What to do with POTASS ISBN: 97809990589372 Mystery House Publishing copyright and written by Glenn Shepard.
Sub-titled “A comedic novella of political errors” the reader finds an oddly dressed but narcissistic President of the United States making idiotic decisions with respect to accompanying legislators on the golf course. From this unflattering introduction of today’s duly elected top executive of the United States, the parody continues as a lowly positioned building custodian who is relatively knowledgeable about aspects of public interest in the president, is elevated to a silly but important position on this executive’s staff. In this position he learns of several plots that are being generated to do away with the President. The tale continues as each plot is attempted to be carried out by each inept politician while POTASS, in his usual fashion, fails to listen to his informer’s inadequate attempts to aid him in avoiding the situation.
Discussion: This is another author’s contribution to this pasquinade of usually only slightly disguised varying degrees of derision toward duly elected President Trump. It is surprising and most regrettable for this reviewer to find it written by this particular recognized and intelligent author. The populace now has been subjected to three years of negative material that has been repeated ad nauseum about the man. And please, do NOT dismiss my remarks as those of a die-hard Republican. Through the years I have voted for each party’s presidential candidates depending upon my judgement of the candidate’s qualifications, not the party. Thus, it is sincerely hoped that my remarks will be accepted for the observations. No political or derogatory overtones are meant or implied. To begin, I heartedly concur with much that is here. The man is objectionable in many ways – appears to be ego-centric and narcissistic, seemingly inattentive and often ignores what others consider good advice (although with passing time evidence has vindicated a number of his criticized decisions). Also he can be crude, quite abrasive and appears to enjoy spouting copious and often poorly considered opinions on twitter. But again parenthetically, many of these same traits are quite noticeable in other successful persons, even those without his range of successful achievements before assuming the presidency. A prime example, his predecessor whose narcissism and ego-egocentricity were just as noticeable, even though his achievements were unremarkable and definitely quite in minimal number demonstrating his qualifications to be elected President of the country. Then following election, his mistakes and/or miscalculations were numerous but only cautiously referred to even when blatantly apparent (with increasingly solid evidence of wrong doing only recently surfacing). Perhaps one most prominent example, his authorized delivery of a huge quantity of U. S. taxpayers’ dollars in cash to an enemy country. Our reward? Liberation of a soldier captured after deserting his duty post in the front lines of action. Sadly, the hesitancy of the time to address this and other mismanaged incidences may well be the reason the mass of derogatory material has occurred against the present POTUS. Such assumption easily may be made when considering the prominence accorded the extremely sensitive term ‘racism’ and the adverse thoughts conjured up by the term with that President. After suffering through eight years of this perceived restriction, or at least seeming need to minimize perceived ‘wrong-doings’, perhaps its removal has been enough to release the long pent-up desire by the media and even individuals to be able again to discuss freely perceived inadequacies in POTUS. For example, Trump’s apparent concurrence with Putin’s position and the entire Russian election interference situation in disagreement with the FBI/CIA repeatedly has been heavily criticized. But this also currently is under reconsideration as the result of a recent official report offering sharp criticism of the repeated inadequate and even seemingly bordering criminal performance by these ‘pillars of justice’ of the U. S. Government. But then again, there are his improper call to the newly elected President of Ukraine; his involvement in a poorly-thought-out series of associated events and more. BUT ENOUGH! As previously stated, the discussion of his inadequacies now has continued ad nauseum for more than three consecutive years. And the history of this country is replete with a long list of pros and cons of the activities of every president this country has had.
So to summarize: records quite clearly show that at his time the former occupant of the White House made a sizable number of often minimized mistakes that included appointing and retaining a Secretary of State who knowingly was involved in activities detrimental to our country while compiling, with her somewhat tainted former president husband, a huge personally overseen fortune. Additionally, his own final departure from office shows a sizable increase in net worth, his entire party in disarray and a totally confused country. Meanwhile, the overall activity of the sitting president, at least to the present moment, has appeared to be highly productive for the United States and its residents – accomplishments largely resulting from his activity alone. The opposing political party’s outright obstruction long has been as blatantly evident as has the lackadaisical aid from his own. So to reiterate, from this reviewer’s sincere attempt at impartial examination, this book is very well-written in the author’s usual manner, but from this reader’s perspective and most apologetically to the author, it is a tedious repetition of material the likes of which has inundated the media, the airways and especially the late night comedy shows for an inordinate period of time.
2* For reasons cited in the discussion and apologies to a fine author.