Tag Teams: Pelosi and Schumer vs Trump and the Oval Office

Read Time:9 Minute, 2 Second

by Burr Deming

The words communicated what fair minded representatives wanted to say, what fair minded voters needed to hear.

But Pelosi and Schumer looked like they had been pushed together into an invisible locker. It was awful.

Then I saw the polls.

It has been part of our national mythos for almost six decades. Appearance had made John F. Kennedy presidential. Polling after the first nationally televised debate told the story. Those who watched the debate on television thought Kennedy had won. Those who heard it on radio gave it to Richard Nixon.

Pundits have paid attention to appearance ever since.

In 1970, Republicans and Democrats bought national airtime, allowing each to make a case to midterm voters. President Nixon stood at a podium before a raucous crowd. He yelled a law-and-order message.

You’re in danger, Democrats are soft on crime.

Senator Ed Muskie spoke for the Democrats. He sat in an armchair before a fireplace, wearing an unbuttoned cardigan sweater. He spoke in measured tones about Republican efforts to get you, the voter, to vote against yourself. Muskie looked Presidential, remarked one analyst. Nixon looked like he was running for District Attorney of Orange County.

When Bill Clinton gave his State of the Union in 1996, very few television personalities paid a lot of attention to the content of Robert Dole’s response. Instead, everyone noticed that he looked just awful. And it was a contrast. Bill Clinton looked like he was President, partly because he was … well … President. One pundit said that Robert Dole looked like he was running for National Mortician.

Most of us who remember Republican responses to Barack Obama’s State of the Union speeches don’t recall exactly what Bobby Jindal said in 2009. We remember how he first walked about as if looking for the lost microphone. We may remember Marco Rubio’s weird mid-speech thirst for his little bottle of water in 2013.

I felt sorry for Senator Rubio. Our pastor, who is a wonderful fellow, is not a national figure. But even he has a glass of water at the pulpit in case he needs it. What the hell were Republicans thinking? My bet is they’ve had an actual glass at the podium for every formal speech since then.

When Gary Hart fell through the hull of the Good Ship Monkey Business in 1987, a photo of him with an attractive woman sitting on his lap, I was a little upset at the coverage. His sex life shouldn’t matter. I was visiting my parents at the time. My dad sat at the table drinking coffee. He agreed. It shouldn’t matter, but it did matter, and Hart knew it mattered. And he did it anyway.

I felt that way about the January match-up of 2019: Trump versus the Pelosi/Schumer tag team. They had an agreement, but President Trump’s television had ordered him to back away from it.

The optics and staging shouldn’t matter. But it did matter. They should have known it mattered. Didn’t anybody think this through?

Trump is pretty much awful when he tries to read. It is not easy for him to follow the words. He focuses hard on the prompter, which seems to have been just a little off from the camera this time. He tried to wrinkle his forehead the way Paul Ryan does when he projects sincerity.

Makes me think of the old George Burns quote on sincerity:

If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

But Donald Trump doesn’t have the face for it. He just manages to raise and lower his eyebrows.

He seems to have some sort of nasal impediment.

Sniff, Sniff, Sniff, Sniff, Sniff

When he’s speaking to his fan club, he doesn’t have to do any of that reading, and he doesn’t have to project quiet sincerity. The sniff, sniff gets drowned out when he’s in front of a crowd.

During the Oval Office speech, those eyebrows danced a little as he talked about the humanitarian crisis.

These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs. One in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico. Women and children are the biggest victims, by far, of our broken system.

Refugees are entitled to apply for sanctuary in the United States. That’s the law. If the United States had evaluation offices in South American countries, potential immigrants could find out, without that dangerous journey, whether they qualify. Those offices once existed. Those qualified for refugee status found quick and safe transportation. The others knew to stay home. When President Trump took office, funding was cut off and those offices closed.

Trump eyebrows swam again when he talked about tragic crimes committed by immigrants.

America’s heart broke the day after Christmas when a young police officer in California was savagely murdered in cold blood by an illegal alien, who just came across the border. The life of an American hero was stolen by someone who had no right to be in our country.

There were other stories as well. An air force veteran, a neighbor of an immigrant in Georgia, a teenager in Maryland.

It brought to mind a chatroom conversation from 20 years ago. A participant had seen reports on television of violent crime committed by African Americans. He became abusive when I posted a family photo. Images of those guilty of sharing the same skin color as violent criminals filled him with righteous fury.

Our hearts go out to victims of violence. It seems heartless and mechanical to answer horrible tragedy with mere statistics. Violent crime, in fact all categories of crime, go down when immigrants move in. One of life’s ironies is that this is especially true when undocumented immigrants arrive. It is not hard to see why. Those who very much want to remain unnoticed are unlikely to attract attention with even minor violations. Any population has someone who will hurt others. But generally, we are safer when surrounded by immigrants.

