Trump just set a nuclear red line, and North Korea has already crossed it
It’s a testament to how effective Barack Obama was as president that Republicans were forced to criticize him about the same few things over and over again.
For instance, the Benghazi incident was a terrible tragedy, but it paled in comparison to the attacks that occurred during George W. Bush’s watch. (Yes, the interminable Benghazi investigations were also a huge waste of time and money, but the CBO never determined how much they saved the government in Cialis prescriptions for Ted Cruz, who was fully tumescent from September 12, 2012, until May 3, 2016, when he finally dropped out of the Republican primary race.)
But part of the reason Republicans screeched “Benghazi” over and over like little tweaking Joe McCarthys is they didn’t have much else.
In fact, they had to invent a scandal by ripping Obama’s words out of context (“you didn’t build that”) so they’d have a compelling enough theme for the 2012 Republican National Convention, when they were desperately trying to wipe the Gruyère cheese stank off Mitt Romney.
Another constant GOP refrain was that Obama backed away from the “red line” warning he issued to Assad and Syria. Of course, the most likely reason that Obama failed to follow through was that he didn’t want to jeopardize the Iranian nuclear deal, which has helped make the world considerably safer.
But now, Trump is making the world considerably less safe with his saber-rattling toward North Korea. As we all heard yesterday before selling off our stocks in sectors having anything to do with live humans, Trump issued this warning to nuclear-armed paranoiac Kim Jong Un and the rest of the Scooby Gang:
"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen ... he has been very threatening beyond a normal state. They will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before."
Well, a few hours later, North Korea threatened to nuke Guam, which is a U.S. territory, just in case Trump didn’t know that.
So Trump warned North Korea not to threaten us again (i.e., he drew a red line in the sand that he told Kim not to cross, lest we rain fire on his country), North Korea crossed that line in less time than it takes Steve Bannon to get up in the morning and look like one of Ed Gein’s floor lamps, and now Trump is faced with either admitting this was an empty, feckless threat or actually starting World War III.
And yet Republicans will continue to characterize Obama as a weak leader and praise Trump for his decisiveness.
This is what happens when you elect a deranged president just because you assume he can’t possibly be as crazy, stupid, or unhinged as he appears.
He is. And now we know.
