Assessing His Lardship's speech

The lawyers will fight over the legality and constitutionality of President Trump’s national emergency declaration. What his legal team can’t salvage is the American people’s assessment of his ability to do his job. Trump’s rambling and disjointed explanation for his decision is a perfect example why so many independents and former Republicans find him unacceptable.

The performance really has to be watched to be believed. China, North Korea, Britain and trade policy found their way into the talk. One word seemed to spark a thought and off he would go chasing it, like a dog catching the scent of a truffle and wandering off into a forest in search of it.

  WaPo

I'll take their word for it. I'm not going to watch it.

With [a president's words], he or she can move nations and shift debates. Words can inspire trust between hostile leaders, such as the trust between Reagan and his Soviet adversary Mikhail Gorbachev. With words, a president can move mountains and change the world.

If words fail, a president is left with two weapons to achieve his goals: will and force. The Constitution constrains the president’s ability to achieve much with either of these tools, as the men who wrote it were well aware that these twin brothers are forever the weapons of potential tyrants even if patriots can use them to great effect in times of crisis.

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Even the modern tyrants whom the president too often unctuously praises demonstrate more facility with language and more attention to governing detail than does he.

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The moderate independents and former Republicans who have opposed the president look at these displays with disgust. They are disproportionately college-educated, and if there is one thing our universities instill, it is facility with and respect for the use of words. A leader who can’t string together an original coherent paragraph loses these voters’ respect.

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Their defection gave the Democrats the House. Their votes will determine who becomes president in two years. Even if the Democrats nominate someone whose views trouble them greatly, they won’t hold their nose and vote for Trump a second time if they can’t respect him in the first place.

They may be right in that opinion. My own 87-year-old mother admitted the other day that she voted for Trump because she didn't want a woman president (sadly, a common sentiment in our rural Missouri region), but if the next election pits a woman against Trump, she says she'll have to vote for the woman.