Had lunch with some friends the other day. Conversation turned to Tommy Wayne Kramer’s over-the-top lashing of everything he could squeeze into his waste barrel of history (“Let’s do the Trump Dance” UDJ, 02/02). TWK warms up by kicking Joe Biden while he’s down and out of office: “senile sock puppet campaigning behind a mask…” And, warmed up, TWK rhetorically asks “Has there ever been anything like it? Trump thrown out. Trump in winter. Media rodents nipping and gnawing, prosecutors filing charges no jurisdiction in the USA would dare bring to court had the allegations targeted a defendant named Joe Trump.” – Nice writing, that “Trump in winter.” Literary types — this old literary type -– like linking President Trump to the play & movie “Lion in Winter”: King, treacherous Queen, sons plotting who’s going to be the next king.
Quick trip back to whenever you were Taught to Read Literature. TWK is not Tom Hine. He’s Tom Hine’s pseudonym (pen name, in English), his puppet, and Hine’s his puppet-master. Mark Twain is not Samuel Clemens. Writers deploy pseudonyms or various reasons. George Eliot isn’t George Eliot. Lemony Snicket isn’t Lemony Snicket. One of the Isaac Bickerstaffs wasn’t Isaac Bickerstaff.
Hine frequently writes as TWK because Tom Hine does not himself fully believe everything he makes his character TWK say. It must be satisfying fun or necessary relief for a writer on the right, outnumbered by UDJ’s left-leaning columnists, to roll all The Left into a ball, have TWK chew on it, and spit the fulsome gob into the gutter.
TWK’s game poses several ghastly political fantasies collected under the heading of “Is This Your America?”: “Have other political enemies been attacked relentlessly…? Should [Trump] be dragged naked through the streets…?” The answers to TWK’s rhetorical questions? Yes and No. Others “Attacked relentlessly?” Yes. Remember Herblock’s cartoon of Nixon and Eisenhower at the bottom of the Capitol steps just after Ike’s heart attack? Nixon challenges Ike: “Race you to the top.” Herblock set the tone for years of attacks on Tricky Dicky. Answer to 2nd question: “No, and no one with any airtime has proposed that.”
Surprise alert! Some of TWK’s swings are homers: Trump is “simply the product of modern America: Master and creation of reality TV, show-biz whiz, carnival barker, part John Wayne, part P.T. Barnum, part Huey Long, real estate tycoon, king of bling, casinos and gambling, World Wrestling boss, mighty lion and wounded patriot bleeding for his country, vowing Fight! Fight! Fight!” Anyone, Right or Left, disagree? Most of us see the same guy, dismissively or admiringly. It’s just possible that Left-center and Right-center agree that Trump’s achievements do not include preparation to be President of the United States.
Yet I think TWK slipped Tom Hine’s leash in this column. TWK compares Trump to Andrew Jackson. OK. Trump wants his mass deportation and Jackson deported the Cherokee nation on the Trail of Tears. Dreadful, both. But Jackson peacefully transferred power to Martin Van Buren. Trump? Peaceful transfer? TWK juxtaposes Trump with “Confident FDR”–FDR built Boulder Dam. (First chance it had, GOP renamed it Hoover Dam. Hoover, their hero.) Trump? Whimsically released millions of gallons of water being stored for summer agricultural use, long before California farmers will need it in June/July when crops grow in SoCal’s dry season. TWK’s next comparison is Trump to Lincoln, “sad, lamenting, troubled.” Trump?! TWK finishes the comparisons with “Donald Trump in high relief on a collectible gold coin.” Where to go with that one? To the nearest assayer? I think Hine may have reset TWK’s leash, at least for a paragraph.
–My friends started our conversation furious with Hine. I hope I’ve opened some space between him and his creation, TWK. – Shakespeare is not his character, Don John the Bastard. Tom Hine is not his character, TWK. This time Hine missed a few beats. He’s still the most skilled columnist in this paper. His similes & comparisons zing! Our new courthouse looks like a bar code. You’ll remember who told you that when our elected officials cut the ribbon and speechify.
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