On Donald Trump, January 6, Barack Obama, John McCain, Nicholas Daniloff, Rick Barry, Mitzi Gaynor, and more
There are people who believe that things are “inside jobs.” For example, 9/11 was an “inside job” — the attacks were committed, or engineered, by the U.S. government. I have a dear friend who believes this. January 6, too, people believe was an “inside job.” Lately, a meme has been going around social media, showing the storming of the Capitol and the words “January 6 will go down in history as the day the government staged a riot.”
“So what?” you say. “The world is full of confused people.” You’re right. But you know who retweeted, or “re-truthed,” that meme about January 6? Donald Trump. Who was president of the United States that day. And who may well be president again next January.
This matters. At least it matters to some of us. And that is why we think Trump is spectacularly unfit to be president.
Trump, said Mitch McConnell, “has every characteristic you would not want a president to have.” McConnell — the Republican leader in the Senate — has endorsed Trump for president. I think of a line attributed to JFK: “Sometimes party loyalty asks too much.”
At the same time, the persistent truth-telling of McConnell — about Putin, about the 2020 election, about January 6, about Orbán — is a bright spot in GOP politics.
Elon Musk, too, peddles the line about January 6 as an “inside job.” It matters with Trump, it matters with Musk. The latter is the richest man in the world, by some calculations. He is powerful. He owns and controls X (as he renamed Twitter).
Sanity at the highest levels matters. So does the lack of it.
• At a campaign event last Wednesday, Trump said that January 6 was primarily a “day of love.” Bear in mind: More than a thousand people have been convicted of the attack on Congress, with about 350 cases pending. Some 140 police officers were attacked.
Trump and other Republicans call the January 6 convicts and defendants “patriots” and “political prisoners.” After October 7, Trump started to call them “hostages.” He has pledged to pardon them.
They could be sprung in a few months.
In February 2022, Senator McConnell had had more than enough revisionism about January 6. Talking perfectly straight, he said, “We saw what happened. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.”
• A headline: “Trump compares jailed Capitol rioters to Japanese internment during World War II.” (Article here.) Another obscenity, one piling on top of the other.
• Here is a report from Thursday: “Ex-funeral home owner pleads guilty to assaulting police and journalists during Capitol riot.” Another for Trump’s list of pardonees.
• Lately, we have all been brushing up on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Listen to the ex-president, and possible (probable?) future president:
“I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Can you imagine? Those were the old days, when they had tough politicians, have to go back that long. Think of that, 1798. Oh, it’s a powerful act.”
It has been invoked only three times: by President Madison during the War of 1812; by President Wilson during World War I; and by FDR during World War II. Indeed, the act was the authority behind the internment of Japanese Americans.
In 1988, the federal government officially apologized for this, and paid reparations.
We’ll see . . .
• Trump speaks of “enemies within.” Obviously, there are enemies within — always have been, always will be. I think of the rioters and insurrectionists on January 6. They physically attacked the Congress for the purpose of stopping a constitutional process — which they succeeded in doing, for several hours.
In your book, do these men and women qualify as “enemies within”? Or are they, as Trump says, “patriots”?
People have starkly different ideas of patriotism.
• As you can read here, a Musk-funded group is running ads portraying Harris as pro-Israel — and anti-Israel. The ads target different audiences. Crafty politics, right? Still, it smells, at least according to my nose.
I’m reminded of the legendary predicament of Spencer Abraham, the Michigan politician: Arabs thought he was Jewish, Jews thought he was Arab. (He is of Lebanese descent.)
Do you know this old joke? A man is walking late at night through Belfast (during the Troubles). He feels a gun at his back. The voice behind him says, “Catholic or Protestant?” Thinking quickly, the man says, “Neither. I’m Jewish.” The voice behind him says, “I must be the luckiest Arab in all of Northern Ireland.”
