On the evening of Tuesday, February 28, 2017, President
Donald Trump made a speech before congress.
And the crowd went wild!
The Republicans in the Congress applauded like parents of a
slow child whose every accomplishment is met with joy and celebration. “Just look at Donnie. All the insults, all the
self-contradiction, all the hanging out with the wrong people – none of that
matters now as he looks so presidential, reading that speech, just like all those
‘real’ presidents who came before him.”
Some media pundits and news reporters were just as quick to
heap on the adulation, saying things like, “Donald Trump just became President
of the United States.” They talked about
the “pivot,” as though Trump had never changed his public point-of-view before.
Trump has done so much pivoting during
the election and after that he should be sick, or at least dizzy, by now. He
has changed his mind from one day to the next, from one appearance to the next,
and even while uttering a single sentence.
So, what did Trump have to do to appear presidential the
other night? He had to dress in a suit, stand at a lectern, and read a speech
that has been written for him, pausing at appropriate times for applause.
But still, he earned praise for something that even some of
his supporters thought he couldn’t do. Like you might feel when that wild orangutan
you captured and decided to make a pet suddenly learns to stop making messes in
the house.
I am not criticizing Trump for reading a speech he did not
write. I don’t think any present in recent history has written all of his own
speeches, at least not by himself. It would be impossible. The president works
with a team of close colleagues. Among them is the president’s speechwriter
and, most likely, others who contribute to the speech before it is delivered. There
were a few times when I thought he might be reading parts of the speech for the
first time. Trump is not known to be reader. He likes his reports short and divided
up with bullet-points.
Some of the mistakes he made didn’t seem to make a lot of
sense.
For instance, near the end of the speech, he said: “Finally,
to keep America safe we must provide the men and women of the United States
military with the tools they need to prevent war — if they must — they have to
fight, and they only have to win.”
That’s a weird thing to say. Was he saying that he’s going
to make it so easy for them to win that all they have to do is follow a
specific, simple plan, and they will have victory? Or is this some version of the historic cry of the ancient Spartan
mothers to their sons, marching off to war, “Come home with your shield or on
it.” And you thought your mom’s advice was cold sometimes.
What was loaded in his teleprompter and handed out to the
press made more sense. “Finally, to keep
America Safe we must provide the men and women of the United States military
with the tools they need to prevent war and — if they must — to fight and to
win.”
Being Trump, he had to throw in some of his own
idiosyncratic modifiers and amplifiers.
For instance, he said “Finally, the time has come to give
Americans the freedom to purchase health insurance across State lines —
creating a truly competitive national marketplace that will bring cost way down
and provide far better care.” He had to ad
lib: “So important,” like a preacher throwing his own “Amen, brother!”
Not too bad. I’ll bet presidents have thrown their own little
comments into their speeches since there were presidents or speeches.
At least one of his off-the-cuff comments didn’t go over all
that well some speech listeners, in the chamber or at listening via the media.
Trump introduced Carryn Owens, the widow of a U.S. Navy
Special Operator, Senior Chief William "Ryan" Owens, who had been
killed (along with, it appears, more than two dozen civilians) during a January
28 anti-terrorism raid in Yemen. There was a long ovation following this
introduction, and Trump’s description of Owens’ brave sacrifice of his life for
his country. After the extended applause, Trump, ever the self-congratulating
showman, quipped: “And Ryan is looking down right now, you know that, and he’s
very happy because I think he just broke a record.”
I wonder if Carryn thought, Well, I have lost my husband, but mention of his name did break a
record for the longest outbreak of applause during an address to Congress. So,
it’s all good.
No, I don’t think she thought that at all. And I don’t think
we can attribute similarly positive vibes to Ryan’s parents, who were not
present for the speech. Owens’ father,
Bill, a veteran, has called for an investigation into the incident and into his
son’s death. He had refused to meet with Trump when the president met his son’s
body at Dover Air Force Base.
I don’t know if the uproar of applause broke a record or
not, but that is totally beside the point. It is just like Trump to, in truly
carnival-barker fashion, never let a moment pass, be it a happy one or a
profoundly sad one, without basking in the glory he sees generated by it.
Maybe that is where he gets that bizarre orange tan.
I will leave it to others to discuss the address and how it
agrees with and contradicts promises he has made on the campaign trail and
afterwards, and how he talked about lowering taxes and investing in American
infrastructure and building that stupid wall he has such a fetish for – and how
he is supposedly going to do this without adding to the debt that he refereed
to in the speech.
