Trump acted unpresidential on former FBI Director Comey with a fusillade of tweets and presidential on Syria with a well-delivered speech to the Nation. Bipolar, switching seamlessly from attacks on Syria to attacks on Comey.
Let’s start with the good part, Trump’s presidential speech:
There was not one word out of order, it was a pitch-perfect speech. You may feel such an attack on three Syrian sites was about as useful as a band-aid on a moral wart, but it is so rare to see him act this way that it’s worth nothing.
An Unpresidential Twitterer
Now let’s move to the bad part, an unpresidential POTUS tweeting a series of rabid tweets about “slime ball” Comey. That series came on top of the incredible one, a blast of insults, sent out a day earlier, on 13 April – a tweet I already remarked on in a previous Trump Watch piece (that happened to be on another subject entirely, Trump’s commendable trade policy reversal, trying to rejoin the TPP, the trade pact against China).
Here’s the first tweet of this new unpresidential series:
Unbelievably, James Comey states that Polls, where Crooked Hillary was leading, were a factor in the handling (stupidly) of the Clinton Email probe. In other words, he was making decisions based on the fact that he thought she was going to win, and he wanted a job. Slimeball!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2018
The most striking statement Comey made against Trump is this one on ABC TV, that Trump is “morally unfit” to be President:
Trump concluded his series of tweets evoking Comey’s “Crooked Hillary exoneration”, saying that “he [Comey], McCabe and the others, committed many crimes” – a stunning accusation coming from a sitting US president. But perhaps his most telling tweet is the penultimate in the series:
Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2018
The worst FBI Director in history? This is a dangerous insult for the one uttering it. Could Trump be the worst POTUS in history? Is he losing it?
Also, it doesn’t help that at the same time he was tweeting his frustration against Comey, he went ahead with a full pardon for Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff of Vice-President Cheney under the Bush administration, who was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury in 2007, in connection with an investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Palme.
How strange to watch Trump managing to mix important decisions with undignified, petty obsessions. And thanks to Twitter and Trump’s unrestrained use of the platform, we get an unparalleled close look at how his mind (and emotions) work. Or should I say how his emotions “roil” him?
It seems nobody ever told Trump that the best course of action for a public figure is to ignore criticism (or perhaps he doesn’t listen). Because, whether founded or unfounded, criticism from the public always withers away. The real worry, though, is that the ugly little things in his nature will overcome him one day and cause him to take dangerous decisions with devastating consequences…
UPDATE: He just can’t let go of Comey. Here’s yet another tweet, out on 18 April:
Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2018
Of course, he’s back on the “phony Russia investigation”. Can Trump ever managed to stay the course and act presidential?
