Presidential Transitions, Then And Now

Then: January, 1993, the transition from George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton:

[Outgoing President George H.W. Bush] was dignity personified. The campaign was spirited. Republicans accused former President Bill Clinton of somehow being politically compromised because of a student trip he took to the Soviet Union in 1969. Bush himself, in a campaign speech, called Clinton a "bozo," a comment he said later he hadn't thought was all that offensive.

And, as a strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, I can tell you we launched our fair share of attacks as well, taunting Bush for pledging "read my lips, no new taxes" and mocking Bush's seeming inaction in the face of a recession. Tame stuff compared to today, to be sure. But the potential for a deep and lasting rupture was real, and both men made a special point to unite the country.

This is where Bush's amazing grace came in. He was a wounded politician, but more than that he was a patriot. "Among the many memories from my first inauguration that I'll cherish for the rest of my life," Clinton recalled to me, "is the extraordinary graciousness that President and Mrs. Bush showed to Hillary, Chelsea and me on what had to have been an incredibly difficult day for them."

The outgoing president and incoming President-elect meet for coffee at the White House before the swearing-in, and one can imagine that the coffee comes with a quite a bit of tension -- especially when you must depart the White House for the last time in the company of the guy who kicked you out. But the Bushes cut through it, Clinton told me. "They treated us with genuine kindness, and expressed a real hope that our country would be successful over the next four years, and that our family would be happy in the White House."

Former first lady Barbara Bush, herself a fierce competitor, shifted into loving grandmother mode. "I'll never forget Mrs. Bush praising Chelsea, who was 12 at the time," Clinton told me, "for the way she handled herself so maturely through the crucible of the campaign. Chelsea replied, 'Thank you, Mrs. Bush, I tried.' And Mrs. Bush said, in her direct, classic way, 'Oh, we all try. But not everyone can do it.'" (From an article at CNN written by Paul Begala; read it here.)

Now: from Donald to Joe Biden

On the morning of January 20, Donald Trump and Melania Trump will depart the White House as President and first lady, but they will not invite their incoming counterparts, Joe and Jill Biden, inside before they do.

The dissolving of one of America's most enduring transfer-of-power rituals -- the outgoing president welcoming the incoming president on the steps of the North Portico, and then riding with them to the United States Capitol -- is just one of the snubs the Trumps are perpetrating as they leave Washington.
Instead of a president and first lady, the Bidens will be greeted by the White House chief usher Timothy Harleth, according to a source familiar with the day's events and planning. Harleth, a 2017 Trump hire from the Trump International Hotel in Washington, will likely not stay on in the Biden administration, the source said, noting the role of chief usher in all probability will be filled by someone more familiar with the incoming president and first lady.

The afternoon of Inauguration Day, then-President Biden will participate in a ceremonial wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery, joined by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

... The Inauguration Day snub of the Biden's comes on the heels of a series of broken norms and childish behavior that comes directly from the President of the United States, who has been vocal about his disinterest in preserving any semblance of decency towards the man who will succeed him.
Trump, according to several sources, is even mulling whether to write a letter to Biden to leave for him in the Oval Office, a standard-bearing tradition.

Melania Trump, who has not been seen in public in more than two weeks, has not reached out to Jill Biden, dashing expectations she would continue the passing along of hospitality to her successor, hosting her for a tour. (Also from CNN, from an article titled "Trumps' snub of Bidens historic in its magnitude," read it here.)

Too Much Pot Brownie?

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd published a not-very-well-edited column this morning, claiming that it had been 36 years since "a man and a woman ran together on a Democratic Party ticket." This caused political/history nerds such as myself to scratch our heads. What about Hillary and Tim, a mere four years ago? How quickly they forget.

A howl of outrage went up on the Twitterverse and the offending sentence was quickly fixed, although the NYT can't bring themselves to apologize for the error:

Correction: An earlier version of this column incorrectly said it had been 36 years since a man and a woman ran on a Democratic Party ticket. It has been that long since a man chose a woman to run as V.P. on the Democratic ticket. We’ve deleted a tweet that repeated the error.

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) August 8, 2020

Fortunately for history, Daniel Larison had grabbed a screenshot of the original NYTimes Opinion tweet:

pic.twitter.com/wXTNFZm104

— Daniel Larison (@DanielLarison) August 8, 2020

Hillary weighed in too:

Either @TimKaine and I had a very vivid shared hallucination four years ago or Maureen had too much pot brownie before writing her column again. https://t.co/J3SSwtkg7x

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 8, 2020

It was entertaining, but all is well for the moment and there's not much else to say except c'mon Joe Biden, put us all out of our quadriennial Veepstakes misery and announce your pick soon!

