During the 2016 campaign, probably the weakest moment for the Clinton effort came with the vice-presidential debate. Tim Kaine was totally outclassed by Mike Pence. The quick after-debate polls gave Pence the margin by something like 3 to 1. That means that even half of Hillary voters thought that Kaine lost the argument to Pence. On the campaign trail, Kaine was also a weak link. I watched one of his rallies on TV and it was like watching a blank screen. It was difficult to stay focused on what Kaine was saying.
That colorless campaigner is back in the news today in a really funny way. Kaine announced that the reason President Trump pulled the USA out of the Paris agreements is that Trump is jealous of the accomplishments of president Obama, so he wants to undo them. I'm not kidding; Kaine actually said that.
It's an amazing bit of nonsense from Kaine and it has some rather obvious problems. First, and most important, Obama hasn't got much in the way of accomplishments. Sure, Obama talked a lot and spoke of achieving this or that. The problem is that Obama never achieved anything except for the time the military took out Osama bin Laden. No one in his right mind would call the Paris agreements a big deal or even anything of importance. It was just another of those "agreements" that Obama signed even though it was totally meaningless. Was Trump jealous of an agreement that let the world's biggest polluter (China) continue to release emissions and even increase the amount of those emissions for another decade and a half? That's like saying that a runner is jealous of the performance of another runner who tripped and broke his leg and ended up in a wheel chair for two years. It doesn't make sense.
There is jealousy at work in Kaine's statement, but not the one he discusses. Kaine is clearly jealous that Trump/Pence won and his team lost. Projecting that jealousy onto Trump, however, does not work.
That colorless campaigner is back in the news today in a really funny way. Kaine announced that the reason President Trump pulled the USA out of the Paris agreements is that Trump is jealous of the accomplishments of president Obama, so he wants to undo them. I'm not kidding; Kaine actually said that.
It's an amazing bit of nonsense from Kaine and it has some rather obvious problems. First, and most important, Obama hasn't got much in the way of accomplishments. Sure, Obama talked a lot and spoke of achieving this or that. The problem is that Obama never achieved anything except for the time the military took out Osama bin Laden. No one in his right mind would call the Paris agreements a big deal or even anything of importance. It was just another of those "agreements" that Obama signed even though it was totally meaningless. Was Trump jealous of an agreement that let the world's biggest polluter (China) continue to release emissions and even increase the amount of those emissions for another decade and a half? That's like saying that a runner is jealous of the performance of another runner who tripped and broke his leg and ended up in a wheel chair for two years. It doesn't make sense.
There is jealousy at work in Kaine's statement, but not the one he discusses. Kaine is clearly jealous that Trump/Pence won and his team lost. Projecting that jealousy onto Trump, however, does not work.
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