Source: russia-insider.com

by Gilbert Doctorow

Donald Trump’s speech to the joint session of Congress was a well-crafted and well-delivered exercise in communicating his case to the nation. He opened with a description of the flurry of Executive Orders in his first 30 days in office, enacting key promises made during the electoral campaign.

He then went on to describe the contours of legislation his administration will be bringing to Congress, starting with the budget and its featured scrapping of sequester for the military, which is to enjoy a 10% rise in appropriations while other government agencies are slashed. Then there was an extensive discussion of plans to repeal and replace Obamacare, as well as an extensive discussion of what will be done by tax policy and deregulation to assist American businesses and increase the availability of well-paying jobs for the general population.

Trump skillfully drew attention to the presence in the hall of the widow of one of the special services officers engaged in an anti-terror raid, of close relatives of persons who were murdered by illegal migrants, of a survivor of a rare disease. All of these vignettes demonstrated his compassion and generosity of spirit, a side of his personality that has been totally denied by his political detractors. He called upon Democrats and Republicans to put aside their differences and show similar generosity of spirit by passing his legislative program for the welfare of the nation.

Donald Trump’s 60-minute-long address was interrupted 93 times for applause, often standing applause and sometimes applause which crossed the aisle to include Democrats. Televised images of this President basking in enthusiastic support was surely a mighty antidote to the picture so determinedly projected by his political foes and by the mainstream media this past month showing an administration in disarray and a Chief Executive seemingly caught out in a Watergate-like scandal over illicit, possibly treasonous contacts with the Russians before he took office.

The line separating the two versions of his presidency was Trump’s retreat from his commitment to a new foreign policy, and in particular to new and constructive relations with Russia, that was marked by the forced resignation of General Michael Flynn, his National Security Advisor, on 13 February.

Flynn was at the center of the controversy over the new administration’s plans for détente with Russia. In the days since his departure, we witnessed the demarches of Nikki Haley, the new American ambassador to the United Nations, first insisting that the United States does not recognize Russia’s takeover of Crimea and then, this week, standing as one of three sponsors of a resolution in the Security Council condemning the Assad regime for use of chemical weapons. Both positions were a direct continuation of what her predecessor in the Obama administration, Samantha Power, had been doing.

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