President Caddyshack
Commentary on the open-air situation room:
“Now you’ve got some pretty good pictures — the prime minister of Japan, and the president.”
That’s President Trump, crashing a wedding party at his Mar-a-Lago club on Saturday night, immediately after holding a news conference with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan to address North Korea’s firing of a missile, which flew 310 miles before dropping into the Sea of Japan. The news conference took place after Mr. Trump held a meeting with Mr. Abe and their entourages out in the open in the club dining terrace, examining documents and talking on a commercial cellphone as guests drifted by and took photos, servers reached over the papers to deposit the entree, and Mike Flynn, his national security adviser, held up his phone, on flashlight setting, so everybody could get a good look.
Mike Flynn did that – that’s a new item (to me). He’s military…wouldn’t you think he’d be just a little security conscious? After all those years?
It apparently never occurred to Mr. Trump, Mr. Flynn or Steve Bannon, another member of the National Security Council, who also trained his cellphone on the paperwork, that holding a cellphone camera over these documents might allow foreign adversaries and hackers to get “some pretty good pictures,” too. Cellphones aren’t allowed even in secured areas of the White House. Yet there they all were, playing Situation Room in the open air, for a random crowd in Palm Beach, Fla.
Well Trump removed most of the adults from the National Security Council…but still. I would have expected basic precautions. Silly me.
Mr. Trump’s big weekend generated lots of Facebook and Twitter posts: the president holding a young woman around the waist, flashing a lecherous thumbs-up; vamping with a bevy of fuchsia-clad bridesmaids; posing in his golf togs with another group of women. And then there’s the video of his wedding “toast” to the happy couple. Of course, the wedding was of the son of a big-dollar political donor, a longtime Mar-a-Lago member who, Mr. Trump said, has “paid me a fortune,” according to CNN.
One must wonder how Rick, Mr. Abe or his diplomatic entourage felt as they were dragged like pull toys through Mr. Trump’s club, props in his bizarre and potentially dangerous effort to show off.
Disgusted and bewildered, is my guess.
One would think leadership of the free world would have scratched Mr. Trump’s itch for publicity. But this is the man who called reporters using a fake name to generate stories about himself; who introduced a member of one of his clubs to a Golf Digest reporter as “the richest guy in Germany,” instead of by name; who looks pained when having to share the podium with anyone, from Sarah Palin to the prime minister of Canada. This is rule by Al Czervik, Rodney Dangerfield’s character in “Caddyshack”: a reckless, clownish boor surrounded by sycophants, determined to blow up all convention. But this is real life, and every time Mr. Trump strikes a pose, the rest of the world holds its breath.
Oh well – it’s only nukes.
I am so glad that Donald Trump is not a part of my wedding pictures. I would have to have them shredded. But, I suppose, donors to his club and his campaign like that sort of thing.
Should the Trump presidency turn sour (or should that be when?), they will be stuck with that orange mug in their wedding photos forever. Since they are able to afford that garish setting, perhaps they deserve that – they probably voted for him.
I’d like to be a fly on the wall when the invoice for the reception arrives:
“Darling, did any of Trump’s people tell you that the photo-op was a chargeable extra?”
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1442715512413572/?type=3&theater
I think it’s possible that the worst security breach here might be the exposure of Nuclear Football Rick, who apparently allowed some random guest at Mar-a-logo to take a selfie with him. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the mainstream press on this one, from what I can tell. That’s puzzling. One would think it would be a headline.
That could mean “Nick ” wasn’t carrying the means to launch a nuclear war after all, he was just an aide and it was just a briefcase. Or, it could mean that this information was very dangerous indeed, the threat so imminent that the media were informed and requested, for reasons of national security, to say nothing. I don’t know.
Al Czervik was a clownish boor, and you wouldn’t want him as President, but this is still an insult to him! He was basically harmless and not hateful — Judge Smails had to really earn his dislike.