As I write on a brilliant autumn day, the reports on the president are all pretty promising. He is going to make it. There was a kerfuffle over the weekend over whether he took oxygen or not. It appears he did but not very much and his doctors ended it promptly. If memory serves, there was a similar kerfuffle over President Ronald Reagan 39 years ago when a deranged movie fanatic opened fire on him. Some of the president's aides in the White House reported no loss of blood or almost no loss of blood. Others reported that the president lost so much blood that he almost died. He survived and went on to serve two terms, winning the Cold War without firing a shot and reviving the economy. I like to think President Donald Trump will perform equally well and equally as long.
We are told he is an easy patient and charming the medical corps with his good humor and an ample supply of jokes, all reminiscent of the "old cowboy." But be careful with those jokes, Donald. Recall, if you will, the time early in your presidency when you joked about asking Vladimir Putin to send his spooks to run down Hillary's missing emails. I thought it was funny. Millions of Americans knew it was a joke. Yet Hillary and her tight-lipped flunkies in the intelligence community did not. They investigated the collusion claptrap for two or more years, until they wore down poor special counsel Robert Mueller, and he has not been the same since. Watch what you joke about, Donald. As has been said of German humor, to Hillary and her minions, a sense of humor is no laughing matter.
How long are you going to stay off the campaign trail? I know that you relish it, and what we call your base loves it when you take to the trail, but I would take it easy for a few more days. For one thing, if you break the rules of quarantine, people such as Rachel Maddow and Jim Acosta are going to be in extremis. And back at her fortified compound, where I am told she now wears camouflage attire exclusively, Hillary may adopt drastic means. She could get a New York prosecutor to draw up a warrant. She could call out the National Guard. She might hit Bill over the head with another lamp. Frankly, Mr. President, I think with Hillary out there with her dwindling supply of supporters, you ought to let her make a few more Solomonic judgments. Remember when she called on her people to "resist." That was good for a laugh.
Now I know the giddy pollsters are awfully excited about their prospects for finally winning a race against you. The comrades at the Lincoln Project are exultant, too. But back in 2016, the numbers were not much different than they are today, and you still won. You have plenty of surrogates out there to carry the torch for you while you rest. Sen. Tom Cotton is well versed in your ideas and has a brilliant military career to fortify him. There is Rep. Jim Jordan, if he can spare time from his own campaign, and a dozen other senators and congresspersons, and let's not forget Nikki Haley. She shares your ideas and is easy on the eyes. And speaking of a person who is easy on the eyes, why not call out our lovely first lady, Melania. She knows the issues, and where she is a little weak on the details, all she has to do is smile. Yes, she speaks with an accent, but so does Henry Kissinger, and if I am not mistaken, Melania speaks more languages than Henry and probably more than the sum total of the Washington press corps.
Finally, I have another idea. Why not, a la Franklin Delano Roosevelt, deliver a series of "Fireside Chats" for a few weeks? Deliver them from behind that magnificent desk you use in the Oval Office, the Resolute desk. You can cover all the issues you know so well at a pace that is comfortable to you. You could deliver these speeches while embodying a sense of history, a sense of exigency, a sense that this president is on the right side of history.
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and the author, most recently, of "The Death of Liberalism," published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. To find out more about R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
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