Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.  Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

Glenn Reynolds today posts a mini-essay of great authority that parallels the decorum motif upon which I wrote twice recently and have addresses more often.  I take the liberty of quoting Glenn’s mini-essay in full and with its prefatory title and screenshot:

I LIKE DAVID FRENCH, BUT THIS IS AHISTORICAL BULLSHIT:

I mean, let’s just look at the presidents of my lifetime: JFK: Adulterer, drug user, made his brother (!) Attorney General, shady mafia connections, stole election.  LBJ: Adulterer, much cruder than Trump, started Vietnam War.  Nixon: Honestly, better than LBJ but the source of the term “Nixonian.”  Ford: Nice guy, failed president.  Carter: Nice guy, failed president.  Reagan: The GOP gold standard, but a multiply-divorced Hollywood actor whose administration was marked by nearly as much scandal-drama as Trump’s.  (Just look up Justice Gorsuch’s mother).  George HW: Nice guy, but longtime adulterer and failed president.  Bill Clinton: I mean, come on.  George W. Bush: Personal rectitude in office, though he’s been a bit of a dick since Trump beat his brother.  Iraq War thing didn’t turn out too well.  Mediocre judicial appointments and little attention to domestic reforms.  Gave us TSA.  Obama: Far more scandals, and far more abuse of power, than Trump.  And does French forget that Trump was running against Hillary?

But at any rate, the American people had a chance to decide if they wanted a man like Trump in the White House, and they decided that they did.  And Trump’s now polling better than Obama did at this point in his presidency, and will almost certainly rise in the polls post Mueller report.

I mean, most of our successful presidents weren’t nice guys — FDR makes LBJ and Nixon look like pikers — and most of the nice guys in that office were failures as president.  And Trump’s behavior in office is, by comparison with his predecessor, better, if cruder.

And in terms of his actions, well, Trump’s actual performance in office is looking pretty good.  The economy is booming, foreign policy is going better than under his creased-pants predecessor, regulations are being slashed, and the courts are being better-stocked than any Republican president in my lifetime, including Reagan, ever managed.

Against that record, schoolmarmish disapproval pales in importance.  But you want an America where a better man than Donald Trump can be a successful president?  Then you have to make a better America, not least by crushing the power of the existing, awful, ruling class.  And guess what: That’s what Trump’s doing.   The NeverTrumpers, meanwhile, have chosen to ally themselves with the problem.

As James Taranto says, NeverTrumpism seems to be primarily an aesthetic phenomenon, and to indulge in it you have to think that our existing ruling class is more attractive than Trump.  De gustibus non disputandum est, but I don’t feel that way at all.

And that concludes Reynolds’ mini-essay.

Βασιλεία του Θεού
Kingdom of God

Update 1: Judging from the way the pews are facing in this blown sanctuary, I’d say the bomber got as far as the narthex before detonating.  Did not reach the nave, much less the chancel.  That elicits speculation they were less than motivated and/or ushers were in some posture of alert, possibly in response to 10-day-prior police warning order.  Full alert would have stopped the bomber outside the portal . . . a suicide mission sans military-grade control of approaches.

Mosques/Islamic Centers are military training/indoctrination and arsenal facilities.  Church and synagogue sanctuary leader cadres are compelled to consider stewarding their facilities to a like effect.  It has been done before.

Necessity is the mother of invention.  Think of Moslems as Redcoats and the lineaments of necessity heave into view.

Update 2: Michelle Obama straddles all the lanes if she wants to.  If she does not, Kamala Harris certainly does and does.  No D male yet-declared straddles all the lanes.  With Ds, it is all about sex, jive, and drugs.  Nothing about the country because that is a perishing nuisance on the way to global governance, aka world domination, aka being strong on Not-Our-Crowd.  There are a few lanes disinclined to embrace that presentment.  Just a few.  And just a few others of which no one is aware, as yet.

Update 3: Paul Sperry: Justice Dept. Watchdog Has Evidence Comey Probed Trump, on the Sly

Update 4: David Archibald: Advice for Our Vietnamese Friends on China

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA