I always like to give credit where credit is due, awarding recognition in fields of achievement sometimes ignored.
Despite the multiplicity of candidates on the short list of hundreds, my nominee for the dumbest person of the year in the administration prize goes to that dope Donald Trump Jr.
Trump Jr., the president’s namesake and hair apparent, always struck some of us students of stupidity as being dumb as a golf bag. He made his father look like an Einstein.
What impressed the judges most was the secret meeting Donald the Younger took with the shady Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was said to have contacts with the Kremlin, if not the Big Chicken Kiev himself (Putin), but may be in reality just some cocktail waitress near the Kremlin in Red Square with a gift of gab.
Every day, it seemed, there were revelations in the fake press about the number of mystery guests in the Russian Tearoom, as this observer thought of the family executive offices in Trump Tower, judging by the number of Russian lawyers, bankers, oligarchs, and embassy officialdom with access to the Trump Organization samovar.
It had reached eight, according to NBC News, when I stopped following the body count. But I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn participants included the Russian Women’s Olympic Beach Volleyball team. Perhaps even an undercover FBI agent or two.
The way the media was covering what the president called “the Russian thing,” a hoax, like global warming—especially by the failing New York Times and the failing Washington Post in a battle for the Pulitzer Prize in fake news—it was beginning to sound like Trump Tower had become the headquarters of one of those prewar Soviet-American People’s Fraternal Aid Committee for Peace and Brotherhood groups, which sometimes contained as many undercover FBI members as coexistence dupes.
The Trump secret cell meeting with Comrade Natalia and her delegation included almost all of the future president’s men, such dignitaries as campaign manager Paul Manafort, the noted Ukraine election manipulator and, of course, the control freak, Jared Kushner. Just the other day the president’s right-hand son-in-law was throwing his brother-in-law under the bus by telling Congress that “the meeting” was so nothing, so small potatoes, he actually was only passing by Trump Jr.’s office, in effect, on his way to the men’s room, not really taking the meeting.
What was the meeting about?
“Nothing,” Trump the Younger initially told reporters covering the case.
Then, according to Number One Son, it turned out it was all about the Russian ban on baby adoption by US citizens, in retaliation for Congress passing the Magnitsky Act.
Before we could wipe the tears from our eyes about the babies, emails came to light suggesting Trump Jr. expected the meetings to be about the transfer of damaging information against Crooked (“Lock Her Up”) Hillary, which could affect the election outcome.
Holy Father Stalin! That sounded like collusion, da?
Here was the clincher for the Dopey award committee deliberations:
In the spirit of full transparency, and because the New York Times was breaking the story about the secret meeting the next morning, younger Trump released the full email skein.
Donald the Elder expressed full confidence in whatever dumb thing Donald the Junior had done. So much so, he went to the trouble on Air Farce One to write personally his son’s statement to the press, assuring all there was nothing suspicious about nefarious hacking negotiations, the bungling of which won new respect for the recipient of this year’s Dopey. Score one for the value of nepotism.
There is no free lunch in dealing with the Commies. What might a Kremlin expect in return for aiding a Trump administration? Could the price be sanction removal?
I could regale stupidity fans with the title winner’s other exploits in stupidity. To keep this citation on a higher cultural level, I will limit my remarks to observing only his conduct reminds me of another iconic American family, the Corleones. Donald Jr. is the Fredo of the Trump family, which is unfair to Fredo, if you know your Godfather.
You can understand why Father Trump keeps daughter Ivanka by his side, not Junior, at all those big meetings at his day job as president.
I am not suggesting that Fredo Trump register as a foreign agent or lobbyist, although it might not be such a bad idea for the whole family to do so as a precaution.
All of this looks and smells bad to some of us, though not the base. A poll the other day showed that a high percentage of people who voted for Trump do not believe that Donald Jr. even attended the meeting he arranged. As Tony Insolia, my old editor at Newsday, observed, “We have always known that ignorance is bliss.”