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| Israeli security experts examine the wreckage of an Israeli F-16 that was shot down on Saturday |
My friend Patrick made an interesting observation about Donald Trump that stuck with me.
Pat is a white, married father and small business owner in his early 60's.
He was born in Germany but has been a U.S. citizen for decades.
We often chat about history, current events and books, after I made an off-hand remark about a news item that rolled across the ticker at the bottom of the screen on one of the TV's mounted over the small bar, Patrick shook his head and lamented the fact that so much of the mainstream media's focus these days revolves around Trump.
To the degree that more important stories don't seem to get adequate coverage.
For example, earlier this morning the BBC News reported that an Israeli Air Force F-16 crashed near the Israeli town of Harduf after suffering heavy damage from Syrian anti-aircraft fire (pictured above).
According to the BBC that was the first Israeli fighter jet to crash in combat since 2006.
The warplane was attacking targets inside Syria after Israel claims an Iranian drone crossed the border between the Golan Heights region in northeastern Israel and Syria's southwestern border.
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| Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi |
An Iranian drone operating from Syria crossing the Israeli border is a troubling escalation in an already-tense conflict where the U.S. and Russia are just some of the players on the ground in a Syria wracked by civil war and a massive humanitarian crisis.
It was just last Saturday that David D. Kirkpatrick's New York Times article shed light on the secret alliance between Israel and Egypt that has allowed unmarked Israeli jets, helicopters and drones to carry out extensive airstrikes against jihadists loyal to the Islamic State in the northern Sinai region of Egypt.
I'm not a defense expert, but ordering airstrikes in response to a drone flying over a border strikes me as more than a bit heavy-handed - and I'm sure it has nothing to do with Israeli police announcing their intent to file corruption charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday...
The deadly Israeli airstrikes, more than 100 in the past two years, and the alliance between these two former foes, mark a significant shift in the complex ongoing geopolitical conflicts raging across parts of the Middle East - including Syria, Iran, Egypt and Yemen.
As Seth Harp reported in an eye-opening Rolling Stone article last fall, the U.S. military currently has thousands of personnel stationed in Syria (though they don't like to talk about it), so this escalation on the border between Israel and Syria should be getting more American media attention.
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| Ex-White House secretary Rob Porter handing Trump an executive order to sign theatricaly |
Trump's publicly defending ex-White House secretary Rob Porter in the wake of the latter's resignation over troubling allegations of domestic abuse from two of his ex-wives is just the latest example.
This latest tone-deaf gaffe has once again placed the thrice-married POTUS on the wrong side of the current #MeToo movement - not a bright move from a guy who's been accused of sexual misconduct by no less than sixteen different women.
Not only did he defend the White House keeping Porter on staff for over a year despite the fact that his domestic abuse charges kept him from passing a mandatory FBI background check, 45 also used his Twitter feed to undermine the accusations leveled against Porter as well as the #MeToo movement.
It's hard to gauge what the 52% of white American women who voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election thought of all this, but senior White House adviser and resident denialist Kellyanne Conway insisted that Trump "shows great compassion" for women during an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on This Week this morning.
Which is kind of like saying that xenophobic white supremacist White House advisor Stephen Miller shows "great compassion" for immigrants.
Was Conway suggesting Trump showed "great compassion" towards his 3rd wife Melania when he was carrying on an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels while wife # 3 was pregnant with their son Barron?
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| Rob Porter's ex-wife Jennie Willoughby |
Willoughby appeared on CNN to insist that despite Trump and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly publicly defending her former husband's character, Porter has some serious issues.
She also wrote a very interesting and thoughtful op-ed piece published on Time.com this morning titled, "President Trump Will Not Diminish My Truth" that is definitely worth a read.
In it Willoughby, an eloquent writer, expresses dismay at having to endure the humiliation of Trump publicly insinuating that she, and Porter's other ex-wife Colbie Holderness (whose photo of a black eye she supposedly got from Porter went public) were liars.
But she doesn't come off as being vindictive, bitter or some kind of "spurned woman" with an axe to grind as Trump and his top White House advisers have tried to paint her.
Willoughby comes of as intelligent, thoughtful and above all "woke" - she clearly knows exactly who she is and exactly what happened to her; and she makes Trump, John Kelly and Kellyanne Conway all look like insensitive, uninformed reactionary idiots for having the nerve to defend Porter as some kind of upstanding citizen who was victimized.
Seriously, click the link above and take a few minutes to read her words.
Willoughby offers some remarkable perspective on the larger issue of society's tendency to cast doubt upon those who level accusations of domestic abuse or sexual misconduct; she also expresses compassion for her ex-husband and recognition that he needs serious help.
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| Rob Porter's ex-wife Colbie Holderness |
I forgive him. Thankfully, my strength and worth are not dependent on outside belief - the truth exists whether the president accepts it or not."
As Willoughby writes, we as an American society are afraid of revealing unpleasant secrets that shed light on the reality of who we really are as a people - as she observes:
"It's as if we have a societal blindspot that creates an obstacle to understanding. Society as a whole doesn't acknowledge the reality of abuse."
As my friend Patrick observed last night, it's a real shame that Trump's own ignorance and personal conduct takes up as much of the media's attention as it does.
But in the same vein, as Jennie Willoughby wrote, "the truth exists", and the American media is duty-bound to report the truth of Donald Trump - if they'd done more of that in 2015 - 2016 he might not have been elected in the first place.
The sheer volume of headlines and space on Websites, television news coverage, newspapers and magazines taken up by the never-ending chaos of Trump's existence is staggering in the annals of American history - unprecedented scandal upon scandal on a scale never seen before.
If the press has to cover that non-stop until either the midterm elections or the Russia investigation brings about his removal from office - so be it.
As long as the truth that Jennie Willoughby writes about is not diminished.
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