The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

There was a big kerfuffle last week involving American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an experienced, well respected reporter for National Public Radio in the US. The reporter, Mary Louise Kelly, had arranged an interview with Pompeo and during the conversation she asked him some pointed questions about Ukraine.

Kelly persevered when Pompeo clearly did not want to continue with any questions about Ukraine. After the interview ended, she was summoned to his private office and was reportedly reprimanded like a misbehaving school girl. Pompeo lashed out at her with a profanity-laced tirade.

Reaction to this exchange was often replayed during an otherwise relatively quiet news weekend when the overwhelming headline was the shocking death in a Southern California helicopter crash of former Los Angeles Lakers basketball Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others.

After his interview with her, Pompeo publicly called Kelly a liar, and US President Trump wondered out loud why publicly-funded NPR even exists. Their reactions were along the familiar lines of “the American press is the enemy of the people,” so nothing especially noteworthy there.

But it did seem like something significant happened during Pompeo’s schoolmasterish outburst. In the midst of it all, a highly agitated Pompeo reportedly asked Kelly, “Do you really think the American voter cares about Ukraine?”

And that question lies at the heart of this long-playing impeachment attempt by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives to either throw  Trump out of the White House or so besmirch his image and weaken his support that he will lose to the Democratic nominee in November.

This is because the Republican Party, and in particular the US president and those immediately around him, know the answer to Pompeo’s question.

The answer is that, according to available survey data, large numbers of American voters indeed do not care about Ukraine. Many voters couldn’t point out Ukraine on a map of nations newly independent since the fall of the Soviet Union. Pompeo even at one point asked an aide to display a map of Europe for Kelly, with the countries not identified, and challenged the reporter to locate Ukraine. (She reportedly did so correctly.)

Because of America’s phenomenal geographical good fortune, Americans have rarely needed to much concern themselves with overseas nations. And when it comes to North American neighbours, most Americans take for granted the astounding serendipity that there is no reason for the US to defend its nearly 5,525-mile northern border with Canada. This is the longest international border in the world.

Mexico, to the south, at least for Trump and his followers, is a nuisance to be dealt with by erecting a very expensive border wall.

People in most other countries are very much more concerned about the world around them than are Americans. Even the Russians, living in the world’s largest country, still cast a wary eye to the southeast where they fear Chinese hordes could mass along the border. Indians fret about Pakistan and China. The Chinese themselves have been and remain so historically paranoid about their neighbours that their Great Wall is still both a tourist magnet and a symbol of enduring angst. Brazil has had anxious moments over its neighbours. And even insular Australia remains concerned about threats from overseas.

Smaller nations everywhere else in the world are even more vitally concerned about nearby neighbours, for good reasons. But not in the US.

It is sometimes overlooked that it took the stunning, unprovoked Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 to finally rouse the US to join most of the rest of the world in opposing the Axis Powers in World War II. Until then, strong Republican and other isolationist forces in the American Congress had stoutly resisted most of US President Franklin Roosevelt’s attempts to assist the Western Allies.

So when Pompeo asked the NPR reporter if the American voter cares about Ukraine, he already knew the answer. And when Trump bellows to his followers at rallies that he wants to put America first and withdraw the nation from its post-World War II posture of strong, sometimes idealistic engagement with the rest of the world, they shout their approval and support.

There has always been a strong isolationist streak in the US and the world is now witness to the latest iteration of its ascendency.

The Republicans are counting on the strength of their answer to Pompeo’s question. Because if American voters don’t know where Ukraine is and basically don’t care what happens to it, they are unlikely to see the problem with what Trump did in his July 25 call to the President of Ukraine. They might just agree with the chorus of Trump apologists and defenders in the House and Senate who claim the president did nothing wrong.

And if a majority of the voters still feel that way in November, the US is indeed headed for four more years of its current administration.

Will history repeat itself when 49ers take on the chiefs?

Kobe Bryant’s death last Sunday diverted attention from the NFL’s annual Pro Bowl. Now, with that exhibition game behind us, we can all turn our attention to this Sunday’s Super Bowl 54, which does look like a game well worth watching. The fact that it is being played in familiar South Florida only serves to sharpen local interest.

It has been extensively reported that the 49ers are bidding to become the third NFL team with six championships in the Super Bowl era, alongside the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers. And everyone remembers by now the Kansas City Chiefs have waited 50 years since their last championship game appearance.

But these two teams do seem to be unusually well and closely matched, as is reflected in the narrow one-point spread from Las Vegas oddsmakers. What are we to make of this contest?

One pundit recalled the following coincidences: In February 1999, President Bill Clinton was impeached and acquitted by the US Senate. Super Bowl 33 was then played in Miami. In February 2020, President Trump will likely be acquitted by the Senate after impeachment in the House. This year’s Super Bowl will then be played in Miami.

Twenty one years ago, the AFC champion Denver Broncos beat the NFC champion Atlanta Falcons. The score was 34-19.

If history is a guide, AFC champion Kansas City will ride the greater post-season experience of both its head coach Andy Reid and even its youthful starting quarterback Pat Mahomes to victory on Sunday.

Seems as likely an outcome as any.

Political loyalty is, largely, an oxymoron

In Washington this week, as President Trump fumed and tweeted about his impeachment, there was a feeling that notwithstanding his likely eventual acquittal by the Senate, he will continue to suffer a death by a thousand cuts, as Richard Nixon did during the Watergate fiasco nearly 50 years ago. The House will continue to probe and more of the many in and out of government who are appalled by Trump are likely to come forward with new allegations and perhaps further hard evidence implicating the president in misdeeds or crimes. It seems the planned publication in March of former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton’s sensational-sounding book will be just one of many revelations that might add to public scepticism about a chief executive who has now been caught in public lies more than 15,000 times during his presidency. And if and when Republicans in the Senate feel Trump no longer represents an existential threat to their own precious re-election, they’ll desert him. Political loyalty in such matters is, after all, largely an oxymoron.