The Week 07Feb2020

“Politicians are wedded

to the truth, but like many

other married couples they

sometimes live apart.”

Writer H.H. Munro,

quoted in the Loveland, Colo.,

Reporter-Herald

“Whatever people in

general do not understand,

they are always

prepared to dislike; the

incomprehensible is

always the obnoxious.”

Poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon,

quoted in the Associated Press

“Hell is boiling over /

And heaven is full /

We’re chained to the world /

And we all gotta pull.”

Musician Tom Waits,

quoted in the Los Angeles

Review of Books

“Self-consciousness is

the enemy of all art, be it

acting, writing, painting,

or living itself, which is the

greatest art of all.”

Author Ray Bradbury, quoted

in ArtsJournal.com

“The belief in a

supernatural source of evil

is not necessary;

men alone are quite capable

of every wickedness.”

Author Joseph Conrad,

quoted in TheDailyBeast.com

“The first principle is that

you must not fool

yourself—and you are the

easiest person to fool.”

Physicist Richard Feynman,

quoted in The New York Times

“Don’t get so busy making

a living that you forget to

make a life.”

Musician Dolly Parton,

quoted in Today.com

Talking points

Wit &

Wisdom

Re

ute

rs

NEWS 17

Poll watch

Q69% of Americans are

opposed to overturning

Roe v. Wade, including

91% of Democrats, 41% of

Republicans, and 70% of

independents. 79% think

that decisions about abor-

tions should be made by

women and their doctors

rather than by lawmakers.

Only 11 % think abortion

should be illegal in all cases.

Kaiser Family Foundation

March for Life: Trump’s ‘big deal’ support

Donald Trump just became

“the first president to speak

in person at the March for

Life in Washington,” said

Terry Schilling in CNN

.com. “This is a really big

deal.” Every year, the event

draws huge crowds to Capi-

tol Hill around Jan. 22, or

the day the Supreme Court

“wrongly decided” Roe v.

Wade in 1973. This year,

Trump implored attendees to “protect, cherish,

and defend the dignity and the sanctity of every

human life.” The crowd, many red-clad in “Make

America Great Again” merchandise, roared

“Four more years!” “It’s hard to overstate how

important this development is,” said Marc Thies-

sen in The Washington Post. For decades, we

pro-life conservatives were “the black sheep” of

the GOP, and the party’s establishment “not-so-

secretly loathed” us. But the iconoclastic Trump

has embraced pro-lifers “without shame or hesi-

tation” and become a “pro-life hero” by stocking

the federal bench and Supreme Court with con-

servative judges who could overturn Roe.

Let’s not pretend Trump’s appearance was any-

thing other than a political calculation, said

Anna North in Vox.com. In years past, Trump

addressed the march “remotely, by phone or sat-

ellite link,” just as other Republican presidents

had before him. Now, fac-

ing an impeachment trial

and with the 2020 election

approaching, he suddenly

found time to attend—and

remind this key political con-

stituency “of all he’s done

for them and all he could

do in the future.” Actually,

Trump gave pro-lifers “two

gifts,” said the Los Angeles

Times in an editorial. Hours

before the march, the federal Department of

Health and Human Services ordered California to

stop requiring private insurers to cover abortions;

otherwise, it will cut off tens of millions in federal

funding. The case will go to court, but “that’s no

small threat.”

It’s worth noting that Trump once said he was

“pro-choice in every respect,” said Jonathan Last

in TheBulwark.com. While “I trust that this con-

version is utterly sincere,” I wonder if it’s wise

for pro-lifers to align their movement with “the

most unpopular and polarizing figure in mod-

ern American politics.” Trump has boasted of

infidelity and sexually assaulting women, and he

deliberately chose to separate children from their

parents at the border. “Trumpism has corrupted

every ideology and institution it has come into

contact with. There is no reason to think that the

pro-life movement will be excepted.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “public melt-

down” last week during an interview with an

NPR reporter was “at once horrifying and hilari-

ous,” said Francine Prose in TheGuardian.com.

Acting like a deranged politician on a cable TV

parody of Washington, D.C., Pompeo delivered

a “ferocious and vulgar” diatribe to reporter

Mary Louise Kelly after she had the temerity to

ask tough questions about his role in the ouster

of Marie Yovanovitch as the U.S. ambassador to

Ukraine. A furious Pompeo protested that Kelly

had promised to ask only about Iran, then stalked

out of their one-on-one interview. Moments later,

Kelly was summoned to Pompeo’s private State

Department living room, where he proceeded to

deliver an f-bomb–laced tirade, shouting, “Do

you think Americans f---ing care about Ukraine?”

He then demanded that Kelly, a Harvard gradu-

ate with a graduate degree from Cambridge in

European studies, identify Ukraine on a map that

had no country names. She did, but Pompeo later

called Kelly a liar and suggested she had pointed

to Bangladesh, which is 3,600 miles from Ukraine.

It was Pompeo who lied, said Daniel Larison in

TheAmericanConservative.com. In email between

Kelly and a Pompeo aide before the fateful

interview, the reporter said she would start with

Iran questions and move on to Ukraine. But we

shouldn’t be surprised by Pompeo’s duplicity. For

18 months, he’s been “waging a war on the truth”

by trumpeting a succession of phantom U.S. policy

successes and telling “easily refuted lies about

North Korea, Iran, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia.”

America deserves a better secretary of state—not

“a serial liar” who disdains press freedom.

Pompeo displays particular animosity toward

female reporters, said Samantha Vinograd in

CNN.com. His bizarre map test “was a clear

attempt to humiliate” Kelly, and in October, he

angrily accused Nashville TV reporter Nancy

Amons and PBS news anchor Judy Woodruff of

working for the Democrats, because they also

dared ask him about Ukraine. Pompeo’s belittling

of reporters and of Ukraine has a purpose, said

Shay Khatiri in TheBulwark.com. His “target

audience” is President Trump and the MAGA

voters who, Pompeo hopes, will find him a wor-

thy successor after their hero has left the White

House. If bullying the press and Ukraine gets

applause in Trumpworld, then it doesn’t matter

“how his tantrum hurts America’s interests” or

“disgraces the office that he holds.”

Pompeo: The sound and the fury

Trump at the rally: ‘Four more years!’