April 29, 2018: A President for Whom Ground Truth Doesn't Matter

4/29/18: In “The End of Intelligence,” an editorial written by former C.I.A. head Michael V. Hayden, The New York Times allows Hayden space to focus on the boldest lies of Candidate Trump and his evil twin, President Trump. 

General Michael V. Hayden.

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“I wondered if he had attained that high perfection when a man believes his own lies.” 

Owen Wister, The Virginian

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Hayden notes: 

A)    Candidate Trump claimed he had watched a video of thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. 

B)     He said the father of Ted Cruz had a hand in the assassination of President Kennedy. 

C)    Trump hinted that Justice Scalia had been murdered, that a pillow had been found on his face. 

D)   After a disastrous speech to the Boys Scouts in July 2017, Trump claimed that a Scout official called to say it was “the greatest speech ever made to them.”

 

David Press, an intelligence officer who once gave daily presidential intelligence briefings, had asked Hayden one day if he thought Trump could even “distinguish between truth and untruth.” 

“We in the intelligence world have dealt with obstinate and argumentative presidents through the years,” Hayden told him. “But we have never served a president for whom ground truth really doesn’t matter [emphasis added].” 

Hayden went on to write that White House aides reportedly call Trump the “two-minute man.” 

No, we’re not talking sex.

 

We mean “briefings.” Previous presidents often received daily 60-page intelligence briefings. Trump wants his to be five pages or shorter. He would be happy if his briefings simply read: 

“Donald Trump is the best president ever. The U.S. is doing great!” 

The hero of Owen Wister’s cowboy novel, The Virginian, once outlined his concerns about another ranch hand. “I wondered,” the hero says, “if he had attained that high perfection when a man believes his own lies.”   

With Trump, that “high perfection” has been reached.

 

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THE PRESIDENT calls on Senator John Tester of Montana to resign, after Tester helps block his nominee, Dr. Ronny Jackson, to become head of the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

Part of the problem stems from Trump’s snap decision to nominate Jackson, in all likelihood because Trump fell in love with Jackson the moment that he insisted during a press conference that Donald weighed only 239 pounds. That was exactly one pound less than necessary to be labeled “obese.” From the looks of Trump in golf pants, it was at least twenty pounds shy of reality. This nomination came despite Jackson’s lack of administrative experience. 

Many veterans’ groups wondered if the nominee, accustomed to running a White House unit of forty doctors and nurses, could transition to leadership of the VA. Veterans Affairs has an annual budget of $186 billion and employs 360,000 people. The VA provides healthcare for nearly ten million veterans at 145 hospitals and 1,200 outpatient clinics. 

Still, Trump was mad at Tester – and seemed to question why we have a confirmation process at all. Why not let him put anyone he wants in any position? Trump has already suggested John Dunkin, the pilot of his personal jet, to head the Federal Aviation Administration, an agency with a $16 billion annual budget. He has nominated Wendy Vitter for a seat on the federal bench. Vitter then refused during her confirmation hearing to say if she believed the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education was “correctly decided.” 

This was the decision of a unanimous court which outlawed racial segregation in the nation’s public schools.