Both men, it would appear, have something of a disconnect with the real world, what with the way they are trying to dismiss the criticisms they often get hit with from the public.
IN THE
CASE of the incumbent president, Trump is attacking those people who want to
see the special counsel Russia probe into his conduct take him down. Which isn’t
the least bit surprising.
But
Trump is tying this issue in with the concept of all the pardons he has talked
about issuing, saying that if conditions really became dire for him, he could
easily issue a pardon for himself.
“As has
been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON
myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong.” Or so wrote
Trump on his Twitter account (and people seriously wonder why I think of the president
as the ‘Twit who Tweets’).
For it
seems that our president truly thinks he can run the nation (and possibly, the
world) in the same way he ran The Trump Organization – barking out orders and
expecting minions to carry them out, unquestioned.
OF
COURSE, BACK in those days, Trump was running a company that erected gaudy
buildings and garish casinos – meaning Trump’s reckless behavior really didn’t
impact anybody.
Now, Trump
is in a position to do great harm – and he wants to have the right to wave away
any moments when he chooses to cut through the red tape in inappropriate ways.
Hence,
he thinks he can pardon himself. Even though one of his attorneys (former New
York mayor Rudy Giuliani) himself publicly questioned whether Trump should
think in terms of using such authority.
CLINTON: Tired of talking about Monica |
Think of
it this way. Former President Richard Nixon, who had to resign the presidency
to avoid impeachment by Congress, had to count on his successor to grant him a
pardon to avoid any conviction and incarceration – whom his biggest critics
desperately wanted to see happen.
EVEN
NIXON DIDN’T think he had a right to pardon himself to make his “Watergate”
critics shut up. Even he realized that such an overbearing act would backfire
ever so badly.
Think of
the presidential clemency authority in these terms. How outraged would the
people who are now Trump’s biggest backers have been if former President Bill
Clinton had tried to avoid the whole impeachment debacle of 1998 by issuing
himself a pre-emptive pardon.
Impeachment
was definitely an ideologue act back then, and the people who pushed for his
removal from office were doing so for the wrong reasons. But listening to
Clinton now get upset when people bring up his behavior with a White House
intern and compare it to actions of sexual harassment against other women
sounds as ridiculously self-righteous as anything Trump has ever said.
“I dealt
with it 20 years ago,” Clinton said during an interview with NBC and “The Today
Show,” adding, “I’ve tried to do a good job since then, and with my life and with
my work.”
PERSONALLY,
I’VE ALWAYS thought that the appropriate judge for Clinton’s behavior back then
was his wife. If Hillary had wanted to take it out on him publicly and ruin
him, she should have been granted permission to do so.
The fact that she is able to get past this ought to be a sign for the rest of us. Except for those ideologues whose real hang-up is that Clinton ever got elected in the first place, and that they were unable to defeat him at the polling place.
Just as
it kind of seems like Trump wants to erase the fact that some 3 million more people
in this country wanted a Hillary Clinton presidency instead of him.
So does
Bill Clinton owe an apology to Monica Lewinsky? Maybe! Although I’d say that
Trump owes the nation a greater apology for his gaudy behavior that embarrasses
the nation as a whole.
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