Family Business

"This isn't personal. It's strictly business." --  Michael Corleone

   A competent political leader knows the difference between a personal grudge and the business of the nation.
   Would that were the case in America today.

   Memo to the president: There are some things you cannot control, and among these are the unalienable rights of the people to disagree with you. That does not necessarily mean disrespect, although many American citizens now harbor that toward you.
   It does mean, however, that disagreement is not only a right, but a duty for anyone participating in the democratic process.
  The American people deserve better than a president who treats the Oval Office as the headquarters of a family business.

  Not since Richard Nixon has there been a president so self-involved with himself, so undisciplined and so unaware of the repercussions of what he says and does, and so wound up in his own self-importance as to endanger the safety of the republic.

   News stories have carried many details of the current president's international business dealings and potential conflicts as to put him in danger of impeachment. The evidence is piling up. Meanwhile, his base of supporters is eroding, and elected officials of his own party are increasingly questioning his motives, actions and fitness for office.
   Unfortunately, this president seems to take any disagreement, on any level, from any person or group, as an acutely personal affront, one that warrants a continuing and direct attack on those who disagree with him.
   There is an old joke among several ethnic groups that a person may have a special kind of Alzheimer's disease, such that the victim forgets everything but his grudges.
   One can only speculate as to the current president's state of mental health, but his seeming lack of interest in or knowledge of history or current events, coupled with his compulsive demand for agreement and need for immediate support bordering on adulation, as well as an attention span that can be measured in milliseconds, all combine to make his suitability to remain in office an important question.
   His recent claim, in an interview with The Economist newspaper, that he invented the term "pump priming the economy," brought a shock to any student who ever took a course in Economics 101, as well as those familiar with the teachings of John Maynard Keynes and the term's use by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his efforts to revive the U.S. economy from the Great Depression.
   Such a claim, along with many others, shows an ignorance of basic economic and political issues.
   His latest foray into braggadocio was in revealing to high Russian officials details of plans by Middle Eastern terrorist groups, as reported by the Washington Post and the New York Times.
   Technically, he is able to reveal highly classified information to anyone, at any time. But doing so makes his motives and competence highly questionable. Moreover, such loose talk can mean that any ally who has supplied secret intelligence information in the past may stop.
   If the president's goal was to increase his personal prestige with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister, he has surely failed, as the Russian officials would gather the information and then regard the president as a loose-lipped braggart.
   Other words also come to mind to describe his actions and behavior, among them these two: stupid and fool.
   The American people deserve better.