When Superman was born on the planet Krypton in the comic-book universe I was just learning to read in the real-life universe of North Carolina. We budding readers spent a lot of time wondering and arguing if Superman were real.
I always voted No. And I was wrong. He may not be the Superman who darts into a handy phone booth to ditch the garb of meek reporter Clark Kent and don the Superman costume before flying to the fallen bridge to carry the crowded passenger train to safety, but make no mistake, a political Superman lives. He goes by the nickname of Donald Trump, and he lives in the White House.
On Saturday afternoon, Feb. 18, 2017, I was ready to admit my error in those pre-pubescent arguments. When a person towers over every other person in his field, you're allowed to call him a "Superman"!
The Trump-taunters never learn. "He'll never get nominated." "He'll never get elected," etc. The taunts lasted clear up to the one at the Saturday rally's opening, "Why is Trump staging an idiotic campaign rally after less than one full month in office?" One and all learned soon enough.
President Trump was taking a rough ride. He was getting clobbered over his dismissal of Mike Flynn as national security adviser. Trump took more of a beating for the failure of that "adviser" appointment than John Kennedy took for botching the Bay of Pigs. A normal president might wait for it to blow over. Trump instead did the blowing. Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard, in his nomination for "Loser of the Week" on Fox News, named Trump as the week's biggest loser. Trump decided to call for another "election," this doozy of a rally!
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The rally was scheduled to begin in late afternoon. Trump supporters began to arrive at 4 o'clock in the morning! The rally was held in a gigantic hangar in Melbourne, Florida. The hangar wasn't gigantic enough. It held only 9,000 Trump enthusiasts. One Fox reporter said there were too many uncounted thousands standing outside for one whole mile down the road.
The "negativity" which I suggest motivated the rally disappeared like a cobweb under a blowtorch. Trump detailed what he had done and what he intended to do for jobs, for safety, for keeping Islamic radicals out of America. I don't care how many thousands answered Trump's rallying call, but he handled them all like a ladybug crawling across his palm.
Political correctness paralyzes most politicians. Remember how former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley "apologized" to the thug-elites of "Black Lives Matter" for his high crime of daring to say "All lives matter"?
Melania Trump opened the rally by reciting the Lord's Prayer in English elevated to new heights of holiness by her Slovenian accent.
Trump over-trumped himself by pointing to a supporter in the crowd Trump had seen on television and demanding he come up and join him on stage. The Secret Service bosses probably had to take a pill and lie down, but the guy muscled his way up and he was great, and got three bursts of applause!
Love-him-or-loathe-him, Trump has shrunk rivals in dwindle-juice. The Clintons, Obama and both Bushes seemed soaked with dwindle-juice. The pit bulls and St. Bernards in America's political kennel become Chihuahuas compared to President Donald Trump.
Can you imagine Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer scoring against Donald Trump with one of his insane insults?
Florida was the scene of the shrinking of not merely Trump's enemies but virtually every other contender for political prominence. Those who didn't get sufficiently dwindled by last week's anti-media rout got shrunken by the unmistakably powerful pro-Trump display in Melbourne, Florida. Trump was supposed to lose Florida, remember? Now suppose a nomination or a piece of legislation Trump wants passed gets blocked by a senator who's coming up for re-election. Would you want to confront a dwindle-derby like that Saturday's targeting on your home turf?
I even enjoyed Trump's naughty little foray into what I call "Louie Armstrong Foreign Policy." During last week's press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump grandly said, "If the two parties (Israelis and Palestinians) prefer a two-state solution, that's fine with me. I can live with that, as I can also live with a one-state solution. I'm for whatever the two parties want!"
That blast you heard was not the sound of the Jewish ram's horn, the shofar! It was Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong's horn!
In 1957, during the Cold War, a disarmament conference in Geneva couldn't get started. There was too much controversy over whether or not Poland and Czechoslovakia should be allowed to sit. The Soviets insisted they sit. America insisted they not sit. An enterprising AP reporter noticed that Louis Armstrong was playing a concert in Geneva. He went backstage after the concert and said, "Satch, great concert! How do you feel on whether Poland and Czechoslovakia should sit at this disarmament conference?"
Louis put his trumpet down, mopped his head with that famous polka-dotted handkerchief and went into what looked like a long, thoughtful trance.
Finally he said, "Look, it's like this. If they want to sit, and if we want them to sit, I say, 'Let 'em sit!'"
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