To Russia, With Love

In all my years as a respected armchair scholar of the presidency, I have never witnessed an incoming administration in which so many top advisers already showed signs of having come down with the forgotskis, or early Alzheimer’s. Six top people, with more to come, have no recollection of meeting the Russian ambassador, or his fellow spies, as consular staff is sometimes known. This is an epidemic.

The first sign that the forgotskis had struck the upper ranks of the new administration was the president himself,

First, he forgot he knew the man who claimed to be the president of Russia. It turned out he wasn’t just a citizen auditioning for a job as doorman at the Trump Arms Hotel & Golf Club, which the First Realtor is planning to lease and refurbish the Lubyanka, the former KGB headquarters & prison, where on a clear day, it is said, you can see Siberia from its basement.

Then the man who is the greatest master of bait and switch ever to sit in the Oval Office forgot that his former campaign manager (Paul Manafort) was a friend of the ambassador that might have helped him get the job running the election campaign of the pro-Russian Ukrainian president.

He totally forgot to vet his closest military advisor, Gen. Flim Flam Flynn, who not only forgot to mention his rendezvous and phone calls with the Russian ambassador to VP Pence, but also that he was on the payroll of the Turkish government, and had neglected to register as a foreign agent.

The forgotskis hit his cabinet from Day One. Attorney General-elect Sessions, a great fan of civil rights for all in the South, except blacks and hippies, forgot to tell the Senator from “Saturday Night Live” that, yes, he actually may have had a vodka or two and some caviar with the ambassador or his staff.

In the haste ramming through anointed billionaires for the cabinet, the commerce committee forgot to ask the ambassador’s friend, Wilbur Ross, about his part-time job as vice-chairman of the Cyprus national bank which specializes in laundering rubles and dollars while they wait for Russian oligarchs, including President Putin.

The forgotski affliction, to be fair, was rampant beyond those who dealt with formulating the new To Russia, with Love foreign policy. The new Treasury secretary forgot to mention the 100 million he had stashed away in the Bahamas. The secretary of health forgot he had a portfolio of health care industry investments. The energy secretary was heading the department whose name he forgot during a national TV debate. The HUD secretary forgot the people he referred to as “immigrants” were also known as slaves.

I tell you, the new administration is looking more and more like “The Gong Show.” Too bad Chuck Barris isn’t around to hit the gong. It’s going to be even more fun than “The Major Bowes Amateur Hour,” for those who haven’t forgotten the golden age of radio.

I recommend taking two Gingkold Max for mental sharpness pills and forget about what’s happening while our memory-impaired liar–in-chief is making America— the land of the free, the home of the brave, unencumbered by foreigners with their camels and terrorist plots— great again.

But what about the poor ambassador?

What worries me is the press is not commenting on the Russian ambassador’s dilemma.

He’s been sending in voluminous reports about all the good work he is doing in subverting American electoral process, a goal of communist policy since the 1920s.

After just finishing a three hour lunch with caviar and vodka, an informal state dinner with the samovar and balalaikas, he needs to write a full report of a good meeting of minds, what was said verbatim, etc.

And then what happens? He has been sending in all these voluminous reports every week to the Kremlin, noting that he spent such and such amount of rubles on this and that incoming officials of the Trump administration.

But then they all deny ever meeting him!

Wait a second; his bosses at the Kremlin are probably shaking their heads “Is this guy making it all up?”

With every “No, I never met the guy,” the ambassador is seeing his promotion fly out the embassy window. His chances are ruined!

This is terrible. If he can’t show photos shaking hands with the different incoming Trump cabinet people, his next assignment might be counting trees in Siberia.

In the interest of fairness, and advancing Russo-American relations, a goal of the Trump foreign policy, all incoming officials should henceforth be tested for lead content of their brains.

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Marvin Kitman
March 14, 2017