[Lest it not be completely obvious, the turtle represents Mitch McConnell]
McConnell
tells Obama to 'keep his mouth shut' after Trump criticism
Comments on Flynn case and coronavirus response were leaked
- Senate majority leader calls former president ‘classless’
Martin Pengelly, The Guardian, 12 May 2020
Barack
Obama described Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as ‘an absolute
chaotic disaster’.
In
an extraordinary statement against a former president, the Republican Senate
majority leader Mitch McConnell has told Barack Obama to “keep his mouth shut”
over criticism of Donald Trump, calling him “classless”.
What is 'Obamagate' and why is Trump
so worked up about it?
Last
week, remarks by Obama were leaked to Yahoo News that were highly critical
about Trump and his administration, seeming to break a convention in US
politics that former occupants of the White House rarely criticize their
successors.
Speaking
to alumni of his administration, Obama said he was worried about the “rule of
law”, in light of the justice department’s decision to drop its case against
the former national security adviser Michael Flynn. That’s the issue at the
heart of Trump’s attempts to gin up an “Obamagate” scandal, which on Tuesday
morning he again claimed “makes Watergate look small time!”
Obama
also said the response to the coronavirus pandemic had been “an absolute
chaotic disaster”.
McConnell
was speaking to Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump in an online fundraiser on
Monday night.
Asked
about Obama “slamming” the administration for its response to the coronavirus
outbreak, he said: “I think President Obama should have kept his mouth shut.
“You
know, we know he doesn’t like much this administration is doing. That’s understandable.
But I think it’s a little bit classless frankly to critique an administration
that comes after you.”
He
added: “You had your shot. You were there for eight years. I think the
tradition that the Bushes set up of not critiquing the president who comes
after you is a good tradition.”
There
is a tradition of former presidents not commenting on or attacking their
successors in the Oval Office, but Trump is not part of the informal club which
currently includes Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and he
has regularly attacked those who went before him.
Plus,
Obama’s views of Trump are pretty well known, if usually by indirect routes and
leaks to the press. For example, in a Hulu documentary about Hillary Clinton’s
2016 campaign against Trump, the Virginia senator Tim Kaine is seen to say the
then president thinks Trump is a fascist.
In
the remarks leaked to Yahoo News, Obama said he would be hitting the campaign
trail for Joe Biden this fall to help him try to unseat Trump and make him a
one-term president. Biden leads Trump in key swing states and national polling
and McConnell is also presiding over a Senate majority that now looks
increasingly at risk as Republican popularity dips.
The Hollow Men
The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot
Mistah Kurtz - he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of this tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.
Posted 18th February 2017 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
Do not go gently into this Dark Age
Do not go gently into this dark age,
Of loss of justice, decency and right:
Write - ignite to kindle virtuous rage.
Though rogues testify a path to bondage
Their words die at the dawning of the light:
Detest, protest, contest their language.
That the good are scarce is an old message
And until they act, right gives way to might,
As falsehoods swagger on the twilit stage.
Hold out for heroes, for their advantage
Come the night’s end and the morning’s sight,
As rights are freed that lies took hostage.
Then those who wrest the best from damage
Can sense the kind old sun grow warm and bright
And verity itself glow fierce with homage.
Of loss of justice, decency and right:
Write - ignite to kindle virtuous rage.
Though rogues testify a path to bondage
Their words die at the dawning of the light:
Detest, protest, contest their language.
That the good are scarce is an old message
And until they act, right gives way to might,
As falsehoods swagger on the twilit stage.
Hold out for heroes, for their advantage
Come the night’s end and the morning’s sight,
As rights are freed that lies took hostage.
Then those who wrest the best from damage
Can sense the kind old sun grow warm and bright
And verity itself glow fierce with homage.
Add a comment