But wait. "A very vivid hallucination," "Too much pot brownie"? What's that about? Hill is referring to a column Dowd published on June 3, 2014. Titled Don't Harsh Our Mellow, Dude, this is what it said:

The caramel-chocolate flavored candy bar looked so innocent, like the Sky Bars I used to love as a child.

Sitting in my hotel room in Denver, I nibbled off the end and then, when nothing happened, nibbled some more. I figured if I was reporting on the social revolution rocking Colorado in January, the giddy culmination of pot Prohibition, I should try a taste of legal, edible pot from a local shop.

What could go wrong with a bite or two?

Everything, as it turned out.

Not at first. For an hour, I felt nothing. I figured I’d order dinner from room service and return to my more mundane drugs of choice, chardonnay and mediocre-movies-on-demand.

But then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.

I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.

It took all night before it began to wear off, distressingly slowly. The next day, a medical consultant at an edibles plant where I was conducting an interview mentioned that candy bars like that are supposed to be cut into 16 pieces for novices; but that recommendation hadn’t been on the label.

I reckoned that the fact that I was not a regular marijuana smoker made me more vulnerable, and that I should have known better. But it turns out, five months in, that some kinks need to be ironed out with the intoxicating open bar at the Mile High Club.

Colorado raked in about $12.6 million the first three months after pot was legalized for adults 21 and over. Pot party planners are dreaming up classy events: the Colorado Symphony just had its first “Classically Cannabis” fund-raiser with joints and Debussy. But the state is also coming to grips with the darker side of unleashing a drug as potent as marijuana on a horde of tourists of all ages and tolerance levels seeking a mellow buzz.

In March, a 19-year-old Wyoming college student jumped off a Denver hotel balcony after eating a pot cookie with 65 milligrams of THC. In April, a Denver man ate pot-infused Karma Kandy and began talking like it was the end of the world, scaring his wife and three kids. Then he retrieved a handgun from a safe and killed his wife while she was on the phone with an emergency dispatcher.

As Jack Healy reported in The Times on Sunday, Colorado hospital officials “are treating growing numbers of children and adults sickened by potent doses of edible marijuana” and neighboring states are seeing more stoned drivers.

“We realized there was a problem because we’re watching everything with the urgency of the first people to regulate in this area,” said Andrew Freedman, the state’s director of marijuana coordination. “There are way too many stories of people not understanding how much they’re eating. With liquor, people understand what they’re getting themselves into. But that doesn’t exist right now for edibles for new users in the market. It would behoove the industry to create a more pleasant experience for people.

“The whole industry was set up for people who smoked frequently. It needs to learn how to educate new users in the market. We have to create a culture of responsibility around edibles, so people know what to expect to feel.”

Gov. John Hickenlooper and the Legislature recently created a task force to come up with packaging that clearly differentiates pot cookies and candy and gummy bears from normal sweets — with an eye toward protecting children — and directed the Department of Revenue to restrict the amount of edibles that can be sold at one time to one person. The governor also signed legislation mandating that there be a stamp on edibles, possibly a marijuana leaf. (Or maybe a stoned skull and bones?)

The state plans to start testing to make sure the weed is spread evenly throughout the product. The task force is discussing having budtenders give better warnings to customers and moving toward demarcating a single-serving size of 10 milligrams. (Industry representatives objected to the expense of wrapping bites of candy individually.)

“My kids put rocks and batteries in their mouths,” said Bob Eschino, the owner of Incredibles, which makes candy and serves up chocolate and strawberry fountains. “If I put a marijuana leaf on a piece of chocolate, they’ll still put it in their mouths.”

He argues that, since pot goodies leave the dispensary in childproof packages, it is the parents’ responsibility to make sure their kids don’t get hold of it.

“Somebody suggested we just make everything look like a gray square so it doesn’t look appealing. Why should the whole industry suffer just because less than 5 percent of people are having problems with the correct dosing?”

Does he sound a little paranoid?

