#1,000: IT

This past week President Biden, Vice President Harris, Sec. of State Anthony Blinken, White House National Security Advisor Jacob John (“Jake”) Sullivan, and the foreign affairs apparatus of a half-dozen countries including Slovenia, Turkey, Norway, and Germany managed to pull of what is being recognized as “the most far-reaching exchange between Russia and the West in decades.” Details of the swap are beginning to emerge. We now know that more than 2 years went in to putting it all together - and amazingly, without a single leak. Among those freed from Russian prisons were Evan Gershkovich Alsu Kurmasheva, and Paul Whelan.

Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was detained in March 2023, and accused of spying for the United States. Whelan, a security consultant and former Marine, was arrested by Russian authorities 5 years earlier, in December 2018, and convicted of espionage in 2020. Kurmasheva, an editor with the U.S.-funded, editorially independent Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was detained last year and sentenced this summer to 6½ years in a Russian penal colony on a charge of spreading false information about the Russian military. The final hurdle President Biden had to surmount in order to make the swap work, was getting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to agree to President Biden’s heartfelt plea to include Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov in the swap. Krasikov, a former high-ranking FSB colonel serving a life sentence in a German prison, was found guilty of a murder committed on German soil. He was on the very top of Moscow’s list of Russian prisoners it wanted back. At first, Chancellor Scholz was firmly reluctant. Finally, he agreed to include Krasikov in the negotiation because of his warm personal friendship with President Joe Biden. Over his half-century in politics, Joe Biden has gotten to know and befriend nearly all the major leaders in the world. Let’s face it: he is a likable man. And in the art of diplomacy, personal relationships are everything.

This swap will likely be a capstone on his more than half-century political career . . . at least in the eyes, hearts, and minds of those who research and write about American political history, as opposed to merely responding with partisan kneejerk reactions. The former POTUS, who once predicted that Evan Gershkovich wouldn't be freed under President Biden, questioned and criticized the terms of the prisoner swap: "So when are they going to release the details of the prisoner swap with Russia? How many people do we get versus them? Are we also paying them cash? . . . Our 'negotiators' are always an embarrassment to us! I got back many hostages, and gave the opposing Country NOTHING – and never any cash." Trump went so far as to call the prisoner swap “. . . a win for Putin.” Not to be outdone, Trump’s “mini-me,” J.D. Vance, actually suggested that his boss and BFF - the man he once called “an American Hitler” - that the successful swap was a “testament” to his boss’s strength and skill.

Regardless of how many moronic takes on the prisoner swap these guys disgorge, it isn’t going to gain them a single new vote . . . and may even turn off some of their most ardent supporters. This complex swap provided ample testament to just how savvy a politician/diplomat “Uncle Joe” Biden is. You had better believe that when political historians issue their next rankings of the various presidents, Joe Biden will enter the list near the top . . . and Donald Trump will still be dead last.

Above, I referred to Biden as “Uncle Joe.” To date, I believe this is the closest writers and journalists have come to giving him a proper and fitting sobriquet. Whether or not it will stick - like “Honest Abe,” “T.R.” (or the “Bull Moose”), “JFK,” “LBJ.” “Give ‘em Hell Harry” (Truman), “Tricky Dick” (Nixon), “His Fraudulency” (Hayes) or “No Drama Obama” - only time will tell.

Echo & Narcissus From Ovid’s Metamorphosis (Book III)

It gets me to thinking: what nickname will history give to Donald Trump - the man who saddled more prominent politicians with nasty, puerile nicknames than any politician in American history? Of course, early on in his business career, he tagged himself "The Donald.” My dear friend Alan Wald (one of the wittiest people I have ever known and loved) has long referred to him as "The Orange Blob.” I’ve heard a few people refer to him as “DonOLD.” Let’s face it: there is an infinite number of possibilities. Loving Greek mythology as I do, I’ve given thought to calling him “Son of Liriope”, the nymph who bore Narcissus, the eponymous ancestor of all narcissists - people afflicted with a mental condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. Generally speaking, people with this disorder lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others.

While trying to come up with a Trumpian epithet for the ages, Annie made me aware of an interview ‘45 had on Fox News (?) in which host Laura Ingraham mentioned that Vice President Kamala Harris has “she/her” in her social media bio to indicate her pronouns.

“What are your pronouns?” Ingraham asked Trump.

“I have no — I don’t want pronouns,” the Republican nominee said.

“So, you’re fluid? What is that?” Ingraham replied.

“Nobody even knows what that means. Ask her to describe exactly what that means,” Trump added.

Clearly, that’s not true. Pronouns are a crucial part of the English language, helping people describe things without repeatedly using names or nouns.

Then it came to me: the 45th (and worst) POTUS of all time should be called by his pronoun . . . IT. Strange, isn’t it? I mean here’s a man who once claimed to “know the best words,” yet doesn’t seem to have the slightest idea about what a pronoun is. It is the most complex pronoun in the English language. Among its tens of dozens of possible usages, one of my favorites was when the popular 1920s British romance novelist Elinor Glyn named silent screen actress Clara Bow “The It Girl.” And what was “It?” Sex appeal honey, don’t you know? Add a second “t” (ITT) and you get a character (“Cousin ITT”) from “The Addam’s Family. ITT is a diminutive, hirsute being, his visible form composed entirely of floor-length hair. He is often attired in a bowler hat and round sunglasses, and speaks in a high-pitched gibberish that is understood only by his family, who are equally weird. This character has a lot in common with the former president: the worst hairdo in the history of television (and movies) and an inability to make sense to anyone other than his equally weird family.

Using IT (double capital letters) as a presidential nickname introduces another use or tone of the word: to refer to a general situation, such as “It hasn’t been the same since IT came down that damned golden elevator back in 2015.” In this sense, IT has a certain nauseating nebulosity that IT so richly deserves.

At the top of almost every historian’s list of the best POTUS is Honest Abe. Perhaps my epithet will catch on, and the worst POTUS will simply be known as IT . . . the hairy creature that inflicted so much pain and insanity as to be eternally unpronounceable.

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone