Jonah Goldberg column stops short of identifying Trump’s motivation
To the editor: Columnist Jonah Goldberg came close to understanding why President Trump is trying to force something, anything he can call a peace agreement between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky (“Here’s the key to understanding Donald Trump’s approach to the Ukraine war,” March 4). Goldberg stopped mere inches from explaining Trump’s obsession with being a key player in any such agreement. Trump’s insistence that Zelensky cave is motivated, in my view, by 15-year-old events, when then-President Barack Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. It appears that Trump is quite willing to promote continuation of a war that kills thousands, until such time when he can claim to have stopped it. Then he can also claim the Nobel Peace Prize. His ego and insecurities know no bounds.
David L. Burdick, Ridgecrest
..
To the editor: Is it possible that Goldberg is on to something? Breaking news: Trump is angling for the Nobel Peace Prize and another cameo on the cover of Time magazine. He is only interested in transactions that will benefit him.
Robert Impellizzeri, Moorpark
The writer is a retired U.S. Army colonel.
..
To the editor: Goldberg’s surprisingly excellent column is 100% correct. Trump’s approach to life has always been, “just say.” He has never cared about true or false, or right or wrong, or the Constitution or the laws. Don’t forget, he told the Georgia secretary of state to find 11,780 votes votes — another form of “just say.”
Goldberg doesn’t say what we should do about all this. I suggest that House Democrats prepare and present accurate and persuasive motions for impeachment — and loudly and constantly talk about them — but I welcome other ideas.
Mike Holtzman, San Luis Obispo
..
To the editor: Goldberg deserves a tip of the hat, but not a hats-off, on his column on the Ukraine war and Trump’s vanity (“Whether Russia invaded Ukraine is not a ‘complicated’ question. Why say it is?” Feb. 25).
While rightly raising serious questions about the president’s character and purpose, and the subsequent confusion and obfuscation in the ranks, as officials do the tap dance, Goldberg doesn’t disappoint, as he quickly shifts gears to go after his own boogeymen: the Biden administration and the Democrats.
Questions of false equivalency might be raised at this point, such as condemning Hitler’s brutality and then quickly jumping to the failures and faults of the Weimar Republic (Germany’s democratic government from 1919 to 1933). Whatever faults the Weimar Republic had dim in comparison to the naked evil of Nazism.
And whatever faults the Biden administration had — and the Democrats still have — also pale in comparison to the brutal dismantling of America’s government, even as the administration parrots Putin’s lies, both of which are designed to enhance Trump’s portfolio.
Goldberg can never resist a chance to reach across the aisle and lambaste the Democrats and scold Biden, as if that could soften the hideous mess mushrooming in the GOP. I wish he would state the case of the corrupt GOP, express his disappointment, and leave it at that.
The Rev. Tom Eggebeen, Pasadena