And one more thing. Was Hillary being just a little bit snarky in her tweet about Dowd's mistake? Yes. Why? In 1999 Dowd won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of 10 columns she wrote in 1998, in which she gleefully shredded Bill Clinton for his activities with Monica Lewinsky. (The Pulitzer committee cited her "fresh and insightful columns on the impact of President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.") What did she say, exactly? Consider:

January 25, 1998: 

Let's review what we've learned so far.

The President a liar? Knew that.

The President a philanderer? Knew that.

The President reckless in the satisfaction of his appetites? Knew that.

The President would say anything and hurt anybody to get out of a mess? Knew that.

Married men cheat? Knew that.

Married men cheat with young women? Knew that.

Married men who cheat with young women lie about it? Knew that.

Hillary isn't throwing Bill's stuff out on the White House lawn because she is as committed to their repugnant arrangement as he is? Knew that.

August 23, 1998:

After the President's prime-time confession, the news media were abuzz about whether Mr. Clinton could repair his damaged relationships with his wife and daughter.

Suddenly, That Woman stamped her feet. Like the Glenn Close character in "Fatal Attraction," Monica Lewinsky issued a chilling ultimatum to the man who jilted her: I will not be ignored.

She let it be known that she was wounded that the President had failed to apologize to her and had dismissed their grand, 18-month romance, their shared passion for books and laughs, as trivial -- a mere mechanism for relieving Oval Office tension.

Mr. Clinton rejected a more contrite version of the speech written by Bob Shrum -- nicknamed the "Shoot Me" draft at the White House -- that contained an apology to "Monica Lewinsky and her family." Instead, with some brass-knuckle guidance from Hillary, he embraced his wife and daughter as "the two people I love most," while swatting Monica away as "inappropriate."

He portrayed himself, insultingly, as a passive participant in their trysts. What she called true love, he called "legally accurate."

September 13, 1998:

Middle-aged married man has affair with frisky and adoring young office girl. Man hints to girl he might be single again in three or four years. Man gets bored with girl and dumps her. Girl cries and rants and threatens, and tells 11 people what a creep he is.

The dialogue in this potboiler, compiled with sanctimonious, even voyeuristic relish by Reverend Starr, is so trite and bodice-ripping that it makes "Titanic" look profound.

In fact, Monica identified with Rose, the feisty, zaftig young heroine of "Titanic." Last January, the former intern wrote the President what she called "an embarrassing mushy note" inspired by the movie, asking her former boyfriend if they could have sex (the lying-down kind).

Despite the fact that it takes place in the most powerful spot on the planet, the romance does not sizzle.

Bill Clinton fancies himself another Jack Kennedy and invoked his idol's name last week to defend himself.

But Kennedy was cool. His women were glamorous. The Rat Pack was good copy. He may have been just as immoral, but his carousing at least had style.

Mr. Clinton's escapades are just cheesy and depressing. The sex scenes are flat, repetitive, juvenile and cloying, taking place in the windowless hallway outside the Oval Office study or in the President's bathroom.

November 18, 1998: In the final column, Dowd concluded with this: 

At the White House, the truth is employed only to the extent that it's useful. When the Monica story broke, Dick Morris said, the President asked him to do a poll to tell him what would play better, the truth or a lie. Mr. Morris said he told his old pal he couldn't tell the truth and survive, and Mr. Clinton replied, "Well, we'll just have to win."

New York magazine, which included me among its mug shots, rains a cascade of poll numbers showing that by big margins the public is fed up with hearing about the scandal.

I know exactly how the public feels. I'm sick of hearing about it too.

But the fact is that the scandal is there, and the President did what he did and said what he said, and the consequences of what he did and said have preoccupied the executive, the legislative and the judicial branches of government for a year.

To pretend otherwise, to submit robotically to the polls, to take one's professional instructions from the wishes and whims of a fickle electorate would be to abdicate the role the public says it wants the press to play: covering the news.

If the President had told the truth immediately, the story would have died. But it is our job to undo the spin and look into the lies and go the extra skeptical mile to see that there is no cover-up. Moreover, all journalists are not like all other journalists in the wild and woolly and recklessly fast era of the 24-hour news cycle of cable, the Internet and high-decibel know-it-alls and gossips.

The impure history of modern America -- Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-contra -- proves that reporters have a duty to dig for the truth, whatever the public thinks.

There is a danger of making false equations between popularity and rightness, between what is liked and what is true. The danger is that next time, when the cover-up takes place in a less gray area, reporters will look at the numbers and go home early. Next time it may not be about sex and lies. It may be about life and death.

