And What Are You Wearing?
Just when you think the decency bar has hit rock bottom the Trump bullies prove you wrong. Again.
When I attended bar and bat mitzvahs in high school one of the games we would play was the limbo. Now, I was an awkwardly tall boy with absolutely no flexibility. To bend backward and fit under the bar was almost impossible. So I was out of the game early, but hung around to see which double-jointed classmate would eventually prevail.
As a teenager I thought I had an inkling of how low the bar could go. Turned out I had no idea. During the disgraceful bullying session in the Oval Office, as mafia capo wannabe DJ Trump and his snarling faux hillbilly attack dog JD (Just another D*#k) Vance belittled the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, I witnessed a new knuckle-dragging depth that nobody in my class could have ever achieved.
There were so many startling moments during that tense tête-à-tête as President Zelensky valiantly defended his country, the entire continent of Europe and democracy in general, while Trump and JD pretty much recited Kremlin talking points.
My favorite moments: The Ukraine Ambassador, Oksana Markarova, pulling a Fauci by burying her head in her hands.
The image of Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk’s UFC victory belt presented to Trump by President Zelensky sitting by its lonesome on one of the Oval Office’s end tables, a symbol of the brutal American tag team’s attempt to force Zelensky to tap out, to hand over his nation’s minerals in exchange for a dodgy deal concocted between only the United States and the Kremlin.
(Meanwhile, last Friday we, the beleaguered American taxpayers, just ponied up $4 billion in arms for Israel: no questions asked, no minerals exchanged. Little Marco Rubio, the unqualified Secretary of State, declared “emergency authorities” to bypass Congress’ scrutiny. Weapons include 35,000 2,000-pound bombs. These U.S.-made bombs have contributed to thousands of civilians deaths in Gaza.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/us/politics/rubio-arms-israel.html
Another image from the Oval meeting: Neglected plates of rosemary chicken, celery root puree and collard greens left uneaten after Trump kicked the Ukrainian delegation out of the White House before lunch. Wasted food always makes me sad.
But then the limbo bar sank even further.
“Why don’t you wear a suit?” a reporter shouted at President Zelensky. “You’re at the highest level in this country’s office, and you refuse to wear a suit. Just want to see if — do you own a suit?
“A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the office.”
A lot of Americans. This is a familiar rhetorical trick that Trump and his ilk use along with as you know. The purpose is to squelch opposition, and to place us all firmly on the side of whatever disinformation Kool-Aid slop these folks dump into the toxic swamp of FOX News, or at CPAC or on the floor of U.S. House of Representing Billionaires.
Perhaps Zelensky should have worn a red tie the length of a yardstick, or an open collar shirt without a sport jacket (ala Rep. Fightin’ Jimbo Jordan), or a black T-shirt, ball cap and jeans with a four-year-old as a prop, or a “I Don’t Care Do You” jacket (hello carefree First Lady), or whatever horrid-looking clownish couture counts as fashion on the runways of Paris, or, (I’m wincing) on the red carpet at the Oscars yesterday. Who dresses these people?
That piercing question of fashion came from Brian Glenn, from “Real America’s Voice,” which the New York Times calls “a right-wing cable channel that has spread conspiracy theories about noncitizen voting and helped distribute Stephen K. Bannon’s ‘War Room’ podcast after Mr. Bannon was barred from YouTube, Spotify and other mainstream platforms.”
Glenn might not have been there if not for the banishment of Associated Press reporters and photographers by the oh-so-easily-offended leader of the increasingly not-so-free world. The AP refused to change its style guide to reflect a Trumpian order for all of us to hereby refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. (By the way, most folks I know just say “The Gulf,” but whatever.)
So, the White House has now has cleverly ceded coverage of its trashing of American democracy to a more compliant and simpering press corps, those courageous souls that will ask the pressing questions that are on nobody’s mind except perhaps your crazy uncle at Thanksgiving dinner or, in the same vein, Uncle Tucker Carlson.
Oh, and get this: Glenn is the current paramour of Marjorie Taylor Greene, who mostly represents herself, QAnon tinfoil quacks and, to a much lesser degree, the voters of Georgia’s 14th House District.
Do we have to quote Rep. Greene as she stands by her man? Hey, why not?
“I’m so proud of @brianglenntv for pointing out that Zelensky has so much disrespect for America that he can’t even wear a suit in the Oval Office when he comes to beg for money from our President,” she wrote on whatever social media soapbox from which she brays.
The rejoinder from President Zelensky to Mr. Glenn. “I will wear a costume after this war will finish, yes. Maybe something like yours, yes, maybe something better. I don’t know, we will see. Maybe something cheaper. Thank you.”
Touché. And note JD, the president of Ukraine did say thank you.