Remember the first Godfather movie that was released in 1972 that featured the cross or T with all the puppet strings? Depending on who wrote about that symbolism, most came to the conclusion that Don Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando) played other mob families like puppets. Some say it had some type of religious meaning.
I remember a friend of mine and I wanted to go see the Godfather. The problem was we were 14 years old and it had an R-rating which meant we had to be accompanied by an adult. My mother and father had seen the movie and decided we could handle it so she took us to the theater. She thought she could just tell the woman in the ticket booth is was OK, but my mother ended up having to buy a ticket and then sneaking back out to let us watch the movie.
When I listened and read what went on recently is Washington, D.C., the thought of those puppet strings popped back in my head.
The reason was Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi played Republican President Donald Trump like a puppet.
First, she denied him an invite to the House of Representatives to deliver his state of the union address until the partial government shutdown was over. Trump first balked and said he'd give his address from the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans. He balked again and agreed to postpone his state of the union and of course Pelosi and the Democrats took credit.
Trump maintained that he was not going to re-open the government until Congress gave him the $5.7 billion he wanted to build the wall that he told all of us he was going to make Mexico pay for when he was running.
The shutdown had gone about 35 days, people were missing paychecks and others were being asked to work with no guarantee they would receive back pay for those days. The heat mounted and more and more polls started to show that it was Trump and the Republicans who were responsible and his numbers began to crumble.
So he caved. He agreed to re-open the government promising that it was only a temporary fix and that if he didn't get his wall, he'd shut the government down again.
The only problem is that Trump is not the only person on the ballot in 2020. There are a lot of Republican Senators that are getting nervous that if they are blamed for not only this shutdown, but the next, their heads may be on the chopping block come election time.
I'm not a Pelosi fan by any stretch, but I'll have to give her credit for being a great politician and for making the president look like one of her puppets.
I'm not ready to count Trump out yet. My bet is he's got something up his sleeve when the deadline on this temporary government funding grows near.
It appears the line in the sand has been drawn over this wall (that I said a few weeks ago won't really do much to stop the influx of illegal citizens coming from south of the border) and if that's the line Trump wants to follow, he better have a Plan B in his hip pocket.
Pelosi won round one. Let her win round two with the 2020 elections on the horizon and Trump and a lot of Republicans will be in real trouble.
Wouldn't it be ironic if this wall becomes Trump's downfall and we wake up one morning with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratically controlled House and Senate and the first vote they take is to allocate money for the wall?
