Does anyone remember the bulldog and pal cartoon?
Remember the cartoon that features a big, hulking bulldog (Spike) and a yappy little sidekick who is forever exploiting the big dog's presence? The yappy one is always strutting around saying "Yeah, Spike - it's you and me. Right Spike? You and me, right Spike right?" while trying to act the part of a bullying big dog using the intimidating presence of the bulldog to cow whoever it was the yappy dog was trying to impress.
Today's yappy little dog was J.D. Vance, playing bulldog to Ukraine's Zelensky in the Oval Office in front of the White House Press Corps. The meeting, (broadcast on MSNBC at4:00 today), was generally bland, i.e. made for public consumption (as the White House had planned when Vance suddenly decided to be a bomb thrower and deliberately picked a fight with Zelensky by unexpectedly hurling the accusation: that the Ukrainian President hadn't been sufficiently grateful to Trump. Needless to say, Vance's deliberate peeing in the punchbowl with comments of "ingratitude" immediately triggered the always-subtle outrage of Trump, who proceeded to seize upon Ukraine's "ingratitude" and then careening on to how much he and Putin had "gone through together" with the "Russia-Russia-Russia Hoax" Trump was, to all intents and purposes, out of control, lecturing Zelensky on "You don't tell us how to feel!!!!!" and similar bon mots. It was beyond shocking and embarrassing, perhaps even to the most die-hard MAGA supporters (although I'm not sure their bottom has ever been reached).
I wonder what Vance's ,motivation for torpedoing the meeting and supposed agreement over Ukrainian mineral rights that Zelensky and Trump were supposedly going to sign? Did Trump put him up to it in order to not sign the agreement but save some face? Or, did Vance go rogue for some reasons of his own? I am inclined to think the latter, perhaps because Vance is feeling left out since nobody even mentions him any more. The focus is on the co-presidency of Trump and Musk and no one even notices Vance, which has to rankle him. Or is it because he is even more radical and unhinged than many of the RW bomb throwers Trump routinely surrounds himself with and is despairing of being able to influence the political agenda toward a more anarchical development? Only time will tell. In the meantime, Trump and Vance have stood before history and the world on videotape showing their complete capitulation to and adoration of Vladimir Putin. I believe the tape will be shown in History and Political Science classes far into the future as indicative of the day we took the first public steps towards renouncing our hitherto unchallenged role as the world leader of free and open democracies.
A very dark day (IMO) for American Democracy and equally dark for our erstwhile allies.