Meeting Dennis Kucinich

Last night, Saturday May 20, we met some friends at a dog friendly, vegetarian restaurant, Darbster, in West Palm Beach. There were six of us and three dogs. We brought Noah, our Golden Retriever…

and Rose and Dwane brought their two cocker spaniels. The other couple, Adele and Howie, have 5 dogs, but they didn’t come. Good thing. Six people and 8 dogs would have been tough to seat on that busy Saturday night!

The six of us are avid Democrats who supported Bernie Sanders in the primary and voted for Hillary Clinton in the election. As for Trump, well, the six of us were talking about how we hoped impeachment was in his immediate future. Suddenly, Rob says, “Wow, I just saw….you know, the guy who ran for president in 2008, the liberal vegetarian.”

“What? Kucinich?” I exclaimed, and glanced around.

There, on the side porch next to the canal, was a short man in a black coat and white shirt, very dressed up for this laid back restaurant, and a woman. I couldn’t see their faces, but physically, the man looked like Kucinich. Short, like an elf. I immediately got up and did my spy thing, walking Noah over to the side porch and down some steps into vegetation and trees that grow along the canal, where I might get a better look at the man. And yes, it was Kucinich, with an attractive woman who looked like photos I’d seen of his British wife.

Noah and I hurried back to the table. “It’s him,” I announced.

“Let’s go over and say hello,” Rob said.

We turned Noah over to Adele and walked over to Kucinich’s table. Rob greeted him first. “Hi, Mr. Kucinich. We were big supporters of yours in 2004 and 2008.”

Actually, in 2004, Kucinich’s voice was one of that that  kept me sane during the Bush presidency, the war in Iraq, Gitmo, and all the rest of it.

We apologized for butting on his dinner with his wife and I blurted, “Is Trump going to be impeached?”

His face sort of fell, as if pulled by excessive gravity, and he shook his head. “He’s going to serve out his four years. It’s a really bad time in this country.”

“These things,” his wife said in her beautiful British accent, “have to run their course.”

I thought: HUH? Something as detrimental and damaging as Trump has to run its course? Suppose we had taken that stance about Watergate and Nixon?

We told him we hoped he would run again for political office, thanked him, and hurried back to our table, bewildered. And immediately started Googling, trying to find out what he was doing in West Palm Beach.

What we found depressed us: a You Tube video of Kucinich, the liberal pacifist who voted against the Iraq war, on Hannity’s Fox news show several days earlier, talking about the terrible leakers who were undermining our democracy. WTF?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTqGYiFKXNc

When we got home, Rob went to Kucinich’s website and wrote him:

• Name Rob MacGregor
• Subject Deep State
• Message Hi Dennis, My wife and I met you briefly at Darbsters Saturday evening. Good luck with your Fox News gig. However, I think you’ve got it backwards about the deep state. Many in the NSA, I know from a 30-year veteran of that intelligence agency, are very pro-Trump. She says the so-called deep state policies actually allow extremist ideologies to flourish, and that may be the actual issue.

Kucinich, to his credit, replied:

Hi, Good to meet you. NSA is much less political, more technocratic CIA/ FBI/ Pentagon/State Dept totally different story. I’m not into coups no matter who sponsors them.  Best wishes, Dennis

 Rob replied:

Yes, but some of the leaks are coming right from the administration, like the ‘nut-job, crazy person’ comment to the Russians about Comey. That probably came from a note-taker, or the Russians, although the NY Times says it was an American source. My point is that it shows that some who are on the inside feel a need to expose what’s going on for the good of the country.

 Kucinich didn’t respond.

This was an eye-opener for me. How the hell could Kucinich even consider Hannity for anything? But it wasn’t just that he was on Hannity; Republicans appear on MSNBC all the time. It was what Kucinich said, that the leaks are the issue.

When I texted our daughter, Megan, about talking to Kucinich, figuring she wouldn’t remember anything about him, she replied: You loved that guy! In 2004, she’d just turned 15. I was floored that she remembered. In 2008, she voted for Obama. I think the politics rubbed off.

I suggested to Rob that he should write up this event. He said he would if Kucinich responded to his second email. Since Kucinich didn’t reply, I decided to write this up and here’s why. How can a purported liberal become a paid contributor to Fox News who skirts the real issue – Trump – by addressing the leaks? How can a self-proclaimed liberal be more concerned about leaks – the very thing that brought down Nixon – than about the travesty that is the Trump presidency?

I shouldn’t judge Kucinich (but I do!) People have their own motives and agendas for doing what they do. But I’m pretty sure of one thing: Neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders, if he were no longer holding any political office, wouldn’t be appearing on Hannity to talk about how awful these leaks are. Both of them  would be talking about how the grass roots needs to rise up against this monstrosity of a presidency that threatens the very heart and soul of democracy.