A Russian naval destroyer and an American naval destroyer came within 50 to 100 feet of colliding with each other yesterday in the western Pacific, and the Russian government and the American government (to the extent we have one) offered wildly different accounts of who was at fault.
And yet another example of brinksmanship emerged yesterday as well, when Donald Trump suddenly announced that he won’t impose a five percent tariff on all goods from Mexico into the US.
Intrepid as always, associate solitary reporter Lewis Thompson asked associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones what these two incidents have in common.
“Lewis,” Jones answered, with hardly a second thought, “that’s just the way Trump is — he gets real close to the edge, just as that Russian destroyer did — and then pulls back — and, next thing you know, he’s at one of his totally unneeded resorts."