Here, Cohen writes about the Donald Trump who has been on display this week in his state visit to England, his brief stop-over to meet the Irish Prime Minister at the Shannon Airport VIP lounge, and then in France at the D-Day 75 year commemoration. Here's some of what he wrote, published in the New York Times:
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"How small he is! Small in spirit, in valor, in dignity, in statecraft, this American president who knows nothing of history and cares still less and now bestrides Europe with his family in tow like some tin-pot dictator with a terrified entourage.
"To have Donald Trump -- the bone-spur evader of the Vietnam draft . . . commemorate the boys from Kansas City and St. Paul who gave their lives for freedom is to understand the word impostor. You can't make a sculpture from rotten wood.
"It's worth saying again. If Europe is whole and free and at peace, it's because of NATO and the European Union; it's because the United States became a European power after World War II; it's because America's word was a solemn pledge; it's because that word cemented alliances that were not zero-sum games but the foundation for stability and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic.
"Of this, Trump understands nothing. Therefore he cannot comprehend the sacrifice at Omaha Beach 75 years ago. He cannot see that the postwar trans-Atlantic achievement -- undergirded by the institutions and alliances he tramples upon with such crass truculence -- was in fact the vindication of those young men who gave everything.
"As Eisenhower, speaking at the Normandy American Cemetery, last resting place of 9,387 Americans, told Walter Cronkite for the 20th anniversary of the D-Day landings: 'These people gave us a chance, and they bought time for us, so that we can do better than we have before.'
"That was a solemn responsibility. For decades it was met, culminating with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Doing better, however, is not using nativism, xenophobia, nationalism and authoritarianism given a nod and a wink by the president of the United States. It's not Brexit, Britain turning its back on the Europe it helped free.
"The American moral collapse personified by Trump is not 'beautiful' or 'phenomenal' or 'incredible' or any of the president's other clunky two-a-penny superlatives. It's sickening and dangerous. . . . [The petty fight he picked with London's Muslim mayor on the eve of his arrival for a state visit in the United Kingdom is but one example cited by Cohen.] . . .
"America is much better than this, much better than an American president who, as the cartoonist Dave Granlund suggested, probably thinks the D in D-Day stands for Donald . . . . [in contrast to]
"Eisenhower, who in that same 20th anniversary interview said that America and its allies stormed the Normandy beaches 'for one purpose only.' It was not to 'fulfill any ambitions that America had for conquest.' No, it was 'just to preserve freedom, [and] systems of self-government in the world.' It was an act, in other words, consistent with the highest ideals of the America idea that Trump and his Republican enablers seem so intent on eviscerating."
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To show just how total is his narcissism, we need look no further than the interview he gave to Laura Ingraham for FoxNews while in Normandy. It was the day of the D-Day commemoration, and as a backdrop for the interview they used a photo shot of the rows of white grave-markers in the American cemetery -- which made it even more inappropriate for Trump to use his interview to trash his enemies, including "Nervous Nancy" Pelosi, who he said is "a nasty, vindictive, horrible person," and Robert Mueller, who he said "made a complete fool of himself."
Near the end of the interview, when it was obvious they were running late, Trump even proudly "took credit" for holding up the beginning of the ceremony, telling Ingraham that he was "proud" of doing that "because it's you," and then heaped praise of the FoxNews interviewer for her good ratings.
To the network's credit, they issued a disclaimer, saying that it was not their interview that held up the opening ceremony, because President and Mrs. Trump were there to greet President Macron when he arrived even later, having been held up by a ceremony concerned with PM Theresa May's last day in office.
OK. Nevertheless, the transcripted dialogue reveals that Trump was quite willing -- he even said "proud" -- to hold up the beginning of the most solemn occasion likely to occur this year in an internationally televised program that was about the sacrifice of allied soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom.
And even if he knew from the beginning that the opening would be delayed by Macron's late arrival, he was willing to let the world think that his mind was, as always, on himself, not on the sacrificed soldiers lying in those graves, not on the dwindling number of elderly veterans who were there for the occasion honoring them.
Fake bone spurs fade in comparison to this little act of venality and narcissism.
Ralph
To the network's credit, they issued a disclaimer, saying that it was not their interview that held up the opening ceremony, because President and Mrs. Trump were there to greet President Macron when he arrived even later, having been held up by a ceremony concerned with PM Theresa May's last day in office.
OK. Nevertheless, the transcripted dialogue reveals that Trump was quite willing -- he even said "proud" -- to hold up the beginning of the most solemn occasion likely to occur this year in an internationally televised program that was about the sacrifice of allied soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom.
And even if he knew from the beginning that the opening would be delayed by Macron's late arrival, he was willing to let the world think that his mind was, as always, on himself, not on the sacrificed soldiers lying in those graves, not on the dwindling number of elderly veterans who were there for the occasion honoring them.
Fake bone spurs fade in comparison to this little act of venality and narcissism.
Ralph
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