This isn’t Suez in 1956 and it isn’t Vietnam in 1966; it’s Iran and it’s 2026

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This war with Iran is one that had to be fought, and so we were right to fight it on our terms at a time before it became harder to win. The way Iran has lashed out at civilians everywhere, including with indiscriminate killing machines it denied having, has confirmed that.

But I recognize that there are arguments and counterarguments. Some of those are just the lame “Orange Man Bad!” or “Orange Man Good!” type, but others are more principled.

Here are two arguments – one against the war and one for it – that sound principled, even scholarly, but at the core are just sophistry.

First is the one that is against the war. It says, “Another Vietnam catastrophe!” (Yes, the argument is typically presented replete with the exclamation point, which should give you a clue that you’re about to receive more heat than light.)

But Vietnam was not really a catastrophe. It was indeed poorly conducted, but it achieved for a time its main objective: to stop the Communist advance through Southeast Asia.

The Communists eventually did get South Vietnam (and ironically have turned it into a haven of export enterprise) but we delayed that by at least 15 years.

And the Communists never did get Indonesia, Malaysia, or the Philippines, to say nothing of Australia and New Zealand. Was that worth 50-some thousand Americans? History’s jury is still out.

The point here is that Vietnam was not the debacle that kids today are taught in “schools” where they are indoctrinated by the teachers’ union arm of the Democratic National Committee – an organization sworn to pacifism except when their opponent is America.

When comparing Iran to Vietnam, here’s the bigger point. Vietnam was 60 years ago. Vietnam was literally much closer in time to World War One in the year 1918 (that’s One, not Two) than to today in the year 2026.

It should not need to be said that weapons, battlefield tactics, global economies and world alliances are vastly different now compared to 60 years ago.

We saw that in the first hours of the Iran war when the U.S. and Israel eliminated the Iranian leader and many of his subordinates. That’s the first time that’s ever happened in a modern war.

On the other side, we see the Iranians responding with inexpensive but sometimes effective missile and drone attacks throughout the Middle East, and a dramatic show of their capability of launching a missile as far as London or Berlin. (The accuracy of those missiles, and how long before their stock is depleted, are separate questions.) We also see them blocking the flow of 20% of the world’s oil supply.

In short, this is not Vietnam. This is not your dad’s war.

On the other side, supporters of the war sometimes compare it to the Suez Crisis in 1956. That’s when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, ousting the U.K. and French interests that had controlled it. The U.K. and France tried to reclaim it, but backed down in the face of international pressure. The U.S. through President Dwight Eisenhower sided against the U.K. and France.  

Since then, the U.K. and France have never held much sway in the Middle East. According to supporters of the Iran war, the lesson to be learned is “never back down in the Middle East.” Or “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

But this “lesson” forgets the broader context. The U.K. and France don’t hold much sway anywhere, not just in the Middle East. Their economies and militaries were never completely rebuilt after being ravaged in WWII.

Even more ravaged were their national psyches. The cultural collapse we’re seeing today in the U.K. and France was not triggered by Suez. Rather, Suez was triggered by their already-emerging cultural collapse.

An equally valid – or invalid – lesson might be learned from the Camp David Accords in 1979 when Jimmy Carter in probably the best feat of his Presidency (I know that’s not saying much) moderated a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel. In that peace deal, both sides compromised – both sides backed down.

Of course, the Camp David Accords don’t teach us much about the Iran war, either.

The most that can be gleaned from the events of history is usually allegorical. Platitudes about history are of little use in another time under different circumstances. They are no substitute for hard analysis. In analyzing Iran, they’re about as useful as Aesop Fables.

The crux of the hard, real analysis on Iran is the point I made at the outset. Whether Donald Trump is a genius or a fool, war was inevitable. We were smart – it was the product of hard analysis – to choose the time and circumstances.

So, when should the war end? Again, it will take more than history to answer that question. Again, it will take hard analysis – of the costs, benefits, risks and rewards. Let’s have the patience and courage to undertake that analysis. Damn the Midterms.

Now that democracy has failed in America, let’s try it in Iran and Cuba!

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Half a century ago, American children were taught in elementary school that “representative democracy” was the highest form of government.

