Not long after Richard Nixon became President in 1969, his Attorney General, the dour, pipe-smoking John Mitchell, scolded the media for what he apparently thought was an over-reaction to the incendiary rhetoric of the new administration. Mitchell, in words more ironic than he or anyone else could appreciate at the time, advised the critics to “pay attention to what we do, not what we say.”

We all know how that turned out.

Now, here’s another administration, and Mitchell’s admonition seems entirely apt to the present set of circumstances. For example, Mexico was going to pay for The Wall. Now, instead children on military bases will have to deal with substandard schools because the money appropriated for new schools and improvements is going to be spent on The Wall if the administration has its way. And Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina may have to continue drinking polluted water because the money for a new water treatment plant could be shifted to help build The Wall.

For another example. The American electorate was promised in 2016 that if elected, the Republican candidate for President would repeal and replace Obamacare with something better and cheaper. When the Republicans got around to repealing the Affordable Care Act in 2017—an effort that didn’t succeed—the replace part of the promise was a no show. The ACA, now treated as the Cinderella Obama left behind, struggles along, deprived of much of its funding while the current administration comes up with not so clever ways to sabotage it. More on that in a minute.

We have been learning to pay attention to the deeds rather than the words with the current gang. It’s a little difficult to do that because the White House occupant lays out a constant smokescreen via Twitter and the media can’t resist, like Pavlov’s dog, reacting to what he says. Obviously we get to see what is being done as well, or I couldn’t be writing this perceptive analysis. The problem is, we have to fear that much of the electorate is paying attention to what the administration is saying and not what it’s doing. That’s especially problematic because the current President keeps grading his own report card and giving himself A+s.

The Mueller Report, of course, appears to be a huge disappointment to everyone who thought it would produce evidence—including maybe recordings of Trump and Putin speaking in Russian—of COLLUSION. Regarding that disappointment, two things need to be said. First, all that’s publicly known about the Mueller Report is in the attorney general’s four-page summary of a 300-page document. We need to see the report, not a political hack’s rendition of it. Second, we didn’t need a report to know that the Trump campaign and “the Russians” were communicating with each other during the 2016 campaign. They did it out in the open.

Here’s an excellent piece on the subject;

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/opinion/mueller-trump-russia-quid-pro-quo.html

With the Mueller Report out of the way, maybe now we can focus on what’s actually going on.

The current President has given the Democrats a great gift with his announcement that he still intends to abolish the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something supposedly better and cheaper. Put that up next to the promise to build The Wall that Mexico will pay for. Where is that superior replacement he keeps talking about?

Healthcare was a winning issue for the Democrats in 2018 and it will be in 2020. Let the Republicans run on it again. To quote George W. Bush: “Bring it on!”