Bill Kassel's Blog

Occasional reflections on religion, culture, politics, and anything else that comes into my mind...

bill kassel

Donald Trump

Kung-Flu

By 8 Comments

A SOFTER, GENTLER DONALD
PRESSES ON AMID CRITICISM

At President Trump’s recent press update on government action to counter coronavirus, PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor claimed that some unidentified White House functionary referred to the pandemic flippantly as “kung-flu.”

Bringing this up was, of course, the latest in ongoing media efforts to keep painting the Trump Administration as fundamentally racist.

Actually, this clever expression is a perfect example of that great American ability to disarm fear with humor which has served us so well during many periods of crisis. So let’s get something straight…

Nobody … nobody … NOBODY believes that being ethnically Chinese makes you responsible for coronavirus.

[Read more…] about Kung-Flu

Shame on You, Joe!

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THE DEMS JUST KEEP
PLAYING POLITICS

Events have proven the truth of my own misjudgment. As I wrote recently…

“Drawing conclusions from early primary elections is always risky, because states vary. A candidate who flops in one region can perform impressively in another part of the country. And in politics a couple of months is an eternity.

“A lot can change.”

That has certainly been shown to be true, and I should have stopped there. Instead, I wrote…

“Nevertheless, after Iowa and New Hampshire, things aren’t looking good for Joe Biden. There’s enough of a geographic spread between those two states to give the impression that ‘momentum’ — the elusive sense people impute to a politician’s progress on the campaign trail — has abandoned him.”

And, wouldn’t you know it, now “good old Joe from Scranton” is the front-runner.

[Read more…] about Shame on You, Joe!

Vice to Virtue

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GAY MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG CAN’T
AVOID JUDEO-CHRISTIAN MORALITY

As the old saying goes…

“Hypocrisy is the tribute which vice pays to virtue.”

That maxim — credited to 17th-Century French essayist Francois Duc De La Rochefoucaul — came to mind when I read that South Bend Mayor and would-be presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg had cited Donald Trump’s sexual history as a put-down of both the President and his supporters.

[Read more…] about Vice to Virtue

Mysterious Ways

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STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
ANOTHER TRUMPIAN TRIUMPH

The Donald’s bravura performance in his State of the Union Address, and the overwhelming burst of public approval following it, remind us that individuals make history.

Unshaken by the scowling faces of those women in white — indeed, clearly amused by them — the President managed once again to put Democrats on the back foot in their resistance to his Great Wall of Trump. And pretty much everything else as well.

[Read more…] about Mysterious Ways

Be Strong, Donald

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THIS IS A DECISIVE MOMENT
IN OUR NATION’S HISTORY

I had the feeling Tuesday night that we were watching a truly historic event. A decisive moment, as it were.

In his nationally televised message The Donald laid out his case for a southern border wall — or a barrier, or a high fence, or whatever you wish to call it.

We’ve heard his appeal before, of course. The media never tire of categorizing it as his “key campaign promise,” as if that somehow minimizes its importance.

[Read more…] about Be Strong, Donald

Us

By 3 Comments

WHAT THE ELECTION
IS REALLY ALL ABOUT

It can be edifying to go back and reread commentaries from a few years past. They refresh the memory about issues debated and battles fought.

Sometimes they can surprise by showing how little has changed. More often, they reveal the beginnings of ideas and themes that would infuse later arguments.

During the run-up to 2016’s Presidential election, author and television writer Shalom Auslander penned an op-ed for the Washington Post in which he explored the comparison between Adolph Hitler and The Donald then becoming a popular anti-Trump rant. Auslander wasn’t fond of the comparison, and actually felt that it belittled Hitler…

“Hitler was a megalomaniacal psychopath who should burn in Hell for eternity,” he wrote. But at least der Führer was someone “who actually believed in something. There’s a difference. Trump is a two-bit con man. He’s playing the fools.”

