Having studied four years at Belgium’s University of Louvain in the early 60s, I know Belgium and its people very well.  Belgians are not violent people, but they have known violence. 

In both World Wars, German armies passed through Belgium on their way to France, leaving their mark in blood and ashes. In August 1914, the Germans burned Louvain to the ground, including its magnificent 15^th century library.  Over 5,000 civilians perished, made an example of what happens to people who resist.

            In May 1940, Germans once again assaulted the town, this time with artillery and from the air.  Once again the university library was destroyed by fire.  Once again civilians perished in the streets.

            One evening, while I was enjoying a beer with some of my Belgian friends in a local pub, two Germans in uniform, probably on their way back to Germany from NATO headquarters in Brussels, entered and sat down at a table near the door.  The room immediately fell as silent as a tomb.  No one moved to serve the Germans. The Belgian next to me, who had been eyeing a man in his 30s sitting across the room, finally got up, walked over to the Germans, and told them they had better leave.  They did.

            When my friend returned, I asked him, “What was that all about?”  He replied, “You see that man over there (pointing to the man he had been watching)?  He saw his mother and father murdered by the Germans in the middle of the street, just outside this place.  I know him very well.  If the Germans had not left, he would have killed them.”  I have never felt so chilled.

            Belgians are warm, friendly, and peaceful people.  But they also have long memories.  The slaughter by Islamic terrorists last week is the worst atrocity they have experienced since WW II.  The children of parents who were killed or maimed will not forget.  The question is: Will they take their revenge on the Muslims in their midst? 

           

Cuban Legacy

            For almost all of his presidency President Obama has endured a popularity rating below 50 percent.  That’s because most Americans are not fools or drooling sycophants.  They can see that our economy has not rebounded from the Great Recession, that the percentage of workers actively employed is still near record lows, that the cost of health care is going through the roof, that government regulations are killing business, that race relations are worse than ever. 

On the international front the president’s weakness has reduced America’s influence in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Western Pacific.  Our allies don’t trust us, and our enemies don’t fear us. 

So what’s left?  What can Obama do in his remaining time in office to insure a positive legacy?  Prosecute climate change deniers?  Release more criminal illegals?  Get another liberal on the Supreme Court?  Destroy ISIS?  Not likely.

Ah, but there’s still Cuba.  Let’s normalize relations with America’s sworn enemy. Let’s remove sanctions and open up trade.  Let’s send our tourists over there to spend money and boost their economy.  And, while we’re at it, let’s close Guantanamo and give it back to Fidel as a gesture of goodwill.

But let’s not mess up the deal by asking Cuba to have free elections, to return fugitives from justice, to stop putting dissidents in jail, to end cozy relations with Russia, China, and North Korea. 

No, let’s not do anything that would risk Obama’s sparkling legacy.

Pathological Megalomaniac

            Like so many others, I am scratching my head trying to figure out why so few Trump supporters have not abandoned him.  I’m well aware of the tired reasons spouted by his die-hards: He tells it like it is, he understands my frustration with Washington elites, he’s not afraid to be politically incorrect, he says what I’m thinking, and so on.  OK, I get that.  But why do they dismiss so easily those aspects of Trump’s personality that are so troubling?  Why are they not worried about his irrationality and his lack of substance on the issues? 

            Let’s take his refusal to ever admit he is wrong, which, I think, is an essential element of sagacity.  For example, in one of the debates he called President George W. Bush a liar for invading Iraq when he knew there were no WMDs there.  When challenged by Bill O’Reilly, Trump denied ever saying it, even after O’Reilly pointed out that his statement had been recorded.  Trump did the same when accused of dropping an F-bomb during one of his speeches, which is also on tape.  It’s not that Trump is boorish, vulgar, or intemperate.  It’s that he lacks the humility necessary to admit he’s wrong.  Maybe it’s even more than that.

We know that Hillary Clinton is a pathological liar.  But when she lies about what she said to the parents of the Benghazi heroes, she at least knows that there is no recorded proof of her mendacity.  In Trump’s case, the proof is right there for everyone to see.  Hillary has been lying so often and for so long, she has become quite good at it.  But Trump’s lying is not clever at all; it is not only pathological, it is megalomaniacal.  It is one aspect of his character that is not only disturbing, it is dangerous. 

To me, the thought of Donald Trump becoming the most powerful man in the world is frightening.  Am I the only one who feels like that?

Freedom Isn't Free

            Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.

            It is no accident that these words are found in the very first lines of the Bill of Rights.  To our Founders, who had just won the War of Independence from Britain, these two freedoms were at the very essence of what it means to be free of tyranny.   Somehow, some of their inheritors have forgotten that.

            All of us by now are nauseatingly familiar with stories of college students preventing conservative speakers from addressing them in a public forum, or of their demands for safe spaces free of any utterances offensive to their pre-pubescent sensitivities.  Perhaps we can blame the liberal professors for the ignorance of their charges, but there is no excuse for adults in leadership positions to exhibit such ignorance.  Two glaring instances come to mind.

            On March 9^th Attorney General Loretta Lynch admitted to a Senate Judiciary Committee that there had been internal discussions regarding the possibility of pursuing civil actions against climate-change deniers.  Even worse, she said she had asked the FBI to investigate whether climate-change deniers meet criteria for which the Justice Department could take action.  This request was not only absurd and dangerous, but in clear violation of the First Amendment.  Are we now to emulate the Stalinist Soviet Union in suppressing scientists who disagree with debatable scientific theories?

            Meanwhile, we have Donald Trump who says he will change the libel laws to make it easier for him to sue the press when it attacks him.  “I’m going to open up our libel laws, so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”  Trump has a long history of litigation, but now he wants to make money by gutting the First Amendment.  With this he reveals not only his avarice, but his ignorance of settled law, not to mention his disdain for the Constitution.

            Our Founders, who risked everything to gain our freedom—We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor--must be turning in their graves.

Conkling Redux

            Does history repeat itself?  In the presidential election year of 1876 the Republicans held their convention in Ohio, as they would again 140 years later, but in Cincinnati, not Cleveland.  The Republicans were desperate to hold on to power after the scandal-ridden years of the Grant administration.  Thus inspired, they formed a great Republican reform crusade, one of whose leaders was none other than Theodore Roosevelt, father of the future president.

            The reformers had one big problem: they had to find a way to defeat Roscoe Conkling, the extremely powerful senator from New York.  To the reformers Conkling was evil incarnate, and they were determined to prevent him from securing the nomination.  Conkling had nothing but contempt for the reformers; he ridiculed them and insulted their idealism at every opportunity. 

Women loved the tall and handsome Conkling with the fancy clothes and the curl at the center of his forehead.  He was a great performer who could have had a successful stage career. But Conkling was insufferably vain, hated the press, and was anything but a man of the people.  He was also an adulterer and didn’t care who knew it.

Because he had a lock on the New York delegation, Conklin thought the nomination was his for the taking.  But anti-Conkling forces had their own candidates, whose combined support blocked Conkling for six ballots.  As it turned out, the nomination went to a compromise candidate and the next president, Rutherford B. Hayes.

Is Donald Trump the reincarnation of Roscoe Conkling?  Will he skate to the Republican nomination, or will we see a repeat of the Cincinnati convention?  Stay tuned.