Will Obama play golf on The Donald's new course?

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Jun 2, 2016 at 21:28

Hi, Daniel

When you first met Bernard, during your Grad School days in 1973, I was a homeless veteran. Maybe that goes some way to explain our differing views on Donald Trump. I didn't make it to grad school for another 30 years, when I was older than most of my teachers. I did meet some notable people in those days, though -- stayed with Andy Warhol in a slum in San Francisco in 1970 and 71, met Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland at a small GI rally later that year, and talked with CPUSA leader and US Presidential hopeful Gus Hall the the next year. What's amazing, I suppose, is that we even talk to one another, much less have common cause on most issues.

Since outgoing British PM David Cameron (I'm hoping for a Brexit "GO" result) took to crassly insulting the next President of the USA (also hoping for a particular outcome there); and outgoing (Thank God!) US President Obama took to propping up Cameron and opposing Brexit, US politics has become, for the moment, inextricably knit with Britain's. This led me to reading an article about the British cultural values which will play in the coming vote:

"As a way to thumb its nose at both Germany and Turkey, the influential right-leaning Spectator magazine started a "President Erdogan Offensive Poetry" competition, inviting readers to submit anti-Erdogan limericks.

"The winner was Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and leader of the Brexit campaign, who implied in his poem that Mr. Erdogan was overly fond of goats. Announcing the winner in the magazine, Douglas Murray, who organized the competition, said the existence of the poem (and of Mr. Johnson) showed Britain's superiority over Germany, which is part of the European Union, and Turkey, which would like to be.

"I think it a wonderful thing that a British political leader has shown that Britain will not bow before the putative caliph in Ankara," he said. "Erdogan may imprison his opponents in Turkey. Chancellor Merkel may imprison Erdogan's critics in Germany. But in Britain we still live and breathe free."

-- http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/world/europe/britain-eu-brexit.html?_r=0

Curiously, Mr. Obama winds up on the same side of the fence with the Turkish dictator here. We'll all find out how it pans out in three weeks (June 23); and I am certain that Mr. Trump will notice the result from the golf course he is opening in Scotland the following day. After a few decades of US Presidents who have been out to lunch or playing golf during every significant event, my hat goes off to The Donald for sensing the moment.

Aah! The Brits haven't given us their greatest blessing since the Beetles!

Will Obama be playing golf on Donald's new course? I don't think so -- not for a while :-)

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