By Bob Gaydos

Special Counsel Jack Smith meets the press.

   It’s not exactly writer’s block. More like writer’s fatigue. It’s what happens, to me at least, when there’s really only one story to tell and I’ve told it from every possible angle, for, oh, about seven years now.

     That would be the transformation of the Republican Party by Donald Trump from a responsible, conservative partner in the nation’s two-party system, a party once dedicated to the rule of law and respect for the traditions on which our democratic republic was founded, into a race-baiting, power-hungry, intolerant, lying, bullying collection of ignorant bigots and cowardly hypocrites. I think that covers it.

    But how many times can you say that? It’s what’s happened and is still happening and neither a federal indictment of Trump in Florida for hoarding classified government documents after he left the White House nor a conviction and $5 million fine in New York for sexually assaulting a reporter in a changing room at Bergdorf Goodman and then defaming her has changed the basic story.

     Most Republicans, even some who are competing with him for the party’s presidential nomination, still refuse to condemn his behaviors. They refuse to say he is unfit to hold any public office, much less the highest office in the land. Some actually agree with Trump’s methods. Others don’t, but they also don’t want to roil what they still think is the party’s base of cult-like followers loyal only to Trump. Fear and loathing 2023.

      It’s a self-inflicted situation for the GOP. But there, I’ve said it again.

      These are perilous times for our democracy. I fear far too many Americans still don’t grasp that. Trump and his lackeys have threatened our very foundation — a nation where all men and women are created equal and all — regardless of status — are treated equally under the law.

   Jack Smith, Chris Christie, Chris Sununu. They get it. Smith, of course, is the no-nonsense special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Trump’s refusal to return classified government documents and his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

     My favorite Smith moment, in fact the only Smith moment thus far, was his brusk reading of a brief explanation of the documents indictment and then walking off the stage as the media shouted questions at him. It’s all there in the indictment, folks, see you in court.

      Christie is the somewhat disgraced former New Jersey governor who has entered the primary race for the GOP presidential nomination with what appears to be the sole purpose of telling the truth about Trump every chance he gets as bluntly as he can. As a New Jersey native, I can tell you that can be pretty blunt and he will not back down.

       And Sununu is a respected Republican governor of New Hampshire who has decided not to run for president, but to also point out, in a New England way, how morally, intellectually and politically unfit Trump is for the job.

       So, good for them. And good for us.

       But the Republican Party still offers the likes of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is out to prove he can be worse than Trump, and former Vice President Mike Pence, who saw the noose waiting for him on Jan. 6, brought by Trump’s army, but still can’t find the courage to tell the whole truth about his former boss.

      I always try to be optimistic, but there’s another presidential campaign looming and, as I said, I’ve told this story before. On October 20, 2016, with an election looming, I wrote: “Republicans, Trump is not one of you. He is Trump. Period. You created him. Your hypocrisy and cowardice have emboldened him and his ilk. He has sullied us all. And he has destroyed you.”

     Here’s to Jack Smith, Chris Christie and Chris Sununu.  It’s time for a new plot line, folks.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

President Barack Obama addresses troops at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

By Bob Gaydos

Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.

Those are two incontrovertible facts.

Barack Obama made the crucial decisions to kill one and save the other.

Incontrovertible.

Also, if one happens to be a Republican, inconvenient and uncomfortably on target for the two things Americans care about these days when voting for a president — national security and jobs.

Protect us from terrorists and protect our jobs.

In a presidency hamstrung by two wars he did not start, a recession he did not cause and a Republican Party that struck the words “bipartisanship” from its playbook on Day One, President Obama has had only a few clear successes. He killed Osama and he saved the American auto industry.

God forbid, though — now that the election campaign has switched focus from the GOP field of nightmares to a man-to-man between Obama and presumptive GOP candidate Mitt Romney — that the president’s supporters should be allowed to brag about his accomplishments.

Take Osama, please, as Henny Youngman might have said. In a surprisingly direct (for Democrats) attack on Romney, Obama’s campaign ran web ads on the first anniversary of the event, trumpeting the daring Navy Seals raid in Pakistan that killed the al-Qaeda leader and asked, “Would Mitt Romney have made that decision?”

Good question. In fact, it’s one Newt Gingrich might well have asked of the man he described as an indecisive liar. But the Republican whiners came out in force immediately. How dare the president exploit the killing of bin Laden for political purposes? How could he take a unifying event like that and make it a divisive one? Whaa! Whaa! Whaa!

Do you hear yourselves? Who precisely is he dividing? I still don’t know a single American who is angry that bin Laden is dead and most of them are grateful that Obama gave the order to go get him.

Which, of course, is more than George W. Bush ever did. I know, we’re not supposed to talk about any of that stuff, either, right? About forgetting about capturing the 9/11 mastermind in the mountains of Afghanistan and deciding to level Iraq instead.

And, of course, we’re supposed to forget about that W. landing, in a Navy jet and wearing full flight gear, on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf to declare “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq when the war there had barely begun. And let’s not bring up the Bush team’s attacks in the 2004 campaign on Sen. John Kerry’s courage and patriotism while serving in Vietnam while W. was avoiding National Guard training in Texas. Wouldn’t be fair to recall that, right?

Aw heck, if W. had nabbed bin Laden, he would have just moved on to getting the next tyrant and we would never have heard of it again, right? He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Utter fantasy. And yet, this reaction is pretty much par for the course for the GOP these days. It has no grounding in reality most of the time and the facts are whatever its members say they are, even when they contradict one another. The more troubling reaction to the Obama ads came from some liberal/Democratic supporters who felt Obama should not be politicizing the killing of bin Laden. That it was somehow unseemly for the president to do so.

Yeah? So?

We are talking politics here aren’t we? Since when has it been a genteel sport? Did anyone pay attention to the GOP primaries? Talk about political blood sport. Republicans, conservatives, tea partiers (once upon a time that was genteel) have shown they will say and do anything to tear down the president, including belittling his accomplishments. Don’t ask, don’t tell? Don’t remind them.

The point is, Obama made a carefully calculated decision to take out the head of the most notorious terrorist group on the planet by using feet-on-the-ground troops rather than remote-controlled drones or “smart” bombs. He did it over the objections of some of his top advisers, including the vice president, secretary of state and secretary of defense. And he did it knowing full well that, if the mission failed — as did President Carter’s effort to rescue the hostages in Iran — as commander-in-chief, Obama would get full blame for it. And we would be seeing ads today reminding us of that, paid for by Romney supporters.

So yes, it seems a fair question to wonder whether the ever-changing Romney as commander-in-chief might have made the same decision. (We already know he would have let GM fail.)

Of course, the raid succeeded and al-Qaeda is a badly crippled shell of itself. To mark the anniversary, the president flew in secret to Afghanistan to thank the troops and to sign an agreement with the new government there — the one that replaced the al-Qaeda-friendly Taliban — pledging the support of the United States even when U.S. forces leave Afghanistan.

Yes, the war there will come to an end soon, just as the one in Iraq did. On Obama’s watch.

The man has a right to brag.

 bob@zestoforange.com