Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor

Leon, We Are Getting To Know Ye --
A Bit Too Much

March 19, 2017 --

Leon Panetta appeared on the CBS News program, Face the Nation (“FtN”), March 5, and on the CBS Evening News, March 8.  Previously, Mr. Panetta appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and avoided giving a direct answer to moderator Chuck Todd’s question if he thought the intelligence community sought to undermine the Trump presidency. Mr. Panetta’s two appearances on CBS News, first with FtN moderator John Dickerson, and then with Scott Pelley, anchor of the CBS Evening News, have convinced LPR   that Leon Panetta has been selected by the anti-Trump forces (“The Resistance”) to be point man in the campaign to undermine the Trump Presidency, looking forward to the glorious day, in the estimation of The Resistance, when the successor to President Pence, declares, echoing Gerald Ford on August 9, 1974, "'My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over."

How will President Mike Pence become ex-president Pence?  Let LPR put it this way: the end of the Pence presidency was foretold the day that the Republican congressional leadership, under pressure from Sen. Charles E. Schumer, Sen. John McCain, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, and ER.J. Dionne Jr, of The Washington Post, agreed to install Hillary Clinton as vice president to Mr. Pence, as a gesture towards national reconciliation and unity.  Alas, the congressional Republican leadership, too preoccupied with the thought of vast losses in the 2018 elections, failed to realize that once Ms. Clinton became vice president, could her presidency be far behind?

Yes, dear reader, Senator Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan gave no thought to the likelihood that once vice president, accession to the presidency by Hillary Clinton was assured.

During the brief presidential tenure of Mike Pence, Leon Panetta continued his regular appearances on the national television news programs to express serious concerns that chaotic conditions at the White House had not been cured and that, our standing in international affairs had only weakened, further encouraging an expansionist, revanchist Vladimir Putin, notwithstanding the 30-year prison term given Donald J. Trump as “arch-enemy of the American people.”

The sole positive side of the installation of Hillary Clinton as our 47th president was that the solemn, yet genial appearances of Leon Panetta on the network television news program came to an abrupt end. Along with the Electoral College – but that is another matter.