Collusion Means Never Having To Say You're Guilty

I spent a whole lotta years doing theater stuff. My MFA is in directing, I spent some 30 years as a working children's playwright, I've coached, done jury selection, and worked in a variety of performance media as extra eyes and ears. One thing I have always done well is actor analysis. I'm really good at casting and specialized coaching. Even though I don't do it officially any more, I get enough calls for assistance to keep a finger on the keyboard and my eyes on the stage. 

Kevin, Prince of Bad Acting

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I think Feckless Leader is, above and beyond all comparison, a bad actor. Not just on his television show, but any time he takes the mic. He cannot read from a teleprompter. He relies on his very small vocabulary when he runs outta rehearsed phrases. Huge, stuff, really-really, unbelievable, things...all non-specific, all general, all simplistic. He lacks the basic understanding of facts v. opinion, reality v. fantasy, and truth v. falsehood. In so many ways, we have become inured to this. We cluck our tongues and wonder when everyone else is going to figure out there is something clinically wrong with the guy who's supposed to be running the country.

The word aphasic comes to mind. The National Aphasia Association defines it this way:

Aphasia is an impairment of language, affecting the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. Aphasia is always due to injury to the brain-most commonly from a stroke, particularly in older individuals. But brain injuries resulting in aphasia may also arise from head trauma, from brain tumors, or from infections.

Symptoms include:

• Speak in short or incomplete sentences
• Speak in sentences that don't make sense
• Substitute one word for another or one sound for another
• Speak unrecognizable words
• Not understand other people's conversation
• Write sentences that don't make sense 

Now, I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I've been around a number of aphasic people, including actors. No joke, I've known a several of older actors who were decidedly aphasic and had excellent coping mechanism to deal with the issue. Our president is not one of them. He struggles at most public speaking events these days, and it seems to be getting worse.  All cofefe aside, his address from the Oval Office last week convinced me I'm can't be too far off the mark. 

Not only was he reciting in a flat, atonal, speaking voice, his cadence did not make sense. His pauses were not where pauses should've been. It was as if he was doing simultaneous speaking while being cued through an earpiece. The level of the language was significantly higher than the level of language he uses when speaking off-the-cuff. 

I cannot shake the sense that he is being fed lines. Watch his face, listen to his voice. Don't let the hands distract you. Whoever wrote the speech was trying to make him sound like an educated adult, but it didn't match how he talks in real life. He's been rehearsed, but only so far. Bad acting does not begin to sum up the danger of this performance. 

Look, if the guy has dementia or some kind of diminished capacity, it really should be addressed sooner rather than later. Although if you've never seen DAVE with Kevin Kline, you should. Instead of getting a benevolent, kind, and generous body double, this one is sounding increasingly like Steven Miller with each outburst. 

Maybe it's time to play Barack and Michelle's favorite parlor game:

WWTDIODT ~What Would They Do If Obama Did That?

Now, I happen to know I have a fair number of Republican readers, so you tell me, if Obama refused to turn over tax returns, or routinely spouted easily documented falsehoods and lies about taxes and immigration in interviews, or continually mocked the disabled, called fellow lawmakers insulting names, and discredited the free press, not to mention hid any and all records of private meetings with world leaders....what would your response be?  At what point is our president accountable for his words and actions? 

I think the most recent exposure of Iowa Congressclown Steve King is highly symbolic of the GOP. So long as no one figures out you're a racist, it's okay to keep on being one. Yeah, they stripped him of his committees and they made a bunch of statements abhorring his words, but who amongst them hasn't stood by silently allowing the same thing? King's fellow GOP members of the House and Senate have stood by this guy for 8 terms and never noticed? Now that the conservatives are "turning against white supremacists," that's supposed to solve the problem? Really? What planet are these people on anyway? 

Oh, yeah. Must be the same one Democrats supporting Tulsi Gabbard for president seem to be inhabiting. The air must be very thin.

The bottom line is that racism, anti-semitism, white supremacy, and isolationism are all part and parcel of a GOP-led government. There is nothing shocking, secret, or amazing about it. It's always been there, but it took a total asshole like Steve King to make it a public spectacle. This is not news, folks, and if We, the People, let it become a diversion calling out the widespread cancer in that party, then we really did get the government we deserve. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the FBI revealed there was an investigation into the possibility that Feckless worked for Russia...well, let's see what conclusion Mueller draws. I kinda wish Ziggy was here....this would send him right over the edge. It's a John le Carré novel come to life. It would also give Ziggy the big one. I know how that mind worked; there would've been lots of yelling at the TV. 

Well, at least Feckless Leader has stopped talking about collusion. I suppose that's progress. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Real liberals don't embrace racist, homophobic, anti-semitic leaders;

they distance and disavow themselves for Louis Farrakhan 

without be asked.