It didn’t take long to deface The Office of the
Presidency, celebrity triviality “trumping” expertise and dignity. To the victor belong the spoils and it is no
more in evidence than the recent White House fête personally hosted by Donald
Trump, his guests being Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent and Kid Rock, whoever the
latter two are. Supposedly, Sarah
invited Ted and Kid because Jesus was busy.
During their four hour run of the White House including a white china dinner
they apparently discussed “health, fitness, food, rock ’n’ roll, Chuck Berry
and Bo Diddley, secure borders, the history of the United States, guns,
bullets, bows and arrows, North Korea, [ and ]Russia.” It is reassuring to know our President is
getting such good advice.
According to NPR, Mr. Nugent described the visit as
follows: "Well well well looky looky here boogie chillin', I got your Shot
Heard Round The World right here in big ol greazya— Washington DC where your 1
& only MotorCity Madman Whackmaster StrapAssasin1 dined with President
Donald J Trump at the WhiteHouse to Make America Great Again! Got that?"
For a fuller account of the symbolic desecration of the
White House with some official White House photographs go to Sarah Palin’s website. This includes a photograph of the
three mocking the portrait of former first lady Hillary Clinton. According to the New York Times, an unnamed person “asked the three to extend their
middle fingers beneath the portrait. ‘I
[Mr. Nugent] politely declined,’ he said. ‘Let the juxtaposition speak for
itself.’”
Meanwhile, apropos to this topic, a recent Palm Beach Post cover story revealed the
contributions to Donald Trump‘s inaugural committee and not surprisingly, some
of the larger contributors are right here in the Palm Beach area, the home of
the so-called Southern White House (might as well be the White House given the
extent of his time here). The leading
donor in this immediate area was billionaire Chris Cline whose private company has
more than three billion tons of coal reserves.
No wonder he was happy to throw in $1million to the inaugural
festivities. Presumably such contributions assures a place in the new swamp. It is truly a plutocracy of self-serving popular culture or corporate elitists.
Jim Wright, the author of the Stonekettle Station blog has written a related essay on this topic,The Hubris of Ignorance. Wright used to write obsessively in his blog
but over time has turned more to Twitter for his incisive jabs. Thankfully, he’ll still post a lengthy,
thoughtful essay. This is must reading
from an ex-military man who sees the world, and the administration, for what it
is. A brief quote from his most recent
entry summarizes this issue of expertise (or the lack of it) and “the cultivation
of intelligence”:
The Founding
Fathers weren’t amateurs
The men who freed this country from King
George and then went on to forge a new nation were intellectual elites, the
educated inheritors of The Renaissance and products of the Early Modern Age.
They were able to create a new government because they were experts in
government, educated in war and politics and science and religion and economics
and social structures and all the hundreds of other things it takes to build a
nation instead of tear one down.
Unlike their
foolish descendants, the Founders knew that liberty and democracy and good
government take far more than shallow patriotism.
Good government
takes intellect, education, experience, curiosity, and a willingness to
surround leadership with expert advice and support.
More than anything,
it takes the cultivation of intelligence instead of pandering to the lowest
common denominator.
