Team Trump: Pandora's Box Opens
It started with the announcement of race-baiter Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist and Counselor to the President and continues with swirling rumors of crazy John Bolton or ghoulish Rudolph Giuliani competing to become President Trump's Secretary of State. Then there's the strangelovean Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn reputed to be considered for National Security Advisor, or other top national security post. (Pardon my use of catchy pejorative labels, but our new president-elect has made them fashionable.) And we ain't seen nothing yet folks. Team Trump has just pried open the weighty lid off Pandora's box in search of beings to manage our government.
Being a life-long Halloween aficionado and having been addicted as a kid to Marvel comic books, my twisted brain can't help but to conjure up some interesting matches between Trump's budding Addams Family of potential appointees and horror fiction. Here goes…
Rudy Giuliani as Nosferatu
The New York Times's Frank Bruni said of Giuliani, he's a "terrifying omnipresence. His expression — part sneer, part glare, all menace — turns small forest creatures to stone. At the sound of his voice, roses drop their petals." Vanity Fair's Dave Holmes referred to Giuliani as a "carnival ghoul." He went on to state, "There is no specific language in the Catechism concerning 'bringing about the actual apocalypse by supporting a wholly unqualified and thin-skinned demagogue just to get your face on camera,' but the teachings on adultery are pretty clear." He was referring, of course, to Rudy's announcing he was divorcing wife #2 at a press conference before actually informing her in person. What a guy! Rudy indeed has morphed from beloved "America's Mayor" to dreaded "America's Ghoul." There's an uncanny resemblance between Rudy and Murnau's Nosferatu, don't you think? Ruferatu is making a shameless full-court press of self-promotion to get Trump to name him as his Secretary of State. A notorious bloodsucker as America's chief diplomat would fit neatly with The Donald's mafia-style extortion-based foreign policy, i.e., demanding "payments" from allies in return for "protection" from the U.S. Go for it, Ruferatu! Huu-ah-a-ah!!
Steve Bannon as The Red Skull
The Anti-Defamation League had the following to say about Bannon: "It is a sad day when a man who presided over the premier website of the Alt Right, a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists - is slated to be a senior staff member in the 'people's house.'" Bannon's ex-wife said of him during divorce proceedings: "He said that he doesn’t like Jews and that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiney brats’ and that he didn't want the girls going to school with Jews." There are other quotes indicating Bannon may be anti-semitic. Hmm. Where there's smoke, there's usually fire.
From Marvel Comics: "Never wavering from the Nazi ideals he has espoused since World War II was still being waged, the Red Skull is the absolute counterpoint to Captain America and provides just about everybody someone to hate."
Don't let Bannon's benign-looking Elton Johnesque face fool you. Just beneath the surface lurks The Red Skull.
John Bolton as Freddy Krueger
Nobody, NOBODY in Trump's fright house scares this writer more than John Bolton. Hands down. To give you a hint of just how unhinged this Yale-graduate-turned-psycho is, Bolton recently stated, "anything's legal" in war. Oh yeah? How about mustard gas? Genocide anyone? Mr. Bolton - please meet Fieldmarshal Goering. In fact, Bolton has yet to find a war he doesn't like - with the exception of Vietnam which he managed to dodge because, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy." Neither did those who'd served. But this scary neo-con enthusiastically supported W's invasion of Iraq and has advocated invading Iran as well. A former USAID contractor who had to deal with Bolton wrote a letter to the Senate after President George W. Bush nominated him to be U.S. ambassador to the UN, describing him as a "madman" and "pathological." The Senate did not confirm him whereupon Bush gave him an 18-month recess appointment. As with Bannon, Bolton's first wife left him, claiming spousal abuse. (What is it about Trump et al. and assaulting women?) That oracle of steady conservative-libertarian wisdom, Senator Rand Paul announced today, "I’ll do whatever it takes to stop someone like John Bolton being Secretary of State."
Believe me, upon encountering the walrus-faced Bolton, Wes Craven's Freddy Krueger would retract his razor claws, wet his pants and flee for his life.
Mike Flynn as General Jack D. Ripper
"I can no longer sit back and allow the Islamic jihadist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
Were Hollywood to re-make Dr. Strangelove today, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn would be a shoo-in to play the Sterling Hayden role of Gen. Jack D. Ripper. Substitute "Islamic jihadism" for "Communist subversion" and voila! you've got Flynn to blather on about the right-wing paranoid wet dream du jour.
A key foreign affairs advisor to Trump, Flynn has asserted he was drummed out of his position as Obama's Defense Intelligence Agency director after little more than a year in office for having used the politically incorrect term "Islamic jihadists" - rather than for creating turmoil and demoralization in that agency, as reported by administration officials. In emails recently released by Wikileaks, Colin Powell referred to Flynn as "right-wing nutty" and a poor leader.
Guess what? Political general Flynn is bandied about for National Security Advisor, Director of National Intelligence, CIA chief, Defense Secretary or some other top national security job. As Gen. Ripper said, "War is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought."
Newt Gingrich as Dr. Doom
Per Marvel Comics, "Dr. Doom can exchange minds with others. He possesses some mystical abilities, such as casting bolts of eldritch energy and invoking mystical entities for additional support. Doom is a genius in physics, robotics, cybernetics, genetics, weapons technology, bio-chemistry, and time travel. He is also self-taught in the mystic arts. Doom is a natural leader, a brilliant strategist, and a sly deceiver."
Did you know that in his failed presidential bid in 2012, a priority plank in Newt Gingrich's political platform was to establish a base on the moon? He's also called for the resurrection of the House Un-American Affairs Committee - spearhead for persecution of alleged communists during the McCarthy political witch hunts in the '50s. Otherwise, Gingrich is best known for shutting down the government for a month in a hissy fit with President Bill Clinton when serving as House Speaker. Moon. Mass shutdowns. Witch hunts. Why, isn't this Dr. Doom after all?
A Trump pet, Gingrich is an idea machine and apocalypsist best suited for worlds beyond us. I propose him to be head of NASA!
Dr. Ben Carson as Dr. Herman Einstein
"You know, you were right about that fellow. He wasn't very bright," says Peter Lorre's character, Dr. Herman Einstein in the 1944 movie, Arsenic and Old Lace. He could have been talking about Dr. Ben Carson. Carson is a brain surgeon. He doesn't believe in evolution. Yes, that's right. He is a "man of science" who believes the world was created in a week. Would you want such a man operating on your brain? I wouldn't. Nor would I want him as head of Health and Human Services or as Surgeon General. During the primaries, Trump attacked the narcoleptic Carson as being "lower energy than Jeb Bush." What did Carson do subsequently? He endorsed his attacker. At heart, Carson is a good natured dolt. And late-breaking news has it that he's stating he's not qualified to be a cabinet head. Hm. Maybe the good doctor isn't as dumb as he seems. Anyway, stay tuned. Trump will name him to something. Hey! How about Special Assistant to the President for Creationism?
Happy belated Halloween everybody!🎃