Our House (Very Fine), &c.
On Iran, the White House, JD Vance, Belarus, and more
About Iran, you have read and heard a lot, no doubt. I wrote a column last Sunday making some basic points. Maybe I can add just a little today.
For years, U.S. presidents said, “All options are on the table.” What they meant was: Military strikes are among the options we have. We have not ruled out the military option.
Within Iran, people started to mock this phrase: “All options are on the table!” Yeah, right.
As it transpired, all options were on the table. Once the Israelis took the initiative, the United States joined in. The time seemed ripe.
We have now entered a new, nervous chapter. As Bret Stephens wrote, “unintended consequences are a fact of life.” U.S. and Israeli policymakers will need utmost wisdom. We should all root for their every success.
There are many people who would wish for another president, and another presidential team, in these circumstances. (This is to leave aside the Israeli prime minister and his cabinet.) But I thought Bill Kristol put it well: “You go to war with the president you have.” He was adapting a well-known statement by Donald Rumsfeld, made during the War on Terror: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
It is imperative, for Israelis, Americans, and the world at large, that the Iranian dictatorship not acquire the A-bomb. What is imperative for the people of Iran is that they at last be free—someday, and someday soon, I hope—of these brutes who have ruled them since 1979.
Iranians deserve to take their place in the community of nations.
***
With so many grave issues involved, it seems wrong to bring up a trivial one—a linguistic one. But here I go. I saw the spelling “Teheran” the other day, for the Iranian capital. It flitted across my computer screen. I smiled. That is the spelling I grew up with. At some point, it changed to “Tehran.” “Tehran” is less complicated, more straightforward. Two clean syllables. But “Teheran” better reflects the Persian.
(Hell, I grew up with “Rumania” too.)
***
I have always loved the White House. This stems from my love of America in general: its founding, its principles, its ideals, its history—the adventure we are on. I have always thought that the White House is a perfect republican edifice. Just right for our presidential mansion. It is not like Versailles. But it is not overly modest, either. It fits our American republic like a glove.
(By the way, I would not want Versailles any other way. Vive Versailles. But long live the White House, too.)
My grandmother, 40 years ago, gave me a two-volume history of the White House: The President’s House, by William Seale. It is the president’s house, true—but it is also our house.
President Trump has placed two enormous American flags on the White House grounds: one on the North Lawn, one on the South. They are attached to 88-foot poles. I will give my opinion.
The White House is a symbol of America, just as the flag is. The flags are rather a redundancy. No one looks at the White House and says, “Gee, what country is that in again?” I believe the flags are gauche. Some people have likened them to what you might see at a car dealership, and I think that’s right.
I can hear criticisms of this opinion of mine: “snobbish,” “elitist,” proof of “TDS,” etc. Frankly, my dear Scarlett, I am out of damns to give.
***
The vice president, JD Vance, referred to California senator Alex Padilla as “José Padilla.” That is an infamous name—the name of the “dirty-bomber,” from the beginning of the War on Terror. Did Vance make an innocent mistake? Well, this is what one of his spokesmen said: “He must have mixed up two people who have broken the law.”
Funny? Or a grotesque instance of “moral equivalence”?
Take it from someone who has been around the political block a time or two: This kind of thing—referring to Senator Padilla as “José” and all that—may well get Vance nominated for president by the GOP. And subsequently elected.
That is “where the country’s at,” I sense.
***
Huge and gratifying news:
Belarus has freed Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a key dissident figure and the husband of exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, and 13 others following a rare visit by a senior U.S. official . . .
I am quoting from an Associated Press report.
The release came just hours after Belarusian authorities announced that authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko met with U.S. president Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine in Minsk. Keith Kellogg became the highest-ranking U.S. official in years to visit Belarus, Moscow’s close and dependent ally.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the report tells us, “thanked President Trump directly for brokering the deal.” And Trump thanked himself, so to speak. In a Truth Social message, he wrote, “Thank you President Trump!”
Well, I thank him too.
There are still approximately 1,100 political prisoners in Belarus. One of them is a Nobel peace laureate, Ales Bialiatski. (I wrote about him in this article.) Another is Ihar Losik, a journalist for RFE/RL (our combination of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty).
***
Bad news from a country to the southeast of Belarus: Azerbaijan. An RFE/RL journalist, and political prisoner, has been sentenced to nine years. He is Farid Mehralizada. In a statement to the court, he said,
Independent media is one of the greatest means of service to the state, the nation, and humanity. Unfortunately, journalism in our country today is almost equated with terrorism.
(To read about this case, go here.)
***
Here is some news from Florida—some political news:
Randolph Bracy and LaVon Bracy Davis are taking sibling rivalry to a new level as the brother and sister run against each other in a race for a Florida state Senate seat on Tuesday.
To read that story, go here. By the way, the siblings’ mother has endorsed—endorsed her daughter. Thanks, Mom.
***
Overheard at a golf course, on the practice tee:
Woman: “How about match play?”
Man: “I don’t want to play against a pregnant lady.”
Woman: “What do you have against pregnancy? Or is it that you don’t want to say you lost to a pregnant woman?”
Man: “Exactly.”
Woman: “Well, don’t lose then.”
***
A small-town scene:
This, I am told, is a horse trough, erected in 1904:
What is more attractive than plain wood? Not much, IMO.
Thank you for joining me today, everyone. If you care to drop a line, try mail@jaynordlinger.com. See you later.
I am stealing the line about having no more damns to give. It fits slightly better than Jonah's exhaustion.
"Jose Padilla" is just the sort of nastiness the Trump cult loves. J. D. Vance doesn't say things like that by accident.
It goes along with other name-calling, like this earlier today from Vance: "I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern. But the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives." The cultists LOVE to hear that George Bush and Barack Obama were "dumb".
One of the most dispiriting aspects of this Trump presidency is how his supporters -- especially the ones like Vance, Rubio, and Noem who are part of his administration -- now routinely ape the way Trump talks: his name-calling, certainly, but also his bragging and his gross exaggeration ("the biggest ever", etc.). They do it every time they step up to a podium.