Fourteen Days

Two weeks. Clearly time to be spent in deep contemplation. To gather information from the brightest minds. To consider the teachings of history. To be a student. To be ever mindful. To pray for understanding. To hope that the decision finally reached will be a just and proper one.

Or none of the above.

"Two weeks." It is like a personal tic for Mr. Trump. A default phrase uttered when he wishes to buy time, hoping no one notices he is dithering. In the bright light, it is frightening for the depth of its failures. In the dark it can be interpreted as an act of cunning, of brilliance. His uncertainty his ultimate weapon.

I may. I may not. Even I don't know what I am going to do. Those words, almost verbatim, uttered by our President. Pure genius. More like pure nonsense. Thoughts uttered by a man as unfit for this challenge as has ever sat in his office, or likely ever will.

The fate of the future, of our future, of much of the globe's future, resting in the hands of a man far more interested in consideration of whether his putting stroke needs work than in contemplation of whether to bomb Iran. Waking this morning more concerned with whether he can find another crypto con than gaining necessary knowledge and insight as the weight of this moment bears down on him.

In Donald Trump's first term, the only problem of consequence to face him, other than his self manufactured disasters, was the introduction of the word Covid into the lexicon. And his response was frighteningly, pathetically predicated on nothing other than his lunacy. No preparation, no insight, no thirst for intelligence.

Fourteen days. It could be fourteen minutes or fourteen months. It is just a number, not imbued with anything other than a hope that something intervenes so he doesn't have to. There will be no study done between now and then. And if that day comes, whenever it is, the ultimate choice of the President will be based on nothing more than, well, nothing at all.