16 January 2019

Note From Norm: Even A Republican President Deserves Better

It’s a remarkable thing to accuse a sitting United States President of deliberately working with Russia to harm the very country he was sworn to protect.

Especially since those pointing the fingers at the President are the same people who insisted that American foreign policy should include a “reset” with Russian, and specifically, Vladimir Putin.

This, despite warnings from many quarters, that Putin and Russia were seeking to undermine our interests throughout the globe, and destabilize democracies throughout the world, including our own.

In 2010, Mitt Romney warned America in his book  “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness” of growing threats from China, and a resurgent Russia, intent on destroying the United States.

Then, two years later, during a debate with President Obama, Romney was ridiculed by a President whose failed policies and lack of leadership in the world had brought Putin and Russia back into the geopolitical discussion as a faux Superpower.

“When you were asked, what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said ‘Russia.’ Not Al-Qaeda; you said Russia…And, the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”

Obama supporters, and the mainstream media, crowed at Obama’s glib quip and guffawed that Romney seemed old and archaic in his views of the world.

Yet, the same President who basked in the adulation of his adoring press, also failed on so many fronts of foreign policy that it would not be an unreasonable person who wondered aloud whether his failed foreign policies harmed the very country he was sworn to protect.

The broadside against President Trump as being soft on Russia, colluding with Russia and now, in a remarkable exercise of character assassination, being an agent of Russia, underscores just how partisan and ideological the FBI had become under the Obama Administration.

Whether one agrees with President Trumps decision to fire James Comey, one cannot, with any sense of fairness or balance, fail to understand that this decision was well within his power and authority as President of the United States of America.

It’s true, firing Comey was not Bill Clinton firing the White House Travel Director, but, for all intents and purposes it resulted from the same exercise of Presidential power.

The President’s decision to have conversations with world leaders, whether Putin or others, without having his aides watching and listening to his every move and word may be unusual but does it represent a sinister plot between two world leaders to destroy America?

And, what actual rationale did the FBI have to suddenly decide that any of the decisions or words or actions of the President demanded they initiate an investigation to determine if he was, indeed, a Russian flunky?

The notion that the President is some type of “Manchurian Candidate” recruited by Putin, stage-managed by the KGB, and intent on implementing policies that will destroy America is a great work of fiction.

Yet, this fiction continues to be picked up by the mainstream press and, of course, the President’s political adversaries.

Truth be told, the President has, at times, been his own worst enemy with regard to all this nonsense.

But a President who hasn’t spent a lifetime dealing with the delicacies of politically correct speech, or diplomatic niceties, isn’t an Enemy of the State because he isn’t Barack Obama. Or Hillary Clinton.

Or, for that matter, any Democrat that the mainstream media would have preferred be the President of the United States of America.

Before President Trump was elected President, I made no secret of my discomfort at many of the things the President had said or written.

He continues to say or Tweet things that I think undermine and diminish his efforts to rebuild America’s economy and place in the world.

Yet, a lack of finesse, or good manners or even diplomacy does not make a President an enemy of America.

In the days, weeks and months ahead, Democrats will continue to connect dots where there exists no line of evidence to support their accusations.

It is clear that bringing down this President is the raison d’etre for the new Democratic Majority in the U.S. House.

As a former Prosecutor, I know first-hand that where there’s smoke doesn’t always mean there is a fire.

Yet, in the absence of facts, innuendo will work just fine for Democrats and those in the press who despise the President.

A President, even a Republican President, deserves better.

Americans, Democrats and Republicans, deserve better.