Foreign Policy Savant

Humbly declaring "I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created, Donald Trump (cartoon below by Danziger) has jumped with both feet into the clown car.

And not a moment too soon. Last month, Trump told GOP TV's Greta van Susteren

All I can tell you it is a foolproof way of winning, and I’m not talking about what some people would say, but it is a foolproof way of winning the war with ISIS.   And it will be absolutely, 100 percent –they’ll at minimum come to the table but actually they’ll be defeated very quickly.

So here is a modest suggestion (if I can be so humble as to refer to myself as modest): President Obama should welcome Mr. Trump to the White House to explain how this most brutal of terrorist groups can be vanquished.

This is a no-lose option.  There is a modicum of chance that Trump has a plan which a) exists; b) would eliminate the Islamic State; and c) would more likely improve the situation in the Middle East than worsen it.  There also is possibility, about as likely, that Elizabeth Warren will be the next GOP presidential nominee.

Trump probably would reject the request, perhaps by reminding all of America how much he hates the U.S. President, a Kenyan masquerading as a Hawaiian.  But the offer itself from the leader of the Free World would enhance the candidate's credibility. Moreover, it would give said candidate the opportunity, as he sees fit, to enhance his credibility further by denouncing the President most Repubs loathe or by accepting it, lending him foreign policy gravitas and a leg up on the other contenders.

That is an outcome devoutly to be wished for.  Recognizing Trump as "a circus sideshow attraction,"  Salon's Bob Cesca early this morning remarked

With Trump officially joining the race, he vindicates the increasingly obvious analysis that the Republican Party, at the presidential level at least, is little more than a shell corporation for opportunists and careerists who aren’t interested in governing or even winning. The addition of Trump is the would-be final brick in the effort to turn the GOP’s nominating process into a dysfunctional and menacingly ugly reality show competition in which the contestants each scramble to be the most flagrant panderer to the Tea Party base and, subsequently, augment their Q-scores within the lucrative conservative entertainment complex. 

So, President Obama: invite Donald Trump to the White House.  Call his bluff. And if he does go, show the man behind "The Art of the Deal" that he can be played by the man he considers a terrible negotiator presiding over an Administration of terrible negotiators.  Further, the GOP, as Cesca puts it, would be further down the road "telegraphing to the world that it’s interested in fielding candidates who are commensurate with the seriousness of the nation’s perils."

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