You can read all ten columns here.

Days until the election: 87

Donald's Women

I've always been surprised and puzzled by the fact that significant numbers of women, white college-educated women in particular, voted for Donald in 2016. Now, writing at The Bulwark in an article titled "What Women Want," and subtitled "Here's what women who voted for Trump in 2016 are saying about him now," Sarah Longwell sheds some light on why they did, and why they're not doing it again this time. This is the article in its entirety:

One of the great mysteries of 2016 was why so many women voted for Donald Trump.

Despite being caught on a hot mic talking about grabbing women “by the pu**y,” nearly 20 sexual assault allegations, and well known accounts of treating his multiple wives horribly, Trump still received the votes of 44 percent of white college-educated women and 61 percent of non-college-educated white women.

Many observers were doubly confused because they had expected Hillary Clinton, as the first major party female nominee, to be especially strong with women. And she wasn’t. Trump did poorly with African-American and Hispanic women, because he did poorly with all African-Americans and Hispanics. But he managed to actually win a narrow plurality among white women. 

But that mystery has been easy to solve. Over the last three years I conducted dozens of focus groups with both college-educated and non-college-educated female Trump voters. And the answer given most commonly for why they voted for Donald Trump is “I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. I voted against Hillary Clinton.”

In 2016, Democrats understood that Hillary Clinton was a deeply polarizing candidate. But even they didn’t grasp the full magnitude of it. Right-leaning and Republican female voters had spent more than a decade hating both Clintons, and they didn’t stop just because Hillary’s opponent was an unrepentant misogynist.

In fact, Bill Clinton’s legacy of similarly disgusting behavior with women—and Hillary Clinton’s defense of her husband—had the effect of blunting Trump’s own execrable track record. These women voters decided that either way, there’d be a guy with a long history of sexual malfeasance living in the White House.

But after Trump’s victory, something started happening almost immediately. Women—even those who voted for Trump in 2016—began shifting away from the president.

In the 2018 midterm elections that delivered Democrats 40 congressional seats and control of the House of Representatives, support for Republicans from both college-educated women and non-college-educated white women dropped by 5 points.

And the relationship has gotten worse.

A recent New York Times Upshot/Siena College Poll showed Trump trailing Joe Biden by 22 points with women. That’s 9 points bigger than the gender gap was in 2016.

And while much has been made of college-educated women in the suburbs ditching Trump, a recent ABC/Washington Post survey shows that Trump’s support with white non-college-educated women has fallen by 11 points.

After nearly three years of conducting focus groups with women who held their nose and voted for Trump in 2016, this decline hasn’t surprised me. He was holding on to many of those voters with a wing and a prayer and strong economy. When everything began to fall apart, these female Trump leaners went running for the exits.

From the beginning of his presidency these women gave Trump low marks for his tweeting and divisiveness—but they also gave him credit for the strong economy and relative prosperity of the last few years.

His perceived business acumen was one of the top reasons many of these women were willing to take a flyer on him in the first place. Never forget that for many Americans, their impressions of Trump were formed less by his presidential campaign than by his role on The Apprentice where he was, through the wonders of editing and reality TV storytelling, presented as a decisive, successful businessman.

In late 2019 and early 2020 with a roaring economy and a bunch of abstract foreign policy scandals consuming the media and the elites whom these voters generally despise and distrust, even Trump-voting-women who rated the president’s performance as “very bad” weren’t entirely sure what they would do in 2020. There was still a crowded field of Democratic candidates—many of whom were living, breathing representations of the far-left caricature that Republicans paint of Democrats.

But by March of 2020, everything had changed.

First, Joe Biden blew out Bernie Sanders and the rest of the Democratic field.

In my focus groups, Biden had consistently outperformed all other Democrats among the female Trump voters who were souring on the president. In hypothetical head-to-head matchups, almost none of the women would take Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren over Trump, but a handful would typically (if not enthusiastically) pick Biden over Trump.

It cannot be overstated how much better of a candidate Joe Biden is for attracting disaffected Republican voters—especially women—than any of the other Democrats who ran this cycle.

Then on March 11 the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic. Two days later, the United States declared a state of emergency.

No one in America will forget what happened next: Lockdowns; PPE shortages; 130,000 deaths; staggering unemployment.

And every night on television voters saw a president both unwilling and incapable of providing clear and coherent leadership.

