article claimed, Pope Leo XIV had other reasons for not visiting America on July 4 than anger or fear over the threat. Even if he might now be reluctant to come while Trump is still President, he could be persuaded otherwise eventually.

In addition, the provenance of the publication may, in this case if few others, underscore the report’s credibility. 

The Free Press cannot be dismissed as a progressive news outlet like MS-NOW or CNN, given that it remains true to the editorial philosophy of co-founder Bari Weiss, who now runs CBS News. It has no motive for publishing a story in which the Trump administration appears bullying.

Moreover, the meeting did take place. While not characterizing the encounter’s tone, the Vatican Embassy, or apostolic nunciature, in Washington told Catholic news and information service OSV News, that the meeting occurred. In addition, there’s a picture of the then-nuncio, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, with Defense Undersecretary Elbridge Colby, issued by the Religion News Service, a credible outlet.

The Financial Times has an article about what seems to have happened:

An American present—not Colby—alluded to the Avignon papacy, infamous in European history as the site of a “Great Schism” between pontiffs who had returned to Rome and “anti-popes” who remained in France, subject to state pressure and corruption.

Other Americans at the meeting, who had hoped to smooth-talk Cardinal Pierre and the pope into taking a gentler tone toward the “Dunroe Doctrine” towards Latin America, were aghast over the effect of the remark. 

That’s why an initial anonymous Pentagon source, while deriding the report as “just absurd,” did admit the meeting included “a frank exchange of views”—a diplomatic euphemism for a tense or even storm encounter.

At this point the Vatican doesn’t want a nasty fight with Trump; hence, Bruni’s disclaimer that offers no further details about what did happen.

While the Vatican Embassy termed meetings with government officials as “standard practice” for the nuncio, neither it nor the Pentagon explained why the meeting occurred in the Defense rather than State Department.

Was it an accommodation to Colby, whose grandfather William, as CIA head and a Catholic, interacted with Rome extensively in the Cold War? Or was the venue an attempt at intimidation?

If the latter, it should come as no surprise. Trump has sought to bully the press, large law firms, universities, corporations, and other non-governmental institutions. 

Why should a major religion fall outside his reach—particularly since Trump whisperer Laura Loomer has derided Leo as a “woke Marxist” for interfering with Trump’s mass deportation program?

If the allusion to the Avignon papacy is true, it would conform to a pattern in authoritarian regimes: the thuggish initiatives taken by a midlevel flunky, sure that his bosses would approve his move or, if not, cover it up.

Though MAGA influencers expressed shock about Trump’s vile actions and language over the Easter weekend, there is little sign yet of a re-evaluation among his base. There should be.

In particular, when his Catholic supporters consider Pope Leo’s increasingly sharp, direct criticisms of the President’s trigger-happy tendencies, they should bear in mind that he is merely conveying the consensus of the 1965 Vatican II document, “The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”:

“Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.”

In an Atlantic Monthly essay published after remarks by Pope Leo last week, Francis X. Rocca confessed that, like many observers, he had mistakenly thought that, in comparison with Trump and even Pope Francis, Leo would be a “quiet” pontiff. But I’m not sure that Leo has stopped being “quiet” even now.

A ruthless authoritarian may prompt stances previously unthinkable under ordinary circumstances, as Thomas More, a government official who loved life, found no alternative to opposing Henry VIII. Extreme situations lead some to cowardice but others to courage.

What unites the Tudor-era saint and the American-born pontiff is an inner strength that seems confounding in a time of toadies.

More’s silent refusal to assent to Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn contrasted dramatically with courtiers and counselors who meekly went along, just as Leo’s steadfast opposition to Trump positions on immigration and national security diverges from the President’s allies within the American hierarchy (whose complicity with administration outrages I discussed in this post from last Christmas).

More of that is needed as the President breaches new moral boundaries. Will his followers take the lead of Leo, or follow Trump into ignominy?

The President’s actions over the last 10 days is forcing Catholic allies, within the administration and the American Church hierarchy, to choose sides.

J.D. Vance said the pope should stick to “morality” and not involve himself with “politics”—without explaining why a pontiff denouncing abortion is "moral" but one calling for peace is “political.”

On the other hand, Bishop Robert Barron, such an administration favorite that he’s a member of the Religious Liberty Commission established by the President, called the anti-Leo comments “entirely inappropriate and disrespectful” and urged him to apologize—a move that Trump predictably refused.

Before long, we may well find that whatever happened at the Pentagon in January is a mere dust-up compared with the unholy war that Trump now appears set on mounting against the Vatican.