Part of me wondered even then, why should everyone get an equal say in things? That wasn’t how it worked in my elementary school, I observed, even as they taught that creed. The students and the janitor didn’t get the same say as the principal and the teachers.

Some people are smarter, more diligent, better educated, work harder, and pay more taxes. Shouldn’t they get more of a say in how those taxes are spent than people who are not smart, not diligent, don’t work, aren’t educated, and don’t pay taxes?

The only plausible answer to that question as to why everyone should get an equal say, is that everyone should feel like a stakeholder in the nation.

That’s a nice sentiment, but there are several problems with it. First, allowing – nay, begging – stupid lazy people to vote is a high price to pay to make them feel like stakeholders. Second, it doesn’t work. They still don’t feel like stakeholders.

Third, if you want people who don’t pay taxes to feel like stakeholders in the nation, maybe a good first step would be to ask them to pay some of the nation’s taxes.

As it stands today, the bottom 40% of earners pay about one percent of federal income taxes. Is it any wonder that those so-called taxpayers always want to increase taxes? It’s because they themselves never pay them.

The Founders recognized this fallacy with the democratic republic they created. They recognized that at some point the lazy stupid masses might come to realize that they could vote for a “redistribution” of the wealth of the smart hardworking producers. That’s undoubtedly the reason that the Constitution originally did not allow for income taxes; it took the 16th Amendment. (Nearly all amendments after the first ten were mistakes, BTW.)

In another genius of socialist branding, the stupid lazy masses have dubbed this legalized theft “fairness.”

But let’s leave the tax tangent and get back to the broader failure of American democracy.

What we have now is mob rule. Everyone has a microphone in the form of the internet, including me. With that microphone, they can get “clicks” on what they post. Those clicks are more or less exchangeable for cash.

Human nature being what it is, many people are owned by their desire for cash, and thus many internet posters are owned by their desire for clicks. They post stuff that is designed to generate clicks and cash.

That’s why we now have horrible creatures out there like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens who are willing to generate clicks/cash with blood libels of the Jews.

Barely better are the people behind “Instapundit” who post misleading headlines appealing to notions in my tribe such as all Democrats are transexuals who want to conduct “gender affirmation” surgery on children in schools while burning the flag in Satanic rituals in the playground. (I’m sure the leftist websites have similarly weird headlines about Republicans, but I don’t see them because I don’t go to those websites.)

It’s political porn; it panders to the worst instincts of political junkies; it’s addictive; and it’s destructive to them, us, and our society.

And it works – for the perpetrators anyway. Ask Tucker.

(I have a friend who says he habitually clicks into Instapundit, but only to get the links. Uh huh. And I’m sure he got Playboy just for the articles.)

Speaker of obscenity, there’s the legislative branch. That’s the branch of government where a majority of the people elected to do the voting are supposed to enact and repeal laws.

Except it takes more than a majority to do both enacting and repealing. The Senate filibuster rule (another thing not in the Founder’s Constitution, or even the current one) means that it takes 60 of the 100 Senators to enact or repeal almost any law.

That means that the minority party – the political party that the people decided should be fewer in number than the other party – has a veto over any enacting or repealing of the laws.

That’s a bit weird. The “rule” is that that majority rules, except that the minority gets a veto. Huh?

It gets worse. Not only does the minority get a veto, they can shut down the government unless the majority concedes its power to them.

The minority shut down the government for over a month last fall, demanding that the majority pretend that the minority was the majority and the majority was the minority, by repealing part of the tax bill that was passed by the majority months earlier.

Now the minority is doing the same on a narrow issue, with the result that people are waiting hours in TSA lines at the airport. (I say fire TSA anyway; it’s all theater.)

The latest is the minority’s filibustering of a law to require photo ID when you vote, just as you’re required to have photo ID when you board an airplane, borrow a book, or cash a check – a law that is supported by 80% of Americans.

Maybe the majority should formally concede that it is effectively the minority. Then they can turn the tables and demand those minority filibuster rights. At which time the minority would say, “Not so fast, we’re  the minority, so we’re in charge here!”

Yep, that’s American “democracy.” Don’t even get me started on the European kind.

And sooooo . . . .

