Most of us have heard of the fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson titled “The Emperor’s New Clothes” In summary–the emperor’s new clothes can be compared in part to our collective dirty political laundry. ‘Spin’ is everything!‘ The tale concerns an emperor who has an obsession with fancy new clothes, and spends lavishly on them, at the expense of state matters. One day two con-men visit the emperor’s capital. Posing as weavers, they offer to supply him with magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are incompetent or stupid. The gullible emperor hires them, and they set up looms and pretend to go to work. A succession of officials, starting with the emperor’s wise and competent minister, and then ending with the emperor himself, visit them to check their progress. Each sees that the looms are empty but pretend otherwise to avoid being thought a fool.
Finally, the weavers report that the emperor’s suit is finished. They pretend to dress him and he sets off in a procession before the whole city (totally nude). The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The people then realize that everyone has been fooled. Although startled, the emperor continues the procession, walking more proudly than ever.
Since the historic verdict on the previous President, Donald Trump, came out this week, I heard Bob Woodard, an investigative journalist and associate editor of The Washington Post since 1971 interviewed by a news agency when he made an interesting comparison of the above emperor tale related to camouflage–please read on.
Bob’s reputation precedes him–he has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, first for the coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein, and second as the lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
In addition, Woodward has written best-selling books on the last ten presidents—Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden—as well as the CIA, the Joint Chiefs, Hollywood and the Supreme Court. His approach is aggressive but fair and nonpartisan reporting (which we should all appreciate these days).
Bob’s famous “The Trump Tapes” is the intimate and astonishing audio archive of his 20 interviews with Donald Trump–featuring more than eight hours of their conversations–is as historically important as the Frost/Nixon interviews.
When asked about the unanimous verdict that came out on Thursday–Mr Woodard stated:
‘There’s a subtext to all of this and to all of us, and that is it has shattered the camouflaged world and life that Trump has–it is a body blow to that–and when I did these interviews with him in 2020, the last year of his presidency–Trump comes on and he says, I have a reputation for not being willing to apologize, it’s wrong, I will apologize if I’m wrong. I asked, when was the last time you apologized? Trump, oh, I don’t know. But I think over a period I would apologize. Here’s the thing. I’m never wrong”-–now that’s a part of the camouflage (according to Woodard)–the dagger has pierced his camouflage with this indictment and conviction.
Woodard added–just today, Trump is talking about violent crime in New York City–he said, at all levels it’s awful, nobody has ever seen it this bad (and that’s how Trump deals with his reality–with mistruths). According to Bob, the facts are that crime is down 83%. All crime is down. So he is wrong. And I think we’re going to see the evaporation of that camouflage that he’s been living in. And we saw it this morning, he actually prepared a series of untruths to try to defend himself with his guilty verdict.
Bob goes on to say “we have times in our history where there’s an ebb and flow of weather systems and the government, leadership institutions are seen as working or not. Is it possible this verdict could help swing us back to some normalcy? And that comes about with reporting the truth!” Hope springs eternal!
Has the Emperor lost his clothes? And bottom line–who’s going to tell him about it and/or which of the village people will continue to enable his lies?
Let the healing begin and let’s vote with our holistic, ethical voices, Warriors!
Spiritual Meditation: If there is any magic to be found– it is in the truth. – Daily Medicine