Out of the blue I asked, “Have you ever read Reinhold Niebuhr?”

Obama’s tone changed. “I love him. He’s one of my favorite philosophers.”

So I asked, What do you take away from him?

“I take away,” Obama answered in a rush of words, “the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away … the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.”

This exchange is from a piece written by David Brooks back in 2007 recalling a conversation with Barack Obama.  It’s just one example of the nature of a proper President of the United States, which Obama possesses in spades.  He can talk college basketball or philosophy, your choice.  The parasite infesting our WH today?  Not so much.  Between boasting and gorging on well-done steaks, Trump sits on the toilet tweeting childish insults and lies on a daily basis.

How far we’ve fallen in such a short time.  God help us.

Props to a Facebook friend for the reminder.

Trump has challenged President Obama to a vocabulary contest over Trumpcare.

Trump appeared on the Fox News Trump Infomercial, Fox and Friends, Sunday morning and claimed that Obama was playing fast and loose with the thesaurus while describing the healthcare bill.

“Well he actually used my term, ‘mean.’ That was my term,” Trump said. “Because I want to see — and I speak from the heart — that’s what I want to see, I want to see a bill with heart.”

Uh, well at least Obama isn’t playing fast and loose with the calendar.

Last Wednesday, Sean Spicer claimed that Trump’s use of the word “mean” was only rumor and speculation.  Trump didn’t confirm he used “mean” to describe the bill until this Sunday interview on Fox and Friends.

Obama did not use the word “mean.”  He used 939 words, 54 of which say …

Simply put, if there’s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family – this bill will do you harm. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.

That was on Thursday.

I think it’s highly improbable that President Obama steals words from Donald Trump and until I hear President Obama say “bigly” I will continue to believe that.

It’s been all over the news this weekend.  Shakespeare in the Park is presenting a new version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, with the Roman ruler looking almost identical to Trump, complete with idiotic combover and 3 foot long red tie.  As in the original script, his is violently dispatched in the middle of the play.  Cue the outrage in 3-2-1…it came spewing out of every pore of the right wing noise machine, and DJT Jr. even chimed in on The Twitter, asking if taxpayer money was used to fund the production.  The furor was so fervent that sponsors, Delta Airlines and Bank of America caved and pulled funding, afraid to offend Trumpists.

But, THAT, of course, is not the only modern version of Julius Caesar performed in

Guthrie Theater, Dowling Studios

recent years.  In 2012, director Rob Melrose produced a version with an Obama lookalike as the famed Caesar.  It was also performed in New York by the Acting Company.  And yes, that Caesar was also violently dispatched in mid play.
The difference between 2012 and 2017?  The noise machine is now going nuts when in the previous production we heard nothing but crickets.  “Thine hypocrisy will be thy downfall.”

Or something like that.

File under “Long Ago in a Galaxy Far Away”…

If you’re like me, you’ve run out of words to describe the slow motion train wreck that is today’s White House.  Shocked.  Stunned. Astonished. Embarrassed.  Humiliated. Outraged. Aggrieved. None of those words sufficiently describe the relentless onslaught on our senses these last months as The. Worst. President. In. U.S. History. eviscerates virtually every tradition, custom, and law that governs our executive branch.  Common decency suffered a quick death at 12:01 on January 20th.  After that, this walking, talking violation of the Constitution has been urinating all over our society while stuffing his pockets full of foreign money.  Have I described this administration accurately?  I believe I have.

So.  Let’s go back to this same point in Barack Obama’s first term.  He was also dealing with a HUGE scandal himself.  The scandal?  He went out for a hamburger with his pal, VP Joe Biden and dared to order his burger with dijon mustard.  That’s right, folks, that sissy latte’ sipping secret Muslim from Kenya dared to order a traditional American dish with a French mustard.  Outrageous.  The noise machine lit up, lead by the knuckle dragger, Sean Hannity.  Have a look:

That same noise machine today (what’s left of it) is whistling past the grave yard, defending Trump and his mob buddies for cozying up to despots and hackers.  I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if characters from The Empire showed up as Trump surrogates on national television.

President Obama broke his silence yesterday after Trump’s idiotic spectacle in the Rose Garden; and it’s good:

“A year and a half ago, the world came together in Paris around the first-ever global agreement to set the world on a low-carbon course and protect the world we leave to our children.

“It was steady, principled American leadership on the world stage that made that achievement possible. It was bold American ambition that encouraged dozens of other nations to set their sights higher as well. And what made that leadership and ambition possible was America’s private innovation and public investment in growing industries like wind and solar – industries that created some of the fastest new streams of good-paying jobs in recent years, and contributed to the longest streak of job creation in our history.

“Simply put, the private sector already chose a low-carbon future. And for the nations that committed themselves to that future, the Paris Agreement opened the floodgates for businesses, scientists, and engineers to unleash high-tech, low-carbon investment and innovation on an unprecedented scale.

“The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created. I believe the United States of America should be at the front of the pack. But even in the absence of American leadership; even as this Administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I’m confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got.”

This morning, as I listen to all the MoJo talking heads recounting the stream of lies spewing out of the White House I am actually physically revulsed. Since the night of November 8th, my emotions have ranged from anger to despair.  My anger was directed at virtually everyone – those who supported Hillary’s nomination when her flaws were obvious to those not devoted to her (I know, I know), those who didn’t bother to vote, those who voted for third parties, and especially those who were so stupid as to vote for the worst presidential candidate in US history.  Those people were overcome with Trump’s celebrity, his crass word salad, his tacky gold-plated lifestyle, his obvious mental instability, and his absolutely undeniable immoral existence.  After he took office, despair overwhelmed me as my worst fears were realized.  Not only was Trump as bad as I feared, he surrounded himself with the worst WH staff imaginable.  It seemed his priority was to pick the absolute worst nominee you could imagine for each role, from an education secretary who opposes education, a housing secretary who knows nothing of housing, to a strategist who is a known bigot.

Trump also tightened his grip on power with the judiciary in his pocket and a cowed legislature.  I had hoped that the career professionals around him could at least hold him in check, but he’s now fired an acting attorney general, every single ambassador around the world, 46 US attorneys including Preet Bharara, the head of the Census Bureau, and now the head of the FBI who was investigating his corruption and ties to Russia.

Just this week, after firing Comey, Trump mustered his merry band of liars to go in front of the cameras and blatantly spin tales, not bothering to even try to square those tales with actual timelines or even with each other.  The only consistent lie that night was that Cheeto Jesus took “swift and decisive action”, and that was most certainly one of the worst lies after he later admitted to Lester Holt that he had decided long ago to fire Comey.  I sat and watched Holt try to get Trump to answer for his lies, and the result was the most concentrated collection of falsehood that has ever been emitted on national television.

As I watch this rolling disaster, I’m nostalgic for past days where we had a president who was precisely the opposite of  this creature now infesting OUR White House.  Barack Obama was known for his steadiness, his caution (some would say too cautious), his ability to speak to the nation’s heart at times of tragedy.  He occupied this very same house for a scandal-free 8 years, leading the country through some of its toughest times.

So I have to ask: Do you miss him yet?

As for me, I answer, you’re damned right I do, every single day.