If you frankly like a dollop of the trashy (as I do), Donald Trump’s feud with The View dominatrix Rosie O’Donnell has been pure delight. They’re both hams (porkers?), and they deserve each other.
Still, I must admit to a sneaking admiration for Trump, who in the first season of “The Apprentice,” (I retired after that) did, in his extremely perceptive mini lectures always delivered before uttering the immortal words, “You’re fired!” such an excellent job of describing what behaviors do and don’t work in the marketplace that I felt that the government should shut down its ineffective job training scams and instead simply show reruns of “The Apprentice.” The show was a gem. A veritable public service.
But now Trump is confusing diplomacy, where no camera captures every move of the secretary, as it did with his aspiring apprentices, with reality TV–he wants to fire the Secretary of State. “I see Condoleezza Rice — she goes on a plane, she gets off a plane, she waves, she goes there to meet some dictator,” Trump has said. “They talk, she leaves, she waves, the plane takes off. Nothing happens, it’s a joke, nothing ever happens. I think she’s a very nice woman, but I don’t want a nice woman. I want someone that’s [sic] not necessarily nice.” (Like Madeleine Albright, who spent 12 hours with a dictator and declared him ‘a good listener?’)
Actually, if Rice were talking to more dictators, say those in Syria and Iran (known as “leaders” in the media), she would probably be more popular in the set with which Trump travels. The government she represents has, in fact, taken a stand against talking to tyrants who might gain much from us while giving absolutely nothing in return.
Trump may want some photo ops with leaders signing accords that give the impression of success but will fall apart later. Think Oslo Accords, which were signed amid fanfare in 1993 and were supposed to promote concord between Israel and the Palestinians. The Oslo Accords are about as meaningful today as a victory of Versacorp over Protogé in that first halcyon season of The Apprentice.
The truth of the matter is that Rice loyally represents a president who is risking his all on an unpopular but (I believe) essential attempt to win an important round in the battle against those who want us dead. This makes her unpalatable to those, especially our pampered celebrities, who don’t want to face the true nature of the conflict ahead of us. Why can’t Condi just patch things up and, you know,get some nice accords going? Adding insult to injury, there is no stream of leaks from the State Department (as there was in the Colin Powell era) that indicate that the secretary must hold her nose to carry out the president’s programs.
Rice is also ladylike, which should not be confused with being soft. Does Trump think she ought not to wave when she gets on a plane? But, of course, the Donald isn’t the only one driven to intemperate verbal remarks by Secretary Rice. Senator Barbara Boxer’s pronouncement that Rice has no right to have an opinion on the Iraq war because she is a childless woman, and therefore has no offspring to send to the military, was a lower blow than Trump’s. An outspoken feminist, Boxer might be expected to applaud a woman who has become one of the most powerful people in the world-childless or not-but Boxer seems to think that women need independent thought like a fish needs a bicycle. Rice is not part of the estrogen circle that took over on Capitol Hill, amid hugs and tears, because she has chosen to take a stand different and lonelier than theirs.
As I hinted, there are things I admire about Trump–his ability to turn capitalism into a reality show is one. In going after Rice, who is probably bothered less by the attack than I am, however, Trump has picked on somebody of the stature that will put her in the history books. Donald, pick on somebody your own size. Like Rosie.