Turning friends into foes a bad policy for Trump
I’m sure Attorney General Jeff Sessions would like his old Senate seat back. It would be a lot more stable than the deck of the political Titanic, which is where he finds himself as the water pours in through the hull.
Having steered the ship into the iceberg, Capt. Trump has decided that the smart thing to do is toss people like Sessions over the side.
How much more time does Sessions have to find a lifeboat? I don’t know, but I can tell you one thing: The president had better be careful.
Sessions is no Sean Spicer. He actually has friends in high places, specifically the Senate, where he represented Alabama for 20 years before foolishly accepting Trump’s offer to run the Justice Depart-
ment.
He’s also got a deep well of support among Trump’s base. (His full name is Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. How could he not?) Breitbart News, Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson have all wondered why Trump is shooting the friendlies, when he needs every friend he can get to put the right wing’s anti-immigration policies in place.
And of course, Sessions was tied up with the Trump campaign practically from the beginning. If there’s bad stuff to know about Russia, he probably knows it. And in the long run, he could create far more trouble for Trump than Trump is creating for him.
I never know who’s going to be sitting at the table when I take up an invitation from Charlotte and George Shultz for dinner.
The other night, my companions included Henry Kissinger, Michael Bloomberg, Jerry and Anne Gust Brown, Gavin and Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Ed and Anita Lee, and Tom Steyer.
I don’t think Jerry Brown is ever going to call it a career. He mentioned that he still has $20 million in his campaign account, even though he’s termed out as governor after next year.
Personally, I think he should consider running for San Francisco mayor in 2019. He was a great mayor of Oakland, and he might be the only politician alive capable of running this city.
Of course, Jerry is all about trying to head off global warming. So it was a bit ironic that the dinner table’s centerpiece, an ice sculpture of Earth, was little more than a puddle of cool water by the time the last course was served.
It was a great sight on Treasure Island the other day when Gov. Jerry Brown joined his Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, at the signing ceremony for legislation extending the state’s landmark capand-trade emissions control program through 2030.
No other state has such a duo willing to work together on an issue of world importance. A real “buddy” movie.
Movie time: “Dunkirk.” The most realistic war film of our time.
This story of the civilian boat lift to save trapped British troops from the shores of France in the darkest days of World War II is a cinematic wonder. It’s also an honest portrayal of how people react to seemingly hopeless situations.
“Girls Trip.” Tiffany Haddish, Regina Hall, Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith give you two hours of pure hilarity. Set at the annual Essence Festival in New Orleans, it shows a slice of Americana that doesn’t get much mainstream exposure.
It is truly a girls’ night out, and it lasts three full days. I did not want it to end.
I sure hope San Francisco Marathon organizers and the Golden Gate Bridge district board can work out a way to keep the race on the span next year. The bridge is the highlight of a marathon course that has no parallel in the country.
The winner did this year’s race in less than 2½ hours. Most of us would do well to finish in under 2½ days. Even the stragglers make our beloved Bay to Breakers look like a slow-motion joke.
I asked one especially exhausted-looking runner at the finish if he’d run for the whole 26-plus miles.
“Depends,” he said. “Am I under oath?”