Trump hits rock bottom morally

OUR PRESIDENT’S response on Nov. 20 to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in the national embassy of Saudi Arabia in Turkey back on Oct. 2 was a breach in moral accountability.

Here was the murder of a distinguished journalist who had been given assurance of his security by the brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the titular head of state in Saudi Arabia. The murder was a brutal and heinous crime. For almost seven weeks, we were bamboozled by statements lacking logic, stalling and outright evasion. Our president even sent the director of our CIA to Turkey to get to the bottom of things.

We waited for the president’s grand moment to respond on the world stage. He flunked. (Last) week, both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post took him to task. They did not mince works. The Journal called it “Trump’s Crude Realpolitik,” faulting his failure to uphold America’s abiding values and principles. The Post saw it as the ultimate value system of Donald Trump, namely “flash the money and we will let you do anything, even murder.”

Trump’s low moral ground, if we can call it that, “maybe he did, maybe he didn’t,” doesn’t pass muster. Think of the precedent and legacy the president imposes on our diplomatic leaders. We sit down with the Saudis, which we should, but with a 900-pound monster sitting in the room, pathetically finessed and never addressed. Is this how we make America great again? The world will not be fooled; neither will the Saudis.

My mother’s generation had a phrase they only used when they thought serious, if not great, issues were at stake. When someone did not stand up for truth, virtue and what they believed to be right they would say, “he has the backbone of a jellyfish.” My hunch is that we deceive no one but ourselves. I hope we can recover, but the jellyfishes have to be few in number.

PAUL R. MILLER Las Cruces