Trump talks Turkey, Beltway clutches its pearls
The Deep State and its press allies are going bonkers over that news of President Trump's letter to Recep Tayyip ErdoДџan, the president of Turkey. And yes, he really sent it.
It's an entertaining, blunt-bastard sort of letter, so get a load here:
ErdoДџan didn't say much of anything, but here's the crazed headline response from Washington:
"Is This Real?": Trump Sends Third-grade Reading-level Letter To ErdoДџan —Vanity Fair
This letter Trump sent to Erdogan is 'so weird we had to check with the White House to make sure it's real' —MSNBC
Jake Tapper: I thought this Trump letter was a joke ... it's real —CNN
Trump's Letter To Turkey's Erdogan Shows President Is 'Deeply Unwell,' Says Historian: 'So Threatening, So Unhinged, So Bizarre' —Newsweek
Read President Trump's Bizarre Letter to Turkey's President —New York magazine
Trump's Letter To Erdogan Was So 'Adolescent' People Thought It Was A Fake —HuffPo
You can see the full makings of a freakout. They're off their rockers with this one.
As for Trump, all the rest of us can see is that the president remains crazy like a fox.
After all, what better way to address a near-dictator hell-bent on killing Kurds than with a do-this-or-I'll-beat-the-crap-out-of-you letter of this kind? It's actually appropriate, because it's language a thug like ErdoДџan can understand. What better way to talk to him than with words like this? Trump leaves the Ankara dictator with no uncertainty as to what Trump wants and what Trump will do, same as a godfather in some place like Howard Beach might get across. Strongmen respond to strong words, not namby-pamby niceties, and Trump just laid it out for ErdoДџan what he's got to do in language he can understand and what's going to come down the pike if he doesn't. An intractable tyrant isn't going to negotiate nicely, after all, so New York–style street frankness works better.
What's more, the tone of the letter was unexpected. It had the strategic element of surprise.
Trump, of course, is under high political pressure at home, even from Republicans, over the U.S. pullout in Syria, as it's viewed as harmful to our Kurdish allies who helped fight ISIS. The press is flooding the airwaves with pictures of Kurdish misery, some actually fake. The other thing is that not all of the Kurds are U.S. allies; Kurdistan is a big place, and some Kurds are firebomb-happy Marxist terrorists and presumably the ones ErdoДџan wants out of the picture. But there may be some allies caught up in Turkey's offensive, and as Republicans pile on to Trump and insist on endless war, Trump is telling ErdoДџan to get the heck out.
It's appropriate, and now that all presidential conversations with world leaders are now subject to leaks, heh might as well release it. It was going to get leaked anyway.
It might just work, given that nothing else works with ErdoДџan. The Turkish president's staff claim he's thrown it in the trash, but rest assured: he hasn't. Trump has his attention now, and he's going to try to stop him.
It's talking Turkey. It may be rough, but rough is good for a thug like ErdoДџan. What's important in diplomacy is that the message is clear. ErdoДџan now knows the deal. Too bad the Beltway doesn't.