Real Brave. He's Trying to Suffocate Us. Real Tough Guy.

President Useless has struck again. It's a situation tailor-made for him to pretend to take control. He likes to suffocate people. He's trying to do so again.

He evoked all the hot buttons for his base in his Rose Garden ranting: "an offense against God (yeah, right, as if he'd know)," protecting the Second Amendment (whatever any of this has to do with any of that), challenging the state governors to step up and get tough (even though a far greater majority of the protesters are peaceful), and threatening to use the U.S. military to restore order, even if not requested (constitutional, but overplaying the hand). Then he had the police clear the street in front of the White House as he was speaking, scattering people who committed no violence, for full dramatic effect.

What drama. What nonsense.

Then he went over to the church where he never goes, and holds up a Bible. Real brave. Real decisive. We know the people to whom he was showing it. Sorry, but they're twisted, too.

Takes absolutely no courage for someone to do your dirty work so you can pose for holy pictures. The Secret Service took him to a more secure place last night so he could hide from his people. This posing was just another hiding in plain sight.

With all that, absolutely no mention of what the protestors, now in over 140 cities, are actually demonstrating about: The senseless police homicide of a black man who, granted, probably committed a crime.

But people are supposed to be taken into custody without dying. They aren't supposed to have the life choked out of them by someone's bended knee. There's supposed to be a Constitution to protect them, even though they aren't exactly the flower of our society.

People are supposed to have the right to assemble to voice grievances. It's mentioned in the First Amendment which, last I recall, is every bit as important as the Second, to which none of this situation applies.

Really? This protest isn't legitimate? The uncalled-for death of a black individual in police custody, a scene repeated way too many times recently, isn't a reason to get out in the streets and raise a little hell?

He never mentioned that. It's clear he's past it now. It's clear he doesn't care. "The best friend of peaceful protestors?" No. That's a lie. If he was, he would have walked right through the folks who were protesting just off Lafayette Square yesterday, without fear, and in fact would have embraced them.

No, no. This is a time for a tough guy. And he's a real tough guy. "No Mr. Nice Guy," his campaign ads say. Well, you bet. He'll take over. He's a take-charge guy when it's for show.

Except he can't. If the crowds are dispersed in downtown areas, they will re-assemble elsewhere in town, in other neighborhoods, and outrun whatever force approaches. That's the problem with a knucklehead running this show: He doesn't get it. There aren't enough law enforcement people anywhere who can keep up with this by themselves; in the end, they need cooperation and acquiescence. They're simply outnumbered.

That's why it was so important, at the end of the Civil War, for Lee to surrender his entire army and for Grant to simply allow them to go back home. A guerrilla war fought piecemeal by angry Confederates would have lasted decades. (Besides, they came back and won Reconstruction.) If these people aren't allowed to say what they need to say, they will resist for weeks. And, since many of them are unemployed now, they can do it.

I have news for him: If after seven nights the protests haven't subsided, no strong-arm tactics are going to create civic peace. Something like peace may be evident on the surface, but post-surface tension will remain. The army, called out under so-called 'extraordinary' circumstances, will have to stay put and we will be the police state we've always feared.

The message has been delivered. Now it's a matter of getting someone to take action to indicate that the message has been heard: laws passed, court rulings, etc. No guarantees of that, if anyone's been studying history. Domestic tranquility will have to happen from within the populace itself. In fact, there's a good chance that all this will backfire and cause more violence, not less.

Calling out the army and applying martial law to increase the drama so someone pays attention to you accomplishes only that. This tragedy is only being doubled down by the week. George Will is right: He should be removed and his Republican enablers, too. That's a tall order. But we have to do both.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark