Wearing Your Underwear on the Outside
Yesterday, an immigrant brought to this country at a toddler with his twin brother and who has spent the past twenty years as an officer and gentleman in the U.S. Army (as has his twin brother) was maliciously and wantonly accused by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee of being a disloyal possible double agent for Ukraine. Why was this accomplished and highly decorated war veteran and Lt. Colonel assigned to the National Security Council so slandered? This is a man who was highly vetted and given a high-ranking position based on his outstanding record of service. So what caused this swift reversal of fortune? Testifying against the interests of Donald Trump and thereby showing disloyalty during a time of an authoritarian cult of personality.
Today, a man called a “a really good man and a great American” by President Trump, who just a month ago was hoping he would testify, one Ambassador Gordon Sondland, has divulged his awareness and inadvertent involvement in the infamous Ukrainian Quid Pro Quo and has directly linked it to the stated commands by President Trump. Boom! Cable news has said that President Trump has delayed his planned departure to some appointment or other via Marine 1 helicopter by forty minutes or more, implying that even Trump is riveted to his TV to see what else his amigo Sondland will say next. The third Amigo, Secretary Perry as well as Veep Pence are already issuing denials to the testimony, so it’s reasonable to expect that the White House will cast adrift this “really good man and great American”. Hell, the man had worn his underwear on the outside for El Jefe for a few years now, but now he was starting to soil his underwear, outside or not.
If you recall that great and funny Woody Allen movie Bananas, made in 1971, Woody, playing activist Fielding Mellish, goes to the Latin American nation of San Marcos to fight with the rebels and eventually becomes the dictator of the country. This farce has a great line where the old dictator declares that everyone in the country must change their underwear every half hour and that the police needed to be able to verify compliance, so everyone needed to begin wearing their underwear on the outside. The absurdity of the movie abounds, and the notion of arbitrary abuse of power taking on ridiculous regulations that defy logic and impose themselves on the populace for the pleasure of the autocrat are the point. President Trump was 25 when Bananas was released and as a young New Yorker in tune with pop culture, the chances are he saw the movie and laughed at its humor along with the rest of us. I wonder whether he would laugh as loud if he saw the movie today. Perhaps he would say that it is stupid and not worthy or watching. Perhaps he would see nothing relatable to his current regime and approach to running our nation. If someone were to suggest that the Trump administration is operating as though this is a “banana republic”, he would most likely smirk and not understand what you were talking about. Such is the way for most dictators. Deny, deny, deny and then distract.
Well, it’s funny that the one group of people that are supposed to wear their underwear on the outside are superheroes (think Superman). As I sit and listen to the impeachment testimony I am starting to imagine that the Three Amigos (Sondland, Volker and Perry), the first two of which have now testified several times (revising and revising as they go and hear other evidence coming to light) all were proudly wearing their underwear on the outside for Senor Trump. I suspect Perry, with his new coke-bottle, librarian, spectacles might not be aware whether he even has underwear on at all. Tim Morrison is also clearly wearing some Jockeys over his big boy pants. These people, in the best of concentration camp guard manner, are all claiming that they were just following orders and that once they fully understood what was what were appalled and not in agreement whatsoever in whatever was going on. They put their underwear on the way “the boss” told them to and never bothered to question why.
As the day has gone by today and the Sondland testimony prattles on under Democratic and Republican questioning, it’s a true game of Pong with the blip (Ambassador Sondland) bouncing back and forth with increasing speed. Trying to tread the line the way he is attempting to do is worthy of a Wallenda wire-walk and the fall to the ground is just as deadly for a man of his age. It seems that the Ambassador thinks that he can keep both sides happy so that he is neither a candidate for indictment nor the scourge of the Republican Party, but what he seems most likely to accomplish is the feat of pissing off both sides by being too cute by a lot. I see that he is now being referred to as “The Gordon Problem” and that he is finding that all very funny. I’m wondering if he will be laughing when the cameras stop and the dust settles. I suspect this particular hotelier will find himself in a very lonely place with lots of legal costs for years to come.
Meanwhile, Mr. High-Pants himself is busy saying two things; he is repeating over and over that “I want no quid pro quo, just tell Zelinsky to do the right thing” and he is saying that no one can say what was in his mind and just feeling, assuming, presuming or interpreting, that all that everyone can look to are his words. Naturally, he is thinking about the sort of words quoted above, but he has forgotten that on the White House lawn he is also on video saying that what he wants is for Zelinsky to initiate an investigation of Joe Biden. As Andrew Weismann, the lead Mueller prosecutor puts it that is called in the law an admission. Bam! No amount of underwear can help High-Pants avoid the racing stripe he put on his own tidy whities.