Schmooze is everything, substance is nothing...

Happy Wednesday people…it is Wednesday right? Honestly, in all the hubbub of the past several days I’ve kind of lost track of things. It’s easy to do that in the post-summit hangover of intoxicating schmooze over vacuous substance.
But I’ve had the opportunity to think about things a little more once the images of The Trump and Kim Jong-Uno cleared the screen and the media once again focused on the random shootings and car jackings that have become a part of daily life here in the U.S. It begs the question; did we really gain anything?

Certainly not what you would expect to be left holding following the big flourish in Singapore. Sure, The Trump has a trophy…a vague document with little specifics signed by a despot. The Trump will use that as political currency for the next few years running up to his reelection campaign (if it gets that far).

The whole thing was must-see TV. Right? It was an entire season of The Sopranos with a weird Dennis Rodman plot twist toward the end.

I will give The Trump his due on one thing. He managed to get Kim to Singapore and generally agree to dismantle NoKo’s nuclear program…details to follow…probably…maybe.

One thing that struck me as I was watching it all unfold here at The Compound. One – did anyone else notice how tall Kim seemed? I always thought he was a short pudgy dude. The Trump, I believe, is over 6 foot and Kim wasn’t much shorter than him. Was he wearing lifts in his shoes maybe? Oh, wait, maybe it wasn’t Kim at all, but some imposter the NoKos sent to the summit? How’s that for conspiracy theory?

Just about every president (since King George I), Republican or Dem, has gotten something from the NoKos over time…concessions that lifted at least some of the perennial sanctions heaped upon the NoKos by the United States.
Hell, Clinton even brought one of the other Kim’s top generals to the WH for a face to face. Of course, Mr. Bill kept looking over the general’s shoulder asking, “Where the girls?”

Okay, we’re making that up.

Andy Kroll, writing for Rolling Stone, really put things into perspective. Kim got exactly what he wanted and is probably the winner here:

• He was propelled onto a world stage, making him appear less a third-world despot and more a weighty (pun intended) player whom the U.S. superpower must pay some attention.
• That, at least on some unspoken level, with the summit playing out on international television, has legitimized one the most brutal regimes in the world.
• He was able to get The Trump to commit to stopping the annual U.S./SoKo war games that have always been a bur under the saddle for NoKo.
• Agreement on a document that contains little to no specifics as to a time table for denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
• Lots of superlatives from the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. The Trump really doesn’t help things by painting Kim as a “great personality” who is “very talented” and that it was a “great honor” to appear beside him.

Will The Trump’s administration enforce the accord such that it is? I’m sure they will at least try. They have to with The Trump taking his victory laps now, though it may prove more problematic than worth the time and effort.

​Time has a way of taking the shiny glow of schmooze down to a dull glint. And, The Trump still has Iran to deal with.

Concerns regarding human rights violations by the NoKo regime were supposedly given some passing discussion. No terms were reached on the repatriating the 5,000+ American servicemen remains dumped into mass graves in NoKo during the Korean War.

And, then, The Trump wants to put up condos on beachfront property there? Seriously?

I hate playing the part of the Doubting Robin, but I would predict this will turn into another “wait, don’t we have an agreement with them?” episode. I hope that’s not the case, but the NoKos have a long history of slippery nonsense.

As even Ronald Reagan once said, “Trust, but verify!”

​That is all!

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