Plenty of hot air to go around

Published 3:30 pm Tuesday, October 1, 2019

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Even though autumn has arrived, there is still plenty of hot air to go around. If you think I’m talking about that kind of air that dries the peanuts after they are dug or helps to open the cotton, think again. It’s that hot air that blows excessively throughout the District of Columbia!

If it were possible to transfer that sort of hot air to South Georgia, we could dig peanuts in the morning and pick them in the afternoon. Or just put a device on the mouth of Congressman Adam Schiff and have him blow up all the balloons at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

The latest brouhaha is over a telephone call between two presidents and a whistleblower who didn’t actually hear the conversation, but some of his friends told him about it.

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There was a game we used to play where kids formed a circle and a conversation was whispered into a first ear. Then the first ear told the second ear and so on down the line until the entire circle had heard “something.” Remember the game and how much change occurred between the beginning and the end?

That’s called hearsay. What you hear from an original source can change dramatically as it is told to another. Hearsay is not admissible in a trial, but I guess it’s okay when it comes to impeaching a president. After all, impeaching a president happens so often…no big deal!

If getting rid of a president is the goal, why not simply put up a great candidate who will appeal to the better angels of the people and defeat the unwanted president at the ballot box. Good idea, but too old fashioned. It’s a new day and time, and, besides, what “great” candidate is there to put up?

The Democrats are taking a risk in this strategy, in my opinion. They could win the battle or they could lose. They have thrown a lot of mud against the wall in these past years and none has stuck. If this impeachment inquiry gains no traction, they lose.

Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 and stunned us all, especially the Democrats. To call this current president a “bull in the china shop,” for Dems, is too kind. Trump upset their apple carts and they can’t let it go. One of their representatives, Al Green of Texas, might have let the cat out of the bag when he said, “I’m concerned if we don’t impeach this president, he will be re-elected.” In other words, they are afraid of four more years of Donald Trump.

At the same time, they’re having a tough time choosing a candidate and an agenda that can defeat Trump at the ballot box. Maybe they can pull a fast one and not have to face him in the 2020 election.

The main problem with their strategy seems to be that Donald Trump is not willing to “go gentle into that good night,” as Welshman poet Dylan Thomas wrote. That’s been their problem all along.

President Trump has described himself as a counter-puncher. In other words, you hit him, he hits back and, most of the time, his counter-punch is just as hard if not harder. That’s not always what we like to see in our presidents. We like to think of our presidents as being above the fight.

I believe this current president is going to be remembered as, either, a president made for the difficult times in which we find ourselves, or, the president who made the times more difficult. That will be the crux of his re-election.