The Problem With the Donald Is the Problem With the Ronald: Cut From the Same Sackcloth

The Problem With the
Donald Is the Problem With the Ronald: Cut From the Same Sackcloth

By

Leonard Zwelling

         Only Donald Trump can get away with appearing on the Sunday
talk shows without appearing. He can phone it in and he does. For several weeks
he has been dialing up Meet the Press and
the other Sunday morning talk shows so that all that is visible is that golden
comb over and the disembodied voice of a billionaire obfuscator. Donald will
not answer a policy question.

         No matter how he is asked about specifics of his plan to
improve job growth in America, raise American competitiveness abroad, or create
greater income equity he tells you how he’s doing in the polls and about Megyn
Kelly or the last person he believes has slighted him who he would name if he
wasn’t such a nice person and then names them anyway. To be blunt, Donald is
full of himself and full of it as well.

         Finally, today (August 10) he said on Morning Joe that his plan to fight ISIS is to invade the sites
where the organization draws its wealth, the oil fields under its control. The
Donald proposes using American boots on the ground. So The Donald, claiming to
have opposed the war in Iraq, wants to start a war in, wait for it, Iraq, Syria
and goodness knows where else.

         It is no longer about what Trump wants to do. We wants to
“Make America Great Again.” So do all the rest of the candidates—on both sides
of the political aisle. The question is how.

         This is somewhat reminiscent of Dr. DePinho’s claims about
cancer. He wants to make it history,
in five years no less, but no one is really sure about how. Judging from his
actions, one would be convinced it is done through:

·     Hiring your friends, especially the ones from Boston

·     Hiring your wife

·     Making sure she has access to millions of state
dollars as well as designer couches

·     Spending all of the patient care revenue on your own
laboratory program

·     Hiring older scientists whose best work is undoubtedly
behind them

·     Pushing your own company on national television

·     Firing the most competent of the faculty who were
present when you got to Anderson

·     Turning the greatest academic cancer center on earth
into a lackluster drug company

·     And, like the last guy, per Jackie Mason’s comment
about Richard Nixon: “Everyday he got caught and everyday someone else went to
jail.”

If
you asked The Ronald how he was going to make cancer history, I am quite sure
he would generate a different list, but this is the one that I inferred from
what he has actually done.

As
Chris Christie said about Rand Paul, but should have said about The Donald,
“it’s easy to sit on a subcommittee and blow hot air.”

Ron
DePinho seems to be a great scientist. He’s a lousy leader and really never led
anything bigger than a laboratory institute before coming to MD Anderson and
wrecking Anderson beyond recognition with hot air of his own. It was going to
take a lot to make the last guy look good, but The Ronald did it.

Likewise,
The Donald has made a ton of money in real estate and other ventures as well as
been a reality TV star. None of these star turns will prepare him to
successfully take on the entrenched bureaucracy of Washington and get anything
through the Congress.  I assure you
insulting the members of the House and Senate will not get you what you want.
Mr. Obama just did it a little when he said that a vote against his Iranian
deal could only come from the ill-informed or stupid. Not exactly. It could
come from those afraid of Iranian hegemony in the Middle East and the survival
of the state of Israel.

It
is likely that the Iran deal WILL NOT be supported by a majority in either
house of Congress, but will stand because the President’s inevitable veto
cannot be overridden. How do I know? Chuck Schumer can count votes. He would
not have opposed the deal had he thought there was even a chance that his vote
would be the one to sink the deal through a veto override in the end.

Both
The Donald and The Ronald share a habit of grandiosity mixed with vagueness.
Hmmm…Zwelling’s Syndrome? Better to have than Longo’s Syndrome. What is Longo’s
Syndrome first identified by that great medical oncologist Dan Longo?
Microcephaly with arrogance. Also not rare these days.

Who knew that these diseases needed to be made history before
cancer could be?

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