Back when President Trump was merely candidate Trump, his campaign scheduled a rally within sight of a violent crime. This was not committed by an immigrant. Marcelo Lucero, a legal immigrant from Ecuador, had been ambushed as he was walking home from his job at a dry cleaning shop. Local tough guys stabbed him to death. At the rally, Mr. Trump had a few things to say about neighborhood tough guys.

I can’t believe. I know some of the guys in this room. they’re so tough. Some of the tough guys I know.

He scolded those tough guys for not being tough enough on immigrants. After all, immigrants are invading our country.

I can’t believe you guys would allow that to happen. What the hell, are you getting soft?

They’re getting soft on me, I don’t believe this. Right?

They know what I’m talking about.

Donald Trump, April 14, 2016

It seemed that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer didn’t have a really tough job. Americans had already rejected the anti-immigrant rhetoric that motivated the Trump rallies. Voters had rejected the Trump Wall. Pelosi and Schumer had already appeared on camera with Donald Trump. My President had tried to bully them and they had made him look silly.

They just needed to sit down in the same positions as before. They could chat with each other and with the camera. They had already proven effective doing just that. It did not even occur to me that they would be positioned any other way.

And then they were on screen. What the hell!

At least they were prepared. The message was simple enough. Democrats took border security seriously. But there is a way proposals get passed into law. Legislation is talked about and hashed out. Arguments are looked through for benefits and costs. Would a proposal be effective? Would money be spent wisely? Differences be negotiated and resolved.

So…

Don’t take hostages. Fund the government and work on security. They are separate issues, so don’t tie them together.

Pelosi spoke:

The fact is, on the very first day of this Congress, House Democrats passed Senate Republican legislation to re-open government and fund smart, effective border security solutions.

President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must re-open the government.

Then Schumer:

There is an obvious solution: separate the shutdown from arguments over border security. There is bipartisan legislation – supported by Democrats and Republicans – to re-open government while allowing debate over border security to continue.

There is no excuse for hurting millions of Americans over a policy difference.

But who in the hell put them in front of the camera crowded together ata podium built for one? They had been pushed into an invisible telephone booth. They were the adult version of those two creepy little kids at the end of a hallway in The Shining. They looked like old storybook drawings of Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Somebody should have been fired behind this.

It was the lesson I had learned years before.

Staging shouldn’t matter. But it does, and they know it does, and someone organized it this way in spite of that.

It was all the more painful because the message was a good one, a simple one, one that should have been heard.

The symbol of America should be the Statue of Liberty, not a thirty-foot wall.

So our suggestion is a simple one: Mr. President, re-open the government and we can work to resolve our differences over border security. But end this shutdown now.

Then I saw polling.

President Trump insists former Presidents, federal workers, and freshman Democrats just coming into Congress now support his Wall. It turns out none of that is true. All living former Presidents say he is wrong. Most federal workers do not support him. Freshman Democrats just coming into Congress are unanimous in opposing him.

And after that television wrestling match, Americans blame Mr. Trump for the controversy. About 66% think he’s at fault. Add in those who blame congressional Republicans, and it goes up to 70%. About 25% think Democrats.

So just when it seemed facts wouldn’t matter, they do. And now everyone knows they do.

All things are possible. Perhaps President Trump can find the strength to say no to his television, and the shutdown can be over.

Either way, Tweedledee and Tweedledum are forgiven. You done good.

But, just to be safe, please reassign whoever stuffed you into that invisible phone booth.

In Case You Missed It: Trump’s Lies are Just Big Misunderstandings

This article originally published by our partner, FairandUnbalanced.com.

About Post Author

Burr Deming

Burr is a husband, father, and computer programmer, who writes and records from St. Louis. On Sundays, he sings in a praise band at the local Methodist Church. On Saturdays, weather permitting, he mows the lawn under the supervision of his wife. He can be found at FairAndUNbalanced.com
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5 years ago

This is really long, but I gave myself a few moments and read it, and also have to ask the question if there was ever an age of reason, and if so what the fuck happened to it?

Glenn R. Geist
5 years ago

Dante reserved the 8th circle of Hell for those who tried to predict the future. I don’t think there is a hell of course, but I’ve come to believe that the effort alone is just as unpleasant.

Was there really an age of reason?

Reply to  Glenn R. Geist
5 years ago

In my lifetime the only age of reason I can recall is when I was just a wee lad and didn’t know any better, about anything, except my mum loved me. I think that’s all that mattered all those many years ago.

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