Let’s impose this farcical system on Cuba and Iran. Given their history of ecumenical largess (I have no idea what that phrase means, but it popped into my demagogue head; help me here, Tucker) they’ll surely be every bit as successful with it as we currently are.

OK, don’t go away mad. Here’s a tidbit to brighten your day. Donald J. Trump is not a Democrat, and I’m not even sure he’s a democrat.

But bear in mind that the greatest leader of the ancient world – the one who brought the greatest good to the greatest number – was Augustus Caesar. He wasn’t either.  

Are the Dems rooting for Iran because Iran is America’s enemy, or because the new Supreme Leader is gay?

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Given Iran’s half century of cruel barbarism in the Middle East, it’s hard to understand why the Democrats seem to be rooting for them in the current war. I have two theories.

One is the obvious one. The Dems are not so much rooting for Iran, as rooting against Iran’s enemy. Bad as Iran is, its enemy is even worse in the eyes of the Dems.

Iran’s enemy, you see – or at least the Dems see – has a history of its own cruel barbarism going back to at least 1619. Iran’s enemy has engaged in genocide against native people. Iran’s enemy has wrongly oppressed workers of the world who sought freedom in the workers’ paradises of the Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, Red China and Eastern Europe.

Dems believe that Iran’s enemy has raped the earth, ruined the climate, undermined the sacraments of diversity, equity and inclusion, elected a man with bad orange hair to the Presidency, increased the wealth of everyone but at the cost of especially increasing the wealth of the wealthy, made “woke” a four-letter word, and is rapidly driving Starbucks out of business.

Iran’s enemy is of course America, which happens to be the Dems’ primary enemy as well. So, in a textbook example of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend,” the Dems see Iran as their friend.

That’s all that matters to the Dems. Forget about Iran’s atrocities. Forget about the hostage-taking, the baby-beheadings, the rapes, the murders, the incinerations. Forget about the imprisonment of people for political beliefs, the torture of dissidents for dissenting, the belligerent development of a nuclear bomb for use on Israel, and the throwing of gays off tall buildings for being gay.

(Correction: A reader has informed me that Iran does not throw gays off tall buildings; they pay ISIS to do that. Homer nods.)

Which brings me to my second theory. It has been reported that Iran’s new Supreme Leader who assumed the supremacy after the supreme demise of his supreme father is . . .

. . . gay.

President Trump, a supporter of gay rights, was reportedly pleased by the news. He laughed.

Gayness is not a sin, in my view. It’s barely worthy of mockery. For cheap mockery material, it’s on the order of baldness.

But under these circumstances it’s notable. The new Gay-atollah could be a second reason why the Dems are rooting for Iran.

It would be a DEI “resistance” exercise by the Dems, now that ordinary DEI has been outlawed or at least discredited. As in “I want the gay guy to win!” Or “I want the gay guy to beat Trump!” Or just “I want the gay guy!” (“But the bushy beard? Eww!”)

As for that newly-supreme-and-outed gay man serving as the putative Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran while cowering in a corner somewhere, he has yet another thing to watch out for. He has to watch out for not just bombs in the sky, but himself in the sky. Stay away from tall buildings, my friend.

Electric vehicles make no economic sense – do the math

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Electric vehicles are probably the vehicle of the future, but they are not the vehicle of the present. Let’s look at the numbers.

An EV uses about six cents of electricity to go a mile. That’s if you charge it at home with inexpensive residential electricity rates. It’s more if you use a charging station, and it’s more if it’s a large vehicle like a Rivian. And by the way, be prepared to leave it plugged in for several hours to get it charged.

Gasoline-powered cars use about thirteen cents of gasoline to go a mile, assuming gas is something over $3/gallon and you get something like 25 mpg.

So, the difference between the EV fueling cost and the gasoline fueling cost, on a per mile basis, will be 13 cents minus 6 cents = 7 cents. And so, the per-mile fuel cost of an EV is about half that of a gas-powered car.

So far, so good.

But the price of an EV is typically about $10,000 more than the same model in a gas car. It’s more like $15-20k for luxury brands like Porsche, but for our hypothetical let’s be generous to the EVs and use the $10,000 figure.

The number of miles required to recoup the $10,000 difference in purchase price is 10,000 dollars divided by 0.07 dollars per mile, which equals 142,000 miles.  

