slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

By Michael Goodwin, NY Post

July 18, 2017 | 10:30pm | Updated

In good, bad and ugly ways, this week has been a revealing metaphor for Donald Trump’s presidency. The ObamaCare repeal efforts died a sensational death and the number of people known to have attended Donald Trump Jr.’s foolish meeting with a Russian lawyer increased to eight.

Also, special counsel Robert Mueller contacted at least one person at the meeting and requested an interview, according to the Washington Post.

Trump re-certified the Iranian nuclear deal that he promised to tear up, and his proposed changes to NAFTA, which he once called “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere,” are so modest that Mexico welcomed them as the basis for negotiations.

On other matters, the economy is still grinding forward, the stock market is near record highs and, despite numerous hysterical predictions, Trump has not started World War III with a tweet.

There is no denying that America elected an exceptional president in Trump, a consummate outsider and the first president ever to have no government or military experience. But as it wraps up its first six months, Trump’s presidency looks more conventional than exceptional.

Separating the substance from the noise shows him in a position familiar to all new presidents: struggling to turn his campaign promises into reality while juggling foreign-policy challenges and mastering the learning curve of the world’s most powerful job.

Trump also faces unique obstacles. Congressional Democrats remain determined to oppose him on virtually every act and appointment, and most of the media, along with much of the permanent government, remain determined to destroy him.

All those things considered, Trump’s rec­ord is not as good as he promised, but far better than his detractors predicted.

Most important, his mistakes and setbacks have not foreclosed the promise of his presidency. He still has an opportunity to reshape the economy so it creates more jobs and better serves working-class Americans. He is nominating federal judges who believe in limited government and don’t want the courts to act as a super-legislature.

Trump also has been mostly faithful to his America First agenda on overseas trips. While this has earned him cold shoulders from the likes of Angela Merkel, that’s a badge of honor. Merkel didn’t elect him and most Americans see Europe, including her Germany, as an example of a country not to emulate.

Yet there are worrisome trends, and the death of the ObamaCare repeal merits special attention because of what it says about Trump’s future. While the Rubik’s Cube complexity of health insurance, medical care and cost is daunting, the ultimate problem lies in the gulf between the president and the mainstream Republican Party.

Neither side is fully reconciled to the other and that is making it hard for the White House to get momentum. Its victories on ­executive orders and regulations are like one-game winning streaks, with congres­sional failures interrupting any sense of consistent progress.

Recall that the initial goal was to pass a health bill, tax reform and an infrastructure program — all in the first year. Now it’s not certain if any will get done.

Some of the stumbles are self-inflicted, and I don’t just mean the president’s bad habit of engaging in personal feuds. The larger problem is that the White House is simply not functioning effectively.

Leaks, leaks, leaks are Exhibit A. Why they continue, and why nobody has been fired for bad-mouthing the president to the media, ­remain a mystery. Why does Trump put up with it?

Another kind of amateurism was on display Monday. To set a campaign-consistent theme, the White House began a series of “Made in America” events.

With tractors, beer, tools, soup, golf clubs and leather goods among the products in a state-by-state display, the president put on a Stetson hat, climbed on a firetruck and pledged, “No longer are we going to allow other countries to break the rules, steal our jobs and drain our wealth.”

It made for great imagery, but then reporters asked why Trump family businesses continued to produce products in China. Poof went the air out of the room.

In the president’s defense, press secretary Sean Spicer mumbled something about “supply chains” and “scalability,” which was no defense at all, and Dems pounced.

A spokesman for the DNC called the exhibit “the epitome of President Trump’s ­hypocrisy” and said, “Instead of lecturing us, Trump should try setting an example.”

Of course, the president’s greatest vulner­ability is Mueller’s probe. Even if it finds no crime, its existence in the meantime is a shadow over the presidency.

The probe helps explain Trump’s record-low approval ratings, which tell many fellow Republicans that they have little to fear from him. That, in turn, makes them less willing to go out on a limb to deliver legislative victories for him.

Despite the drip, drip, drip of mistakes and leaks, I remain cautiously optimistic because I believe Trump’s ego will not let him accept being a failed president. To get lasting success, he must match his ambition with a steady effort to fix the White House so he can deliver consistent victories to the American people.

If he can do that, even Mueller won’t be able to stop him.

viking747

Articles on President Trump from the NY Times are usually bad and unfair. This one is no exception. The NY Times will not allow a favorable article to be published.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Maybe so, Viking. But, this came from the NY Post (as stated at the top), and their contributing editor Micheal Goodwin. Both the NY Post and Mr. Goodwin are conservative and have been staunch supporters of President Trump. Michael Goodwin is a Fox News contributor as well as a New York Post columnist.

http://nypost.com/2017/07/18/despite-his-missteps-dont-consider-trump-a-failure-just-yet/

viking747

Thank you I sit corrected. if I was standing my answer would be different. I will have to check out the NY Post. I would like to return the favor by suggesting the Gatestone Institute and Allen West Republic.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Thank you, I will. BTW, it was late, but I added to my previous post that Goodwin is also a FOX NEWS contributor.

PeterS

So when should we consider him a failure? He remains distracted by Russia making Ryan the one to push his agenda through. I doubt Ryan will go for infrastructure spending which leaves "tax reform"; code for tax cuts for the wealthy. Here again, Ryan is going to have to explain what to do with the new debt--what can he cut that the rest of congress will go along with? It's not going to be an easy task and certainly not as easy as Trump thought it would be when he came in.

It's very likely that Trump can end his first year with ZERO on the score board which brings him to 2018 and a lame duck year for Congress as they will be busy trying to regain their larges for two more years. This means that 2019 will be his next chance and with ZERO on the score board it questionable that he will have the majorities he once squandered. For Trump to have any kind of success he is going to have to learn to work with congress and that includes democrats. Here I think he's going to run into the same problem Obama had and he simply doesn't know how to reach out to the opposition. Given that, the only victories he is going to come up with are on the imaginary side--which his minions will believe--but nobody else...

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

If only he could trust someone with knowhow to fix his administration, he could indeed salvage his Presidency. That being said............that's as much a pipedream as all the crap he promised on the campaign trail.

Lying, exaggerating, hyperbole, showboating and so forth, are wonderful tools for a reality TV show, bringing drama and excitement to viewers, but are not effective tools for running a country.

viking747

All posts can be rated and on a one to ten scale you score a capital ZERO. Your comments are based on nothing with valid information to share. I would not throw insults around when you can't seem to write in sentences.