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A devastating war continues in Ukraine, daily killing innocent civilians whose only crime is to live in a country that Vladimir Putin wants to annex. Innocent men are beaten and killed by gangs of rogue policemen. Real issues exist–and I find myself writing about seemingly trivial aspects in the life of Donald Trump.
Number 1–Shame on me. I can’t seem to help myself.
Number 2—Could it be that there’s a relationship there, something that we can take away by connecting the dots.
First, the ridiculous. I recently learned that Donald Trump was named the winner of his club’s senior golf tournament. Self-praise being the highest form of honor, in the course of declaring himself the winner, the Grand Donald took the opportunity to heap adulation on himself, trumpeting his expertise and remarking upon his high level of fitness.
There was one small glitch, however. Given the multi-day, multi-round format of this tournament, like most golf tournaments, it turns out that Trump was elsewhere, at a funeral, for the first day of the tournament. Not concerned that such an absence might otherwise disqualify him, Trump apparently determined that since he had played this course multiple times before, he would award himself a score for Day 1 based on a previous round. And so it was that on Day 2, everyone else found themselves playing from behind, as apparently the Day 1 score awarded to the Great Absentee was 5 under par.
Bottom line: 5 under par was, for Trump, par for the course.
We can only assume that the Donald, threatened by the inventiveness of George Santos at prevarication, took this golfing opportunity to reassert his pre-eminence in misrepresentation and to declare himself the still-reigning champion, the Liar-in-Chief of the United States.
But is there a moral to the story that goes beyond incompetent former presidents and golf tournaments? For me the question is why we allow those who embellish, lie, cheat, and misrepresent to gain and remain in power.
Do we look the other way because we otherwise like that person or that person’s agenda?
Do we look the other way unless it’s a “big lie,” something that is actually illegal?
Do we fear repercussions or retaliation if we call the liar out?
Or have we become so used to lies from our politicians that we barely notice them?
Politicians and lies: par for the course.
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PS Honest Abe? I’ve heard he stashed all sorts of classified documents in that log cabin of his.
