Sunday Mornings
If you read Trump World often, it’s probably a surprise that I am a steady Fox News Sunday viewer. It’s on my “Sunday List”. I start with Ali Velshi on MSNBC, move onto George Stephanopoulos on ABC, then Chris Wallace on Fox, and finish with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. But I don’t just sit and watch four hours straight. I usually write a blog, balance the books, get a workout and have breakfast during that time too.
Fox News Sunday is well done, and reasonably dispassionate. And you can tell why regular Fox viewers aren’t all that fond of Chris Wallace. He lives up to the “fair and balanced” theme that Fox so frequently fails to achieve. It helps to “balance” my viewing, and I know what to expect from the Fox commentators (Brit Hume being the worst). I need to hear what “the other side” is hearing.
This Week
On Fox this week, US Surgeon General Jerome Adams talked about the transition to the Biden Administration. He used a track “pass the baton” analogy, talking about how we need to have a “clean” exchange, particularly when it comes to the COVID pandemic response.
And on Meet the Press Hugh Hewitt was on the panel. He is a conservative radio commentator on the Salem Network who was a “Never Trumper” until after the 2016 election. Then he swallowed the “Kool Aid” and has been a Trump apologist ever since.
This week, he rattled off a Trump 2024 (that’s right – 2024) campaign spiel as justification for the President’s failure to offer the common courtesy of a concession. Hewitt claimed that the future candidacy justified delegitimizing the incoming President. It’s the first time in a while I’ve wanted to throw something at Meet the Press.
Track
And it dawned on me: I am an “expert” in both of those areas.
Let’s start with relay exchanges. I was a track coach (still one in my head) for forty years. One of our team’s specialties was in taking solid but not great sprinters and teaching them amazing exchanges to beat more talented teams. I watched the alternative: the spectacle of the US Olympic 4×100 Relay team, the most talented in the world, disqualified year after year because they couldn’t complete an exchange.
As my assistant coach for sprints would say: “They had one job – make the exchange”. But they didn’t, and we got to watch the agony of the fastest men in the world sobbing on the field.
So the trick was to set up a simple system that allowed the incoming runner to maintain his speed of almost twenty miles an hour, while the outgoing runner got up to that speed and seamlessly accepted the baton. The baton never slowed down as it moved from one to the other. It took a group of talented kids to sixth place in the state meet.
Our National Exchange
And we know that the “exchange” between the outgoing and incoming President should be the same, because the United States cannot afford to “slow down” in the middle. The rest of the world won’t wait for a “bump and run” or worse, a dropped baton. Think about what’s happening now in Iran, or Afghanistan, or with the pandemic.
There is a system designed to keep America moving. But it takes both the outgoing and incoming Presidents to agree to do it. George W. Bush did for Barack Obama. And Obama offered the same to Trump, though Trump decided it wasn’t “a thing” for his team. They took over at a standstill, then managed to go backwards for the first few weeks. Remember the inauguration count, and the Muslim Ban?
Titles
I have experience with “titles” as well. How important is it for the outgoing President to recognize the legitimacy of the incoming President? It’s all about the 72 million Americans who voted for Mr. Trump. If they follow his lead in denying the 2020 results, then Joe Biden will struggle to “unite” America – especially when it comes to ending the COVID pandemic.
I was hired as the “Dean of Students” at Watkins Memorial High School. My job was to be the primary “discipline guy”, the first person a kid in trouble would see. As that “guy”, I spent a lot of time on the phone with parents, who often weren’t particularly glad to hear from the school.
Two years into the job, the Principal called me in and told me the District wanted to change my job title from Dean of Students to “Teacher on Special Assignment”. It was a contractual/legal thing he said. I said no.
What’s in a title? So let’s say I caught a kid smoking dope in the locker room. I call the parent. They’re angry with their kid, angry with the school, and angry to be interrupted at work. And in all of that anger, I would have to explain what a “teacher on special assignment” was. It wasn’t going to work. The conversation went to the Superintendent, and included the possibility of me going back to my former life as a Government teacher. In the end we agreed that I would remain in my current assignment: as the Dean of Students.
Disqualified
Like it or not, Joe Biden is the next President of the United States. But it would be a whole lot easier for him to govern, and better for the country, if the current President simply acknowledged it. It would give Biden a fair shot. Barack Obama had Trump to the White House within days of the Clinton’s defeat. And Secretary Clinton herself urged us to support the new President.
The Presidential “exchange” looks like it’s going to be a disaster. The future President is going to be hamstrung from the start. It’s not good for Biden, but more importantly, it’s not good for America.
Trump’s not just dropping the baton. He’s throwing it off the track.