Since March, I have conducted the focus groups virtually and watched Trump’s position with women weaken in real time.

Interestingly, in the early days of the pandemic the women in the focus groups were frustrated with Trump, but didn’t necessarily hold him responsible for everything that was happening. He hadn’t done great, they said, but it was a tough situation for any president to handle.

It wasn’t until the killing of George Floyd and the resulting protests that the bottom started to drop out.

Two weeks after Floyd’s death I ran a focus group with seven women from swing states—all of whom voted for Trump but currently rated him as doing a “very bad” job.

Only one was leaning toward voting for him again. Three were definitely going to vote for Biden. The other three were still making up their minds. But even these undecideds were unequivocal in their distaste for Trump’s posture on race and his handling of the protests. They actively recoiled.

One of the Trump voters who had decided to vote for Biden said, “The stakes are too high now. It’s a matter of life and death.”

That’s a pretty a good distillation of why Trump has been shedding support from women over the last few months. The multiple crises laid bare the fact that Donald Trump isn’t the savvy businessman these women voted for. Instead, they see him as a divisive president who’s in over his head.

And they see that his inability to successfully navigate this environment has real-world consequences for actual people.

Average voters weren’t moved by Trump’s obstruction of justice in the Mueller investigation, or his quid-pro-quo with Ukraine, or his many personal scandals. But when people are unemployed, or dying, and the streets are on fire, they want a president who isn’t winging it.

They want someone who knows how the world works and can make the government perform the kind of functions that only it can do. Like managing a coordinated national response to a pandemic. Or using the bully pulpit to bring the nation together during a moment of crisis.

Donald Trump and his campaign think they can stop the bleeding with women by leaning into the culture wars and highlighting looters, rioters, and vandals pulling down statues. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of these voters. They don’t see Trump as someone who can protect them from the chaos—they think he’s the source of it.

Which isn’t to say that the race couldn’t turn around for one reason or another. I suppose that crazier things have happened in American politics. (Though I can’t think of many off the top of my head.)

But the reality is that no modern president has done more to alienate female voters. His whole life Trump has treated women with disdain. And they are now poised to return the favor.

I voted for Hillary three times, in the 2008 primary, the 2016 primary and the 2016 general election. I think she would have been a fine president, and not just in comparison to the degenerate pig who got the job. She's not perfect (no politician is) but she's not even close to being the devil in high heels her enemies have made her out to be. To me at the time, it was blindingly clear that even a voter who didn't admire Hillary, or perhaps actively disliked her, could see that she was so much better than Donald Trump. 

Obviously, I was wrong. Epistemic closure is powerful; if everything a voter knows about Hillary Clinton was learned by watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh, hell will freeze over before that voter votes for her.

Anyway, here we are and I have one more thought about Hillary as president and it's something that came to me gradually over the last few years. We won't have a woman in the White House for a few more years but I hope it happens soon. When it does, it will feel strange and different, no matter who the woman is or how wonderful she is. (Note: Different doesn't mean bad. We can adjust to different.) Most likely in addition to the first Madam President, there will also be the first First Gentleman, or whatever he decides to call himself. 

His role won't be easy. It will no doubt take a while before everyone gets used to the fact that the person sitting in the Oval Office is the wife and the person organizing the state dinner is the husband. As much as I wanted to see Hillary as the first woman president, I now believe that things will go more smoothly all around if the first First Gentleman isn't Bill Clinton. Or any former president, really, but especially not Bill Clinton. Presumably no one would actually expect Bill to plan state dinners. Keeping him out of the Oval Office would be the problem. Imagine: 

We're in the East Room of the White House; everyone's waiting for President Clinton to walk in and announce a new initiative to help children. The doors open, the audience stands up and the band starts playing Hail To The Chief. 

Standing in the doorway with her parents, Chelsea grabs her father by the arm. "Dad, wait," she whispers. "The music's for Mom. You have to let her go in first."

I just don't think the Big Dog could handle being the second most important Dog in the room. 

