Keeping an uncivil tongue

When others go low, he goes for the family jewels.

President Trump says he is bypassing this year’s Super Bowl being played on the West Coast — too far to go, says the man on Air Force One. A shame because even violent sports like football demand fair play.

The Seattle Seahawks likely will start Tariq Woolen, even though their cornerback’s unsportsmanlike conduct almost cost his team the Super Bowl. With the Seahawks nursing a 31-20 lead in the qualifying game, Woolen broke up a pass, forcing the Rams to punt the ball away — except Woolen negated his great play by taunting his opponents. Stupid, classless — and against the rules. The refs threw the penalty flag and returned the ball to the other team plus 15 yards. On the very next play, a Rams receiver caught a touchdown pass (over Woolen, as it turned out).

The NFL defines taunting as “acts or words that may cause ill will between teams.”

Why do we expect so much less from the President of the United States? Here is the Commander In Chief punching down to — and threatening — a musician (!!!) for criticizing government policy. Bruce Springsteen “is a pushy, obnoxious JERK. … mentally incompetent … dumb as a rock … [who] ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT.”

Does the narcissist in chief even comprehend the irony that his ALL-CAPS rant is a self-description?

What is the point of demeaning good neighbor Canada as “the 51st state”?

“Trump’s jibes are wearing thin for many of Europe’s leaders,” the BBC reports. “Many people – from Brussels to Berlin to Paris – will have found his [Davos] speech to be insulting, overbearing and inaccurate.”

Setting the tone

Reverse TDS sufferers, eager to prove their sycophancy, instruct us RINOs to whistle past their man’s graveyard of manners and see the big picture: secure borders, taking out Iran’s nukes, a booming stock market. Laudable achievements, all. But what does it say that Tom Homan makes a better case (as one example) for immigration enforcement than the whiner in chief?

There is a bullying coarseness to everything the President touches and not all the gold gilt in Washington can hide it. His gratuitous bad mouthing is rubbing America’s political discourse raw. Taking their cues, MAGA demands life imprisonment for Don Lemon, deportation for Ilhan Omar, handcuffs for Barack Obama. Make America Angry Again has enemies, not adversaries. Disagreement is treason.

American presidents set a tone. Some do fireside chats, this one pollutes the atmosphere with vengeful rants. A nation’s tone — the way it talks about itself and to others — is more substantial than any big or beautiful bill. It is the milieu permitting Alex Pretti to kick out the taillights on an immigration enforcement vehicle; the impetus for Greg Bovino to hit the streets as if Minneapolis were Omaha Beach. It is the fuel that burns down Kenosha, the oxygen for chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”

Tone, spirit, zeitgeist— call it what you will. The 19th Century British conservative Edmund Burke used the term “manners.”

Manners, he wrote, “are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend. The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.” — David Brooks in the NY Times

‘The greatest character of the age’

The first president (and still the greatest, Mr. Trump) thought it important to set the right tone. “George Washington’s first days in office were dominated by seemingly trivial symbolic issues that spoke to larger questions about the character of the new government,” Ron Chernow records. He would be called “Mr. President,” not “Your Highness.”

Even in death, Washington never lapsed into self-absorption and remained singularly attuned to other people’s moods, showing the same sensitivity that had made him a uniquely effective political leader. … Washington died in a manner that befit his life: with grace, dignity, self possession and a manifest regard for others. — Washington, a Life, Ron Chernow

Blaska’s Bottom Line: A truly great President summons our better angels and binds up our wounds. They do not cripple the national psyche with a thousand points of petulance. The likes of Ron Johnson, the Speaker of the House, and every local Republican club need to throw the yellow penalty flag.

Do YOU keep a civil tongue?