Sabin wrote:So... that’s a key.
Respectfully but firmly disagree. I can understand reacting to the media's initial willingness to swoon for the pageantry, but I think it's analogous to the response after Trump's first address to Congress -- remember "He BECAME president tonight"? That conventional wisdom lasted about 36 hours. There are too many in the media looking to give Trump participation trophies. And, of course, there's also his amen corner, who could literally watch him crap in the oval office and proclaim it some achievement. They'll be out pretending this is some great accomplishment.
But anyone who knows anything about international diplomacy thinks Trump has given massive unearned deference to a brutal dictator -- even putting his flags in a row alongside U.S. flags! -- and made unnecessary concessions (not only cancelling U.S. military maneuvers in South Korea, but using the phrase "war games" that comes straight from North Korea propaganda mills), all for the vaguest of promises...promises that were made decades ago by North Korea and have yet to be acted upon.
I think GOP strategist Mike Murphy is right: if Barack Obama, Bill or Hillary Clinton had staged this "summit", the right-wing echo chamber would be screaming Neville Chamberlain at the top of its lungs and would already have set impeachment hearings in motion. I think "Trump got played" will be the dominant response to this before we get to the weekend.
Do agree with you on the scariness of the Court's Ohio ruling, however.