A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

  Donald J. Trump has been in the White House - courtesy of a victory in the Electoral College and (allegedly) a little help from his friends in Russia - for 63 days and counting. In that short (but seemingly endless) period of time, Mr. Trump has managed to become the least credible and most unpopular person ever to sit behind the Resolute desk in  the Oval Office. Despite a small uptick in his approval ratings - Gallup shows that 41% of Americans think he's doing well in the latest poll  - Mr. Trump still has not cracked the ceiling of 50% approval (or better) since he took the oath of office on January 20. No amount of braggadocio, no vast volume of executive orders, no huge batches of Twitter tweets or campaign-style rallies can hide the fact that Mr. Trump is both incompetent and dishonest.  Consider this: according to various news sources, Mr. Trump suffered yet another setback on his way to repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The dismantling of "Obamacare&quo

Well, we're 41 days into President Donald J. Trump's four-year term, but his popularity is not improving despite the best efforts of his minders to make him look like he is accomplishing important things in Washington - and his Florida digs at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach county. Despite Tuesday night's Presidential address before Congress in which Mr. Trump at least acted a bit more....presidential, his approval ratings are still below 45%. According to a Gallup poll published today, only 43% of Americans approve of the way that President Trump is doing his job. That's a 1% improvement over the last Gallup poll we mentioned here, but not by much. Why? First, the 45th President of the United States has a big problem with truthfulness - he lacks honesty. In his first address before both houses of Congress, Mr. Trump gave his listeners a bravura performance that, as the Washington Post noted,  was full of "numerous inaccuracies." Remember his election p

I must be one of the densest persons in the United States, because I simply don’t understand why President Trump’s supporters still, you know, support his Administration. Over the past three weeks, Mr. Trump, advised by the Machiavellian Stephen K. Bannon and abetted by such luminaries as Kellyanne (“Alternative Facts”) Conway and Sean Spicer, has done more to undermine American democracy – and its standing in the world – than any President since Richard M. Nixon. Consider. Since President Trump took office on January 20, he and his staff have: Called the judicial branch a “threat to national security”  - In a Twitter post dated February 5, Mr. Trump wrote: Just cannot  believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad! Declared that they will label any negative reporting on what the Trump White House does as “fake news," even if it is not actually fake news -   In a recent conversatio

Most historians agree that the most ethically challenged Presidential administration were those led by Presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard M. Nixon, Warren G. Harding, Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew Jackson. To be fair, Presidents Grant and Reagan were not themselves corrupt, but were unlucky enough to have been surrounded by unscrupulous staffers and con-men. Both men were fairly honest, but their administrations were marred by a long series of scandals. The other Presidents on the "most corrupt" list were indeed shifty. Nixon was forced to resign as a result of the Watergate scandal, but he had also authorized the infamous break-in into Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office; Harding was a womanizer who, as a senator, was blackmailed by his mistress, who threatened to "tell all" if he didn't vote a certain way. Harding is also infamous for his participation in the Teapot Dome scandal. And Andrew Jackson? Per attn.com : 

The Lady Loses The best story about Coolidge's taciturnity, told by his wife, concerns the society woman who said, as she sat down next to him at a dinner party, "You must talk to me, Mr. Coolidge. I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you." "You lose," said Coolidge. How to Charge Once when Lincoln was in the War Department an officer who was in a big hurry slam-banged into him, then offered "ten thousand pardons" when he saw who it was. "One is enough," smiled Lincoln. "I wish the whole army would charge like that." -- From Presidential Anecdotes, by Paul F. Boller, Jr. One of the most curious -- and vexing -- flaws in the U.S. public education system is the way that American history, especially its political history, is taught in all the 50 states. Having attended public schools in the 1970s and 1980s, I still have vivid memories of (a) textbooks with tons of illustrations but dry, boring