There were jokes flying around yesterday because Trump did another “Frederick Douglass is” thing yesterday, this time talking about Pavarotti in the present tense. I watched the scrap of video where he said it, but I was more struck by something else, or a group of other things – his awkwardness and stiffness as he read what his people had written for him to say in praise of Italy. It’s embarrassing.

First of all his reading itself is so awkward. People at that level usually have enough skill to deliver such remarks without staring down at the script quite so obviously. Then there’s that awful way he grimaces on certain words so that they come out sideways and he looks … Read the rest

Trump is filling his cabinet with far too many plutocrats (any would be too many, in my view) and too many military people. That makes sense coming from him, I guess: he undervalues relevant experience and orientation and expertise (law, government, diplomacy, public service) and overvalues irrelevant and potentially damaging ditto (money, militarism).

Donald J. Trump ran for president boasting that he knew more about fighting terrorists than America’s generals.

But now that Mr. Trump is the president-elect, he is spending a great deal of his time with retired generals, and those of a particular breed: commanders who, when they served, were often at odds with President Obama.

One has been named as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser,