 Joe Honick |
There is a popular television program called Blue Bloods. It stars longtime equally popular actor Tom Selleck as the tough but caring Commissioner of the New York Police Department and features a larger family setting, often characterized by the Reagans at dinner and including a few members who work in different levels of the NYPD.
One of the important aspects of Selleck’s character and performance is that he sees the Department as the “family business” but rejects any special deals for and from anyone that would negatively impact his role as Commissioner.
What does that have to do with the performance of Donald Trump as United States president and his family?
Well, for one thing, Blue Bloods is fictional TV and the Trump operation, for good or ill, is a real operation whose sponsors are more than 320 million Americans.
On TV, when sponsors get distressed by one performer or another, they can, almost without notice, simply fire their performer by dropping sponsorship without fanfare….in much the same was as then TV mogul Trump loudly fired contestants on his old television show…and certainly as with Bill O’Reilly and soon, perhaps, with Sean Hannity.
To be sure, Trump has used his legal authority to get rid of the FBI Director, but he has also installed immediate family members in senior White House roles over which Congress has no control.
So what, you are entitled to ask?…Well, among the problems are the following realities:
1. Ivanka has cleverly used her presidential relationship as part of her marketing of products, simply by readily known affiliation…yet she is also ensconced in the White House doing highly classified things as no similar daughter, son or untrained relative would be doing.
You really can’t blame her for getting any and every advantage out there, but you can damned well blame her daddy and his so-called ethics overseers for not seeing the problems and conflicts.
2. Jared Kushner has been exploiting his alleged orthodox Jewish connection perhaps to religiously anoint his father in law in some fashion, though he did fly on the Sabbath when he could have simply done, as my own orthodox family folks would have and flown a day early.
The suggestion some rabbi gave special permission is nonsense…unless it might have been Rabbi Sean Timothy O’Malley of the Sunshine Temple of Fun!
But more than that, Mr. K operates some highly questionable residential rental real estate in Baltimore and elsewhere that some might call slumlord properties. Even if they are barely standard, how can he do that and occupy a senior executive spot for the American government?
And, even more than that, what business does he have to be negotiating an alleged so-called "back channel" with the Russian government, a role usually played by well-trained people in the intel field?
These are but a couple of questionable functions that do call for investigation. And it should be noted that the newly appointed probe meister has been named by 100% of the right people and given the kind of independence to look, question and raise questions about every “interesting” nook and cranny, his charge being to nose into the possible Trump-Russian connections and “other matters.”
What is puzzling if not downright confusing is why Trump loyalists see nothing at all wrong with all the family virtually sitting around the nation’s secrets and diplomatic affairs and traveling on the taxpayer supplied money without the slightest training or background for all that work.
For those who shout: “get over it,” they should take a few moments and review the constant Republican slash and burn commentary not only during the last administration but Trump’s inability to let up already on the campaign rhetoric and “get over” the fact the election was over months ago.
Perhaps it’s time for all of us now to step back and see how the checks and balances provided by the Constitution and the Founding Fathers that all sides like to call on, with differing interpretation, can work honorably.
But make no mistake about it: this president has gone well beyond in making the White House and the nation just one more division of the family business.
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Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications. He can be reached at [email protected]
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