Translation: Trump: six months of tumult for few results
I went on vacation to try and get away from it all, relax and refresh. It's something we all like to do, when possible, that's become a mixture of tradition and sometimes near necessity to break the daily stresses of life. I committed to not reading or sending emails on my phone while away with the decided form of communication being text to my son. I bought a good novel to read on the trip, with a plan to drift into another place for a couple of weeks. I think it's called escape. But my best efforts to do so were not foolproof. Arriving at the hotel in Paris, the second thing I saw after checking in at the front desk were newspapers and magazines graciously laid out for guests. Most of those publications had what appears below as a theme and variation:
The miles I flew may have been great, but nothing it seems could get me away from seeing Donald Trump on front pages. Or hearing continued talk of disbelief and concern at his behavior among people not just from France, but from too many other parts of the world.
I returned home to find more Trump news involving North Korea threatening the U.S. and President Trump threatening North Korea.
Which brings us to judgement. Can we trust our President's judgement? This is certainly a time when the world is watching and we would like to do so, but Trump lacks any kind of firm knowledge base of international affairs let alone diplomacy. What he does know how to do is bully anyone who attacks him while carelessly throwing around the weight of his words. Unfortunately for all of us, he's taken that behavior into the ring with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un. The North Korean leader is well known for using his own bully power whenever it suits him, even if that means killing off members of his own family, which he has repeatedly done.
Hair trigger personalities and knee jerk reactions are the last thing the world needs when nuclear weapons are involved, and that's exactly where we appear to be right now.
Kim Jong-un on Thursday said a plan is being prepared to fire four missiles near the US Pacific territory of Guam. Hours later President Trump responded at a news conference, doing nothing to calm the nerves of everybody watching:
"If Kim Jong Un does something in Guam, it will be an event the likes of which nobody has seen before."
Threats and more threats. Somehow Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's comment one day ago telling Americans they "should sleep well at night" struck me as a weak Churchillian response to a concern that is keeping a lot of people awake at night.