Wondering on Wednesday (v159)

Lo and behold, it's the last Wednesday of 2018 already - how did that happen?

I have to wonder whether anyone else noticed a certain calm today. You know, the kind of calm we have when the president is not watching Fox and tweeting policy statements, personal attacks, and personnel decisions?  The kind of calm that causes others to tweet more softly into the night? The kind of calm that will almost certainly be shattered within hours?

Today the president fulfilled one of the expectations of the office: he made a visit to US troops overseas, making a surprise visit to Iraq. The only real surprise was the timing; it was pretty much a forgone conclusion that he'd go, and he as much as said so in comments after his disastrous trip to Paris to 'celebrate' the anniversary of the end of World War I and then for his failure to participate in Veterans' Day ceremonies when he got back home. He's a very busy man, he's told us, so we appreciate that he did this, finally - although I wonder whether he could have held out much longer.

And while he had originally intended to spend 16 days or so basking in the Florida sunshine with his dues-paying friends at Mar-a-Lago, those plans got squashed when he brought about partial government shutdown. Oh wait - I wonder, are there people reading who might think the shutdown is the fault of anyone other than the president? The guy who said he'd be proud to shut it down? I hope not; after all, it's been beaten in to our heads since the election that we needed to respect him, and so I'm taking him at his word on this one. At his first word, I mean.

I'm not sure when the president will be able to get to Florida, whether he'll be able to be there for his New Year's Eve party or if he'll still be sitting all alone in the Oval Office waiting for the Dems to call. We do know that ticket prices have gone up again, as they did last year, for the bash - which I'd find disappointing if I were having to pay extra but not getting to be within earshot of the POTUS.

We got two different Christmas messages from the president. The first was simple, and complete and needed nothing, coming from this man so usually full of himself.

Merry Christmas!

And then, hours later, as if he realized that he had sold himself short, and us too, he used Christmas as a weapon against his two favorite foes:

I hope everyone, even the Fake News Media, is having a great Christmas! Our Country is doing very well. We are securing our Borders, making great new Trade Deals, and bringing our Troops Back Home. We are finally putting America First. MERRY CHRISTMAS! #MAGA

In between, we learned that because of the Democrats,

It's a disgrace what's happening in our country. But other than that, I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas.

With those season's greetings now enshrined in our history, I can only wonder what he'll wish us in his New Year's Eve message?