So we're talking today about statues commemorating the Civil War and its leaders…and some cities are doing more than talking. They're taking down those statues, which prompted You-Know-Who to tweet, "Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments." Somehow, when he says they're "beautiful," I don't think he's talking about the artistry of the sculptors.
Frankly, I don't care that much as long as they don't pull down any monuments to Jubilation T. Cornpone. That's that beloved man a'sittin' up there on that even more beloved horse.
Kevin Drum has made a pretty good argument that those statues not of General Cornpone were erected to sell the idea that those who fought to preserve slavery were heroes. In some cases, the statues were kind of a rebuttal or pushback to civil rights gains. To that extent, great, fine, take 'em down. I'd rather though that those cities do more to improve the way their police officers treat minorities. Unless a statue of Robert E. Lee falls on a black guy, it can't hurt him anywhere near as much as a cop who is way too quick to use his gun or even a choke-hold.
My Trump Cynicism tells me that our Chief Exec doesn't care about any statues that are not of him. In saying what he does, he thinks he's pleasing those who bolster his popularity and wealth…and he may not be wrong about that. He's only wrong if he thinks that group isn't shrinking and wishing they had a leader who didn't keep shooting his own toes off.
I may start a daily feature here: "Today's Watergate Analogy." As I've mentioned here, there was a time during that scandal when an outta-left-field man — a rabbi named Baruch Korff — emerged as Richard Nixon's principle defender. The rabbi, who knew little about Washington and less about how to defend someone, got that "position" because no one else wanted it. Not a single Republican official or leader wanted to go on camera and defend President Nixon. This morning, I read this online…
Chuck Todd of MSNBC said all 52 Republican Senators turned down an invitation to appear on his show, while CNN's Wolf Blitzer of "The Situation Room" said his efforts were also unsuccessful.
"We invited every single Republican senator on this program tonight, all 52," Todd said. "We asked roughly a dozen house Republicans including a bunch of committee chairs, and we asked a half-dozen officials and none of them agreed to discuss this issue with us [Wednesday]."
They'll still vote with the guy. They'll still back most of his agenda because most of it is their agenda, and because they can vote as a crowd and there's safety in numbers. But very few of those lawmakers are going to stand up and lend whatever personal integrity they have to his cause. And it's not so much because they can't defend what he said yesterday as it is the fear of what he's going to say tomorrow.