Just when you thought the degradation being brought down on our country couldn’t possibly get any worse, the president of the United States disgraced himself with a toadying performance of obsequiousness before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during an “official working visit” to the White House.
Remember, Prince Mohammed is the cruel tyrant who persecutes, imprisons, and tortures activists, clerics, businesspeople, and academics who dare to dissent. He is the man who, according to Human Rights Watch, imprisoned and tortured Saudi women who were campaigning for the right to drive a car.
It wasn’t just the optics of throwing M.B.S., as he is called, a lavish dinner. It wasn’t just the memory of President Trump’s rump-kissing of this human-rights criminal still ringing in our ears from a meeting in Riyadh in May. (“I really believe we like each other a lot,” Mr. Trump said, calling him an “incredible man” who is “my friend.”) The icing on the foul cake was to hear our president implicitly condone M.B.S.’s sanctioning — according to the U.S. intelligence services — of the 2018 murder and dismembering of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who reported for The Washington Post.
“You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial,” Mr. Trump said. “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you liked him or didn’t like him, things happen.” And when a journalist in the room dared to ask a polite question about it, he pointed an angry finger and called her “piggie.”
Freedom of expression, association, and assembly; the right — no, the duty — to criticize and hold our government to account: These are the American way. Our own president clearly doesn’t embrace or even grasp those values, and indeed seems to fall in love with any dictator who crosses his path, especially those who kill practitioners of the free press or political opponents.
This was the darkest among many dark days.