• On the campaign trail for Harris, Barack Obama said,
“John McCain and I didn’t always agree, but he understood that some values transcended parties. He knew that if we got in the habit of bending the truth to suit political expediency or party orthodoxy, our democracy will not work. John McCain had character.”
I appreciate the sentiments. But, for me, it’s a little late.
• Once again, the Israeli military has killed a terror big — the latest leader of Hamas. “You can’t kill an ideology,” people say. “You can’t defeat an ideology with arms.” That is true. But I borrow from Bret Stephens, with whom I discussed this subject in a podcast last February. (For a post of mine on our podcast, go here.)
In 1945, there were lots of Nazis in Germany and other countries. True-believing Nazis and Nazi sympathizers. These types still exist. The Allies could not drive Nazism from people’s hearts and minds. But they could demonstrate something to them: “That way will lead to a dead-end. It will leave you poor, despairing, and wrecked.” Therefore, “give it up,” or, “don’t count on it.” “Try something else.”
This is very, very important work to do, and I salute the Israelis for doing it, hard as it is.
• Did you hear about the lady in New Jersey who tore down Greek flags outside a Greek restaurant because she thought they were Israeli flags? One should pray for stupid enemies — but they can still be dangerous . . .
Educated at TikTok U, this woman scream at terrified employees as she rips down flags…only to learn it was the flag of Greece, not Israel. pic.twitter.com/zODDVrx8Eq
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) October 16, 2024
“My bad.”
• “Nicholas Daniloff, 89, Dies,” reads the headline over this obit; “Reporter’s Arrest in Moscow Ignited a Firestorm.” In 1986, Daniloff was a correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, and he was arrested — taken hostage — by the Kremlin. I thought of him immediately in March 2023 when Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested — taken hostage — by the Kremlin.
In a post, I recalled a speech given by George P. Shultz, the secretary of state, three days after Daniloff was arrested. The speech was at Harvard, and I was in the audience.
I know that I’ve come to the right place to voice a message of outrage at the detention of Nick Daniloff, Harvard class of 1956. The cynical arrest of an innocent American journalist reminds us of what we already know: Our traditions of free inquiry and openness are spurned by the Soviets, showing the dark side of a society prepared to resort to hostage-taking as an instrument of policy.
Shultz continued,
Let there be no talk of a trade for Daniloff. We and Nick have ruled that out. The Soviet leadership must find the wisdom to settle this case quickly in accordance with the dictates of simple human decency and of civilized national behavior.
Of course, there was a trade. As there would be for Gershkovich (and 15 other prisoners of Moscow at the same time). Daniloff was imprisoned for 13 days, Gershkovich for a year and four months.
For the post I wrote about this year’s trade, go here.
In that previous post, from March 2023, I said,
For 20 years, people of a certain type have told me, “Today’s Russia is not the Soviet Union, you know!” I have typically responded, “I know. Does Putin?” There was sympathy for the Kremlin in the ’80s (all around me); there is sympathy for the Kremlin now.
• Rick Barry was a great basketball player, an NBA star, who played for several teams from 1965 to 1980. He is best known for his years with Golden State (1972 to 1978). Today, he is 80, and still an athlete. Still a top competitor. An article in the New York Times is headed, “How an 80-year-old basketball Hall of Famer thrives as a pickleball contender.”
Amazing.
• Also amazing: “Massachusetts golfer hits hole-in-one on final swing of high-school career.” Yup. Owen McCall, age 17, reflected as follows: “What I was thinking about when I was teeing up was the same thing I was thinking on the first hole. Don’t mess up. Don’t do anything too awful.”
The news article whose headline I have quoted is here. It includes a video of the magical strike, the capstone ace.
• “Mitzi Gaynor, star of ‘South Pacific,’ dies at 93.” (That obit is here.) You know what I didn’t know about her? She was born — get ready for it — Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber. Wow. What a handle. And what a talented lady.
• In Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Orchestra and associated forces performed Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 under the orchestra’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. For my review, go here. It involves some interesting issues.
And I bid you a good week, my friends. Thanks for joining me.
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