The Guessing Game - Updated

What will be on the cover of People this week? The main cover story should be Bachelor Peter Weber and (probably) Madison Prewett, although Harry and Meghan are making news with their final visit to Britian as working royals. In particular I could see People going with this picture, which has already become iconic:



Other possibilities, in no particular order:

Katie Perry: Pregnant
Nik Wallenda: A daring walk across a volcano in Nicaragua
Dixie Chicks: They're releasing a new album
Elizabeth Warren: Ended her presidential campaign
Aaron Schock: The former (and controversial) Illinois congressman comes out as gay, something that was, shall we say, less than a total shock
Lori Villow: The Idaho mom has been extradited from Hawaii
Aly Raisman: The star gymnast won't compete at the Tokyo Olympics
Coronavirus: It's the biggest news story right now, maybe a cover about some of the victims, or health care providers?
Demi Lovato: An interview with Ellen, talking about her recovery and a new single
Bill and/or Hillary Clinton: A new Hulu documentary about Hillary, with some striking comments from Bill about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Monica is also a possibility, although as far as I know, she hasn't commented so far
Spike Lee: Conflict with the New York Knicks about which door he should use at Madison Square Garden. (Really. Read more here.)
Woody Allen: His publisher changed course and now will not publish his memoir
Nicholas Tucci: The You're Next actor died at 38 of an undisclosed illness
Clare Crawley: The new Bachlorette, she turns 39 in a few days, making her by far the oldest Bach'ette ever. At 23, I felt that both Hannah Ann and Madison are too young to be the lead; I admit I'm concerned that Clare may be too old. There's nothing wrong with being 39 but I'm guessing that there's going to be a serious age gap between Clare and most of the men she'll be "dating." I'm not sure it's going to work.
Ben Affleck: Is he dating Knives Out actress Ana de Armas?

Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green.

Update on Monday morning. Max von Sydow: The actor dies at 90
Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union: Their daughter Zaya makes her first public appearance. (Read more here)
Glennon Doyle: Her new memoir, Untamed, comes out tomorrow
Neil Diamond: A surprise performance at the Power of Love gala

Click here to see the new issue, featuring Harry, Meghan, William and Kate.

The Beginning Of The End? - Updated

Some things are a hard, long path with a lot of false starts, twists, turns, and resistance.

And then it just all starts rolling and you wonder how you ever thought it couldn't happen.

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) November 30, 2018

I'm posting this tweet because it echoes my feelings this morning. Big things have happened this week and I'm seeing significantly more chatter about the possibility that Donald doesn't serve out his entire term. Writing at the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin mentions something that has occurred to me, i.e., the possibility that Trump bails and returns to New York rather than release his taxes:

Now, I leave open the possibility that Trump will be run out of office before 2020. (“Your tax returns or the presidency, Mr. President,” House Democrats might say if they get a subpoena for Trump’s documents enforced in federal court.) (Read the column here.) 

Update: I have to post this one too. Hillary nailed it, eight days before the election. 

The most prophetic 2 minutes and 44 seconds in American history is:@HillaryClinton warning us about @realDonaldTrump’s ties to Russia...

...8 days BEFORE the 2016 election.pic.twitter.com/0cfevk7Jtr

— Ryan Knight 🇺🇸 (@ProudResister) November 30, 2018

The Guessing Game - Updated

What will be on the cover of People this week? My guesses:

Megyn Kelly: Her morning show is cancelled after her comments about blackface. She was never a good fit at NBC and the show's ratings were not meeting expectations, so she may have been on her way out even before the latest gaffe blew up this week
Harry and Meghan: Lots of good stories and pictures coming out of their trip down under
Jennifer Garner: Dating a billionaire
Wicked, Kristin Chenoweth and/or Idina Menzel: Wicked opened on Broadway 15 years ago, NBC is airing a special Monday night
Caitlyn Jenner: Now says she was wrong to support Donald. I saw a few comments saying "We told you so..."
Casey Anthony: Seven years after being acquitted of murdering her daughter, she's apparently dating someone
Jennifer Lopez: Are she and A Rod engaged?
Khloé Kardashian: Did she and Tristan Thompson split up? Alternatively, is she moving to Cleveland to be with him?
Todd Reid: An Australian tennis star who died at age 34
David Schwimmer: Or really, the thief who looks like David Schwimmer. He's been caught.
Jenna Dewan and/or Channing Tatum: They've filed for divorce
Karlie Lain Gusé: Missing White Girl
Prince Charles: Turns 70 on November 14
Michelle Obama: Her book comes out November 13; I'm going to keep putting her on the list. After all, another former first lady got the main cover slot when her book came out:

Issue dated June 16, 2014


Sunday morning update: The synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. People won't feature the shooter but they might spotlight the victims.

Update #2: Julia Roberts. Today (Sunday) is her 51st birthday.

Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green.

Wednesday morning, update #3: See the new cover, featuring Joanna Gaines, here.

John McCain's Granddaughter Is Voting For Hillary

"... I learned something important in 2000 and again in 2008: the picture the opposition and the media paints of a candidate is not the whole picture, and it is not the truthful picture."

Caroline McCain, granddaughter of 2008 GOP candidate Senator John McCain. 

In an intriguing article at medium.com, she says she's voting for Hillary and explains why. Read it here.  

Friday Trump Blogging

Mid-morning update: I'm not the only one who's having fun with Donald Trump. The new issue of The New Yorker has him belly-flopping topless into a pool, possibly flattening Jeb, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Chris Christie:

Issue dated July 27, 2015


Original Post:
I promise this blog isn't going to be "all Trump, all the time," but right now he and his campaign for president just keep presenting me with fun things to blog about. (Blog readers know that in the past I've made the same promise about Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin.) What caught my eye this morning is the home page of politico.com, which currently has five stories about The Donald:

The mystery of the Trump coalition
Insiders: Ted Cruz hurt most by Trump candidacy
Trump: My supporters aren't "crazies"
Trump seizes on Chattanooga shooting
Trump feuds with Perry, calls him dumb

Separately, will college degrees become an issue in this campaign? Do politicians with an Ivy League degree make the best presidents? Consider: Every president since Ronald Reagan has had one or more degrees from an Ivy League school:

George H.W. Bush -- Yale
Bill Clinton -- Yale Law School
George W. Bush -- Yale (undergraduate) and Harvard (MBA)
Barack Obama -- Columbia (undergraduate) and Harvard Law School

Regarding the two most recent unsuccessful presidential candidates, Mitt Romney has a law degree and an MBA from Harvard, and John McCain graduated from the Naval Academy.

So far in this campaign I've seen some reporting about the college-level achievements of two candidates, Scott Walker, who attended college but didn't graduate, and, no surprise, Donald J. Trump. Currently the Washington Post has an article titled, "Yes, Donald Trump really went to an Ivy League school." Although semantic nit-pickers will point out that "went to" is not the same as "has a degree from," according to the article Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1968, which included classes at the Wharton School of Economics. (Read the article here.)

Among the 17,000 other individuals currently running for president, Hillary, like her husband, has a law degree from Yale; Jeb, unlike his father and older brother, skipped the Ivy League and obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin. It would take some serious googling to come up with the colleges that the rest of the candidates attended and the degrees they did or did not obtain. If I have some time this week-end I may dive into that, or not. Stay tuned.

My Former Home

This is a cool picture from Hillary's big event on Roosevelt Island in New York City this morning. Why is it on my blog? Because of the two buildings on the far left side. They're apartment buildings and when I lived in NYC for a year, one of them was my home.

More Fun To Be An Ex-President?

Will Hillary run? Yes, friends, that is the question. At The Daily Beast, Tina Brown has some interesting thoughts about why Hill should just say no, and note that the grandchild-to-be doesn't come up until the last paragraph. Brown suggests that the reality of actually being president is exponentially more frustrating and depressingly less powerful than ambitious politicians realize as they look at the next president in the mirror and "measure the drapes" for life in the Oval Office. It's not until you're an ex-president that the real fun starts:

"Money, Nobels, the ability to leverage your global celebrity for any cause or hobbyhorse you wish, plus freedom to grab the mike whenever the urge takes you without any terminal repercussions." 

Brown advises Clinton to skip the drearyness of being president and jump straight to the fun part. Will Hill take the advice? Stay tuned...

Read it here.

Will Hillary Run?

Who knows? My assumption right now is that not even Hillary knows for sure. If, if, she decides not to run, who else is there on the Democratic side? If, if, Hill opts out all hell will break loose. It won't be pretty but it will be very entertaining.

Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post says there are currently four tiers of potential Dem candidates. Hill is the first, and if she runs, the only tier. If she doesn't run, there's a second tier (If she says no...) with VP Joe Biden and Maryland governor Martin O'Malley; a third tier (Not interested, but...) with NY gov Andrew Cuomo, NY senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Massachusetts gov Deval Patrick and Mass. senator Elizabeth Warren; and a fourth tier (Just not happening...) with NJ senator Cory Booker and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders (who?)

Back in February, I had some fun pondering Andrew Cuomo as a candidate. Check it out here.