President Trump has announced he wrote to North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un cancelling his June summit because “tremendous anger” has been displayed by the North Korean side. This is related somehow to some North Korean underling referring to Vice President Pence as “ignorant and stupid,” a glaring diplomatic redundancy that shows the North Koreans are not sweet at all.
What are we to make of this?
In a normal political universe, we would be sad because a chance to bring a dollop of peace to the Peninsula would have been lost. Also, all that great and ridiculous speculation about Nobel prizes can just shut down now because it was never real in the first place and just because Obama got one doesn’t mean…oh, wait, maybe that was the point! He was just trying to convince the Nobel committee he should get one, too! The next thing will probably be a move on his part to get the Nobel committee to withdraw Obama’s, although that will never happen.
What’s it all prove?
With President Trump, you just can ‘t tell because he is such a poop it’s hard to say what anything means, you know? We have now run the full cycle of rhetoric, from early threats to rain down thunder on the North to lovey-dovey proclamations of a brilliant future and now, this!
I suggest we build in what used to be called a “mandatory stall” on dubious stories back in my UPI days (in the neolithic era) when you just weren’t certain enough to flip the switch that sent the story (those were, indeed, the old old days.) You could hold the thing there on paper tape for as long as you wanted so you could use it whenever you felt certain enough to use it. Generally, you wrote stories like that so vaguely that the time element was fudged six ways for Sunday.
Then something would firm up the story in your head and the world would know, “Man found in southern Pennsylvania said to live on air!” And go from there, Or whatever it was. Clearly, the president is no longer a good source on anything. He changes his mind with such fluidity, and lies so easily, it’s impossible to tell what is going on.
So, let’s assume from here on out that nothing is happening until it happens! How hard is that?
While we are at it, the need for stories that predict what is going to happen given certain realities has evaporated because there are no “certain realities” we can point to. So what’s the point with that?
All this has a bright side.
We will not have to read any stories by foolish journalists who drop in for the event about the stoic nature of the North Koreans and how they love their leaders. Neither will we have to read about what a festering cesspool the place is, or how its hotels are just waiting to burst into flames or anything else.
In brief, a lovely June is on the horizon.
Enjoy, swinish lackey of American imperialism!
Madigan’s Gleaner 