That $10,000 premium you pay for an EV will buy a lot of gas.

That’s bad enough, but it gets worse. Assume it takes about ten years to drive those 142,000 miles. That means there’s a cost-of-money factor to consider. Your $10,000 differential in purchase price was paid up-front, while your recoupment of it takes ten years.

To make the recoupment calculation fair, you have to compare apples to apples. The question becomes, what’s the present-day value of $10,000 paid over ten years?  

If you assume interest rates of, say, four percent (though historically you do much better than that in the stock market), then the $10,000 recoupment over ten years has a present-day value of only about $8,200. To get that figure up to the $10,000 premium that was paid up-front for the EV, you have to go out almost 13 years.

(This cost-of-money point is also typically not considered when people tout the economics of home solar panels, which cost a lot up-front while the recoupment takes many years, but that’s a different column.)

And it gets even worse. Gas cars have better resale values than EVs. That’s partly because the most expensive component of EVs – their batteries – wear out. I don’t mean they discharge and need charging, though they of course do that, too, every day. I mean the rechargeable batteries wear out and have to be replaced.

But I said out the outset that EVs are the vehicles of the future. Why’s that?

It’s because they’re much simpler mechanically. They have no transmission, they have no emissions components, the drive train is simple, they don’t generate the dirt and grime of an internal combustion engine, maintenance is less, and, most of all, batteries will continue to improve by becoming less expensive, lighter in weight, and more durable. (All that said, there are no battery breakthroughs on the immediate horizon.)

But for now, electric vehicles make no economic sense. Don’t let that stop you from buying one to signal your virtue, but it won’t signal any financial sense.

Rubio/Vance vs. Harris/Newsom in 2028 – seriously?

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Predictions are hazardous, especially about the future and especially about politics, but the best prediction right now is that the 2028 Republican nominee for President will be either JD Vance or Marco Rubio, and the Democrat nominee will be either Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris. The ones not nominated for President will likely be nominated for Vice President.

Before we employ these people for these important jobs, let’s do what employers do: Let’s look at their resumes.

(I’ve tried to present this in a neutral manner, unlike Wikipedia which unabashedly spins the tone and even the substance of the bios to favor Harris and Newsom and to disfavor Vance and Rubio.)

JD Vance:

  • Grew up poor in Appalachia with an alcoholic and drug-abusing mother.
  • Joined the Marines.
  • Graduated Ohio State University, summa cum laude.
  • Graduated Yale Law School where he was an Editor of Yale Law Journal.
  • Clerked for a prominent federal court judge, and then worked at a prestige law firm.
  • Worked for Peter Thiel’s venture capital company.
  • Wrote a NYT best-selling book about his life, later made into a hit movie directed by Ron Howard; the book sold three million copies, and the movie had over four million viewings.
  • Elected U.S. Senator for Ohio.
  • Elected Vice President of the United States.
  • Sports a lousy beard.

Kamala Harris:

  • Daughter of an Afro-Jamaican father and Indian mother.
  • Graduated Howard University (no listed honors).
  • Graduated University of California Hasting College of Law (no listed honors).
  • District Attorney for Alameda County, then appointed to state positions by an older politician she was dating, Willie Brown.
  • Elected first woman, first African-American and first South Asian-American Attorney General of California.
  • Elected Senator from California (first African-American, first South Asian-American, second Black woman).
  • Elected first woman, first African-American, first South Asian-American Vice President, and given responsibilities for discovering and remedying the “root causes” of illegal immigration under the Biden administration.
  • Defeated in 2024 election for President.

Marco Rubio:

  • Born to legal Cuban refugees in Florida.
  • Graduated University of Florida.
  • Graduated University of Miami Law School, cum laude.
  • Elected to Florida legislature, then elected first Cuban-American Speaker of the State House of Representatives.
  • Adjunct Professor at Florida International University.
  • Elected U.S. Senator from Florida and served ten years, was member of numerous committees and subcommittees.
  • Defeated in the Republican nomination for President.
  • Appointed Secretary of State by President Trump.
  • Widely considered very active as Secretary of State, with the NYT dubbing him “Secretary of Everything.”