The “fools,” of course, were us — which was Auslander’s main point. He wanted to show that Donald Trump could have gotten to where he was a genuine contender for President of the United States only because We The People were so irredeemably weak minded …

[Read more…] about Us

A Tale of Two Hats

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AMID POLITICAL DIVISIVENESS
WE NEED TO TALK AND LISTEN

John Pavlovitz is a minister, a writer, and a rising star of liberal Protestantism. His blog, “Stuff that Needs to Be Said,” has a wide readership, and his books are prominent among Amazon.com’s Christian Living titles. [Read more…] about A Tale of Two Hats

Memo to Robert De Niro

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WHY ARE MOVIE STARS
SO BUGGED WITH TRUMP?

Dear Bob,

Okay, I get it. You don’t like The Donald. Your outburst at the Tony Awards made that clear.

I’m not surprised. There’s a lot of anti-Trump stuff going around.

But let me ask you:

Do you really think “F-ck Trump!” brings new clarity to the current political discussion?

Giving the benefit of the doubt now, I’ll assume you were just calling for proper presidential decorum and behavior.

But, don’t you see a little irony here, Bob?

[Read more…] about Memo to Robert De Niro

A Teaching Moment

By 4 Comments

ROSANNE & SAMANTHA
HIGHLIGHT BIAS & IRONY

I’m old enough to remember when folks in the entertainment business tried to avoid saying offensive things — or to avoid being heard saying them. If something problematic did get out, stars and their PR minions would scramble to clean up after the ill-considered words.

Recall John Lennon’s observation that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” Given the slide in church attendance already obvious in 1966, that remark had a certain prophetic quality. Yet Lennon was forced to apologize to irate clergy and believers.

In a tense press conference, he nervously tried to explain the origin and context of his controversial quip…

“Well, originally I pointed out that fact in reference to England — that we meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion at that time. I wasn’t knocking it or putting it down. … I just said what I said and it was wrong, or it was taken wrong, and now it’s all this.”

Lennon had at first dismissed what looked to him like the proverbial tempest in a teapot. But the furor — especially in America where there were credible death threats surrounding a planned Beatles tour — made him realize the price of his own thoughtlessness. As recounted in Rolling Stone…

“Faced with the realization that both the tour and his life hung in the balance, Lennon finally cracked. ‘He actually put his head in his hands and sobbed,’ [Beatles press aid Tony] Barrow maintains. ‘He was saying, “I’ll do anything … whatever you say. How am I to face the others if this whole tour is called off just because of something I’ve said?”’”

One wonders if Rosanne Barr is having similar feelings in the wake of her notorious Valerie Jarrett tweet and the cancellation of “Rosanne.”

[Read more…] about A Teaching Moment

Mr. President

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STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH
WAS A TRUMPIAN TRIUMPH

You might have called it Reaganesque.

Surely, The Gipper himself couldn’t have delivered it any more effectively.

But we were hearing it in The Donald’s true voice, with all those resounding Trumpian flourishes and — blessedly — few of his typical emphatic asides (i.e. “so great,” “not good,” “very, very bad,” etc.).

It was a triumph.

The hour-and-a-half performance demonstrated clearly, visibly, undeniably that Donald Trump has taken command of his presidency.

[Read more…] about Mr. President

What Is Truth?

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WILLFUL DETRACTION VS.
LEGITIMATE CRITICISM

Pontius Pilate is often portrayed as a hardened cynic for his remark at Jesus’ trial…

“What is truth?”*

In my novel, My Brother’s Keeper, I interpret his feelings differently. I credit the governor of Judea with a kind of wistful ambiguity. There he was, trying to govern according to the will of Caesar in the midst of dangerously shifting political currents and a lack of clarity as to what Caesar’s will might be on any given concern.

If my take is correct, then poor old Pontius was struggling very much like the rest of us: weary with the world’s hypocrisy and self-interestedness, trying to discern what’s true and act appropriately.

This I can understand. After the wearying vilification heaped on Donald Trump throughout 2017 — as discussed in my last post — I feel a bit wistful myself.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no letup in sight.

[Read more…] about What Is Truth?

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