Funny not funny

Comical. That was my first thought when I saw this AP photo this morning. This is Donald Trump, president of the United States, trying to look strong, determined, presidential. It struck me as comical. Or, if I liked the man at all, I’d say it’s really sad.

He’s standing there alone, in the dark, in his baggy pants, forever-unbuttoned jacket, and baseball cap. This is presidential? This is serious?

Then there’s that half-hearted, half-raised fist meaning … what? I’ve never really known. Does he think he’s signaling strength and/or unity to his MAGA minions? Whatever he intends, I think it looks pathetic and limp-wristed.

If you want to signal strength and unity, you do it like Smith and Carlos did it in 1968. Every time Trump raises his fist to half-staff, I think of those Black power salutes. Then again, maybe I should just be grateful that Trump’s is not a Nazi salute.

By now you’ve probably seen last night’s video of his attack announcement. That was a really big presidential moment. Serious. Historic. Or it should have been.

But there he stood, in virtual darkness. No tie. A baseball cap (albeit adorned with a patriotic “USA”), and what looked like two black eyes. It was probably just a shadow from the cap, but all I could see were two very black eyes. Or maybe worse, deliberately hidden eyes with hidden motives. He should have taken off the damned hat, but then (heaven forbid!) we’d have seen his uncoiffed hair. (Now that I think about it, that’s probably why he so often wears a cap.)

Yes, we know he was speaking from Mar-a-Lago. He’d hosted a gala just a few hours before. He probably didn’t have his Washington handlers around to set the stage. But it was all so painfully … casual. Casual about a military strike, Operation Epic Fury, that will surely cost a lot of lives and is effectively a declaration of war. He couldn’t have flown back to DC to do that? It wasn’t important enough to interrupt his vacation?

Or maybe the timing was Netanyahu’s. Maybe Bibi called and said, “Now, Donald,” and Donald pulled the trigger.