Gavin Newsom:

  • Born into a prominent San Francisco family, where the father was close friends of the Getty oil family.
  • Played college baseball.
  • Started a successful winery with one of the Getty’s, and went on to other successful business ventures.
  • Appointed to political positions by the same mentor that Kamala Harris had (but didn’t date him).
  • Elected Mayor of San Francisco.
  • Elected Lieutenant Governor of California.
  • Elected Governor of California.
  • Had “severe dyslexia” as a child according to Wikipedia, and it’s still “pretty severe” according to Newsom.
  • Sports good hair.

So, there you have their bullet-point (can I still say that?) resumes. Which do you want to run the country?

Can there be any doubt what Iran would do with nukes?

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The argument against the war with Iran boils down to two points. The first point is that this war was initiated by the hated President Trump, and so it should be opposed. That point cannot be rebutted because it is not a point at all; it’s simply a reactionary expression of hate by people who scarcely bother to conceal their hope that Iran wins.

So, let’s move on to the second point.

The second point is that we were able to handle Iran’s aggression for many years without going to war, and so we could have continued to handle its aggression for many more years without going to war. There was no “imminent threat” from Iran.

That argument ignores the fact that circumstances were on the brink of changing.

The impending change is that Iran was getting ever-closer to having a nuclear bomb in its arsenal. And it already had hundreds of ballistic missiles to carry that bomb across the Mideast and beyond.

In addition to the risk of ordinary nukes, there’s the risk of Iran using “dirty bombs.” Those are conventional explosives laden with semi-enriched uranium. A dirty bomb doesn’t produce the megaton explosion of a nuke, but it does contaminate the surroundings with lethal radiation.

Iran could construct a “dirty bomb” of sub-fissile enriched uranium, which it has thousands of pounds of, and mount it on one of its hundreds of remaining ballistic missiles.

Even more worrisome, Iran could dispense with the missile. It could instead smuggle abroad a refrigerator-sized dirty bomb, and position it in a leased office on an upper floor of a building in a major city where the detonation could produce catastrophic and long-lasting radiation contamination.

Think Chernobyl (and the Chernobyl contamination originated near ground level, not 50 floors up in the sky).

Let’s hope Iran has not already constructed and smuggled a dirty bomb to a detonation site where it is waiting only for someone, somewhere to push a red button.

If you think Iran is too pacific and humane to do such a thing, then you haven’t been paying attention. This is a regime that tosses gays off tall buildings, stones women for adultery, dismembers shoplifters, sponsors unspeakable acts of terrorism against women and children and babies, has chanted “Death to America” for half a century, and obdurately refuses to give up its nuclear weapons program.

In the course of the last week, Iran fired thousands of missiles and drones at American bases. Fine, I suppose that’s part of war. But Iran has also followed its policy of firing missiles and drones at both military and purely civilian targets in Israel – as well as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Türkiye, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Jordan.  

Iran’s aim is not to subdue those countries – heck, most of those countries are not even in the fight.

Rather, Iran’s aim is to produce a conflagration of the Mideast and the world. “If we go down, we’ll take you with us” is their apocalyptic cry. These are theocrats from the 12th century.

Can there be any doubt that an Iran possessing nuclear weapons would use them?

Sure, it’s annoying to see the price of gas go up, and to see the stock market drop a couple of percent. But it would be more annoying to see millions of people killed, to see civilians with the lifelong pain of radiation burns, to see cities rendered uninhabitable, and to see a generation of babies with birth defects.  

If necessary, bomb the Iranian leaders back to the age and time they’ve chosen for themselves — the stone age.

War with Iran was inevitable, so Trump was smart to choose the timing

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Iran consistently promoted and sponsored terror throughout the Middle East and the world. They’ve been chanting “Death to America” for half a century. They’ve been working on a nuclear bomb for decades. Their radical Islami-fascist theocracy repeatedly vowed to wipe Israel off the map, because they believed Allah willed it.

War with Iran was therefore inevitable. The only question was when.

We could have waited for Iran to attack us. America’s unspoken policy over the years, after all, has been not to attack an adversary until the adversary attacks us first.

That sounds noble, but might not be smart. Waiting for Japan to attack us at the outset of WWII almost cost us the war. If not for the lucky fact that America’s aircraft carriers were out at sea rather than at base in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the entire Pacific Fleet might have been destroyed.

