President Trump: The buck stops before me

One of the things I enjoy the most about president Trump is his seemingly infinite ability to never hold himself accountable for anything. He loves to start a public uproar by prefacing his comments with phrases that allow him to claim he never said what he said as I have written about before. This is maybe the one thing he is a master at because it gets people so worked up that they go overboard with the name-calling of him that he then has an excuse to do that other thing he loves doing, something he calls counter punching, but we call attacking. Journalists, celebrities, and political opponents continually fall for this old trick.

However, there are times this tactic either does not work or cannot be employed and this is where we get to see him unleash new terminology like Fake News that is quickly used by his surrogates while analyzed to no end by talking heads.

However, shortly after giving what many called an excellent speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, Trump was attacked for employing the widow of a dead Navy Seal who died in what most now considered a poorly planned and executed raid just five days into the Trump presidency. Now I am not about to say I believe this was a death that was about nothing more than a president anxious to look like a badass in the eyes of his doubters. It’s timing did seem odd and I doubt very much his predecessor wanted to leave Donald with a chance to make himself look like he was a leader who could get things done in the Middle East.

There is a reason Obama did not carry out this plan and that has more to do with the risks involved, the likelihood for success, and the unnecessary loss of human life, all of which played out under President Trigger Finger.

So how does Donny Boy explain this major screw up away?  “The buck stops before me.”

That’s right, this was all Obama’s fault because the plan was already in place before Trump was in office. He was merely following the lead Obama would have followed had he had another week in office.

It use to drive me nuts whenever an Obama supporter would explain well into the president’s second term he was still having to deal with Bush’s mess, but to go so far and blame the loss of not just an American soldier, but the lives of innocent children and women on the person before you because that person had enough sense to know when not to conduct a raid is proof enough we now have a president who will never hold himself up to accountability.

In less than a month and a half, we have seen that the buck stops before Trump, to the left of Trump, to his right, and anyone in front or behind him, but never in his lap. Maybe his greatest accomplishment to date has been his announcing he will not attend the White House Correspondents Dinner because not even the great Mr. Trump can tweet enough snappy responses to the lampooning he will face.

We have already seen Trump was not wrong to hire the likes of Michael Flynn or Jeff Sessions because how was he to know about their dealings with Russia? Will he cast aside son in law Jared Kushner who is now in the crosshairs of the ever-expanding media investigation of Russia and their connection to Trump? In fact, Trump probably loves the media being behind this since he cannot see fit to let a truly outside group investigate this growing problem. It allows him to tell the public he is the victim of a left wing media conspiracy.

Maybe this all sounds like I am bashing a man I should be supporting because he has the most difficult job to do on the planet. That’s not the case. I am bashing a man who chooses to make the most difficult job in the world all the more difficult by trying to spin an ever expanding web of lies, deception, and possibly betrayal, something no other president since Nixon has gone to such lengths to do.

I am bashing a man who has already placed this nation at risk for a lack of legitimate leadership at a time when we have plenty of problems, both internal and external, that need addressing. He has created this atmosphere himself and it is not as if he is the sole problem. You can bet if Trump were forced out of office, there would still be concerns with Mike Pence and his failure to adhere to laws and regulations. If Hillary’s poor use of an email server was a crime, shouldn’t the same be true for the VP?

So while our president writes the book on The Art of Not Being Presidential, we need to look long and hard at how this mess will be cleaned up and who exactly is going to be tasked with the job. The White House may be under the control of the GOP, however, it is a tenuous hold at best. Democrats are not the only party reeling out of control or facing a lack of direction. However, they can’t take hold of the White House until 2021. We are just a drop in the bucket into the first, and perhaps only term, of Donald Trump. No, this is all on the GOP to fix.

As they say at stores, “You break it, you buy it.” In this case, who is interested in purchasing a broken GOP? One thing for sure, whoever it is, he or she will not be able to say the buck stops before him and that alone may be enough to turn off anyone from what is looking like a horrible task to take on.