So, too, with Iran. We could have delayed this war for months and even years until after Iran restocked its weapons from the blows inflicted last summer by the Israelis and Americans.

By then, Iran would not only be restocked with replacement weapons, but might have a few new ones – such as nuclear bombs or at least a “dirty bomb” that is designed not to produce a nuclear explosion but to simply spread radioactive contamination over a large area such as Tel Aviv – or Washington, D.C.

President Trump was right to stop Iran now, before it regrouped and re-weaponized.

In doing so, Trump showed a level of maturity, discipline and vision that I’ve sometimes doubted he possessed. It would have been easy to just kick the Iran can down the road, down past the mid-terms, down past his presidency, to let some successor deal with the problem.

Yes, the problem would be bigger down the road, but it would be someone else’s problem, not Trump’s.

Trump’s predecessors did exactly that. Biden was of course half asleep, and paid little attention to anything. But I’m less forgiving of Obama, who consciously entered into his 2015 agreement with Iran to let them develop nuclear weapons after ten years – a ten-year period that expired last year.

If Trump hadn’t cancelled Obama’s Iranian deal and if the Israelis and Americans had not taken out Iran’s underground uranium enrichment facilities last summer, it’s quite likely that Iran would have nukes today.

Re-read that last sentencer. Under Obama’s approach, Iran would probably have nukes today. Some of the ballistic missiles they’re raining down on Israel, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere would probably bear nuclear warheads capable of killing millions.

So, when you read the “war-is-hell” headlines from CNN or the depictions of mass-murdering Ayatollah Khamenei as a kindly grandpa from Al Jazeera or the latest “Trump-is-Hitler whine from the hypocritical, pusillanimous Democrats, remember: This war was inevitable – in fact, the Iranians have been fighting it for many years. The only question was when we finally decided to fight back – now when they’re weak, or later when they’re armed with nukes.

Democrats condemn Trump’s “misogyny” for saying “we’re going to have to bring the women’s team” as well as the men’s to the SOTU

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In the raucous locker room celebration of the Gold Medal win by the men’s hockey team on the final day of the Olympics – an upset win for the ages – the team received a phone call from President Trump. They put the President on the speaker.

In the course of the hilarity and fun, Trump invited the team to this week’s State of the Union Address. Almost before the invitation was out of Trump’s mouth, the team accepted. “We’re in!”

Amid the laughing, shouting and carrying on, Trump quipped, “I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that!” The team laughed and roared its approval. Trump chuckled, “I do believe I would probably be impeached” if the women (who also won gold) were not invited.

The women’s team were no-shows, citing scheduling conflicts.

The men, in contrast, were able to clear their conflicts. Chants of “U S A, U S A, U S A” predictably ensued as they entered, for which even the Democrats felt obligated to stand. Mind you, these Democrats would not even stand for:

“If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens. Not illegal aliens.”

Over the course of the week, the Democrats found a way to be offended by the President’s locker room quip. The offense they settled on was “misogyny.”

The basis for this misogyny, apparently, was that Trump’s quip that he would “have to” invite the women to the SOTU implied that he didn’t really want the women to come, and he was inviting them only to avoid being impeached.

Trump said a lot of true things Tuesday evening – about an hour’s worth too many. None was truer than when he gestured to the silent, stony Democrats and said, “These people are crazy.”

Gavin Newsom to Blacks: Vote for me because I’m stupid like you (but not really)

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In his quest for the Presidency, Gavin Newsom has a few things to overcome.

First, he’s burdened with all that great hair.

Second, he’s the Governor of the State of California, which used to be a great-state-to-go-to, but is now a-great-state-to-be-from.

Third, he’s a victim of white privilege. I know, I know, white privilege is a privilege, not a liability. The problem, however, is that in order to run for President, he first has to win the Democrat nomination (notwithstanding the Joe Biden 2024 rule). Many of the people who vote in Democrat primaries see whiteness as a liability.

There’s not much he can do now about the first two problems, but he’s keenly focused on the third. He gave an interview to a Black interviewer in front of a Black audience the other day. He wanted to bond with the Black audience:

“I’m not trying to impress you. I’m just trying to impress upon you [that] I’m like you. I’m no better than you. You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy. And you know, I’m not trying to offend anyone, you know, trying to act all there if you got 940, but literally, a 960 SAT guy. You’ve never seen me read a speech because I cannot read a speech. Maybe the wrong business to be in.”

I have two questions. One, do we really want a President who scored below average on the SAT? It’s fine to have a President with a common touch – Reagan, Ford and Truman come to mind, and even Clinton depending on how you define “common touch” – but they were all pretty smart.

For me, the answer is no.

Two, what makes Newsom think that he can bond with his Black audience by bragging about his lousy SAT score? The answer to that question is apparently that he thinks his audience have lousy SAT scores, and so they want a President with a similarly lousy SAT score.

I think that sells his audience short. Contrary to Newsom’s belief, Blacks do not all have lousy SAT scores. As for the ones who do, they are not likely to want a President with a similarly lousy SAT score.

I’m lousy at driving an 18-wheeler, but that doesn’t mean I want the world’s 18-wheeler drivers to be similarly lousy.

Newsom later explained that he’s not legitimately a 960 SAT scorer. He scored 960 only because he’s dyslexic. (When the press politely asked his office whether there was any historical evidence of his alleged disability, they answered “Fuck off.”)

Well, Governor, then what’s your point in bringing up your lousy SAT score? On the one hand, you offer it as proof of your common touch, and on the other hand you quickly claim that it’s not really proof of your common touch at all. Rather, it’s proof of your disability.

OK, my sympathies about your disability, which you assure us is not evidence of your stupidity even though you offered it as such to Black people because you thought they would see it as such and thereby identify with it and – of course, it all comes down to this eventually – thereby vote for you.

But now I have yet another question. I sympathize with persons having disabilities, including dyslexia. But do we want a dyslexic President who by his own admission has trouble reading and cannot read a speech? Reading memos and giving speeches are part of the job, you know.

And if we do, do we want one that also thinks Black people are stupid and that he can persuade them to vote for him by dishonestly passing off his dyslexia as comparable stupidity?

Are the Supreme Court Justices “black-robed despots” deserving our “utter contempt”?

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Although this is not what I hoped for, it is what I predicted. The Supreme Court struck down the bulk of the Administration’s tariffs. All three liberal Justices went against the tariffs, and half of the six conservative ones did as well – which included two appointed by President Trump.

Not bothering with any legal analysis, the President instead declared that the six Justices who went against him are “very unpatriotic” and “fools” that he’s “ashamed of.”

He went on to call them “pooh-pooh breaths.” OK, I made that one up.

Years ago, another public figure employed similar language to criticize the Supreme Court. He characterized the Justices as “black-robed despots” for whom he had “utter contempt.”

That was after the Court unanimously declared racially segregated schools to be unconstitutional. That public figure was Alabama Governor George Wallace.

Bullying the Supreme Court didn’t work back then, and it’s not working now.

Let’s take the President’s name-calling one epithet at a time. First, the President says the Justices are “unpatriotic.”

OK, Mr. President, here’s something non-legal that you should be able to understand. At big law firms, each of these Justices could be making ten to twenty times their present income. They instead choose to be judges to serve the people as best they can.

Deciding a case against you, Mr. President, does not make them unpatriotic.    

They’re “fools” you say? At least seven of the Supreme Court Justices are extraordinarily smart lawyers with sterling backgrounds, and the other two are no slouches.

In contrast, your own legal background consists of being sued a lot.

And, Mr. President, you say you’re “ashamed of” the Justices?

Frankly, it comes as news to the country that you’re capable of shame. I voted for you three times, and your shamelessness continues to astonish me.

So, disagree with the Supreme Court – I sometimes do. Criticize their legal reasoning – it’s occasionally wrong.

But recognize that the job of a judge is not to be a Republican or a Democrat. The job is to apply the law of the land to the facts of the case.

If you personally don’t understand the law applicable to a case, or if you don’t have all the facts, then you aren’t criticizing. You’re just spouting off.

When that spouting off crosses the line into name-calling of dedicated professionals, you’re just being childish. I want more than that in my President.

Glenn K. Beaton practiced law in the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.