Donald Trump has begun the year much as performed last year, with a stupid, childish tweet about his nuclear "button" in response to an equally silly remark by the ruler of North Korea. A year ago, waiting for Trump to take office, it would have been unthinkable to equate the utterances of a President of the United States with the nonsense the world has come to expect from North Korea but after nearly a year of Trump, the similarity is no longer surprising.
Serious leaders in the world are probably taking more interest in the beginning of talks between South Korea and the North with a view to the North's participation in the Winter Olympics to be held in South Korea next month. The Government in Seoul has done well to initiate that connection and it offers some hope that tension can be scaled down.
Meanwhile, Trump has been distracted by a book about to be published which offers insights into his White House and contains some frank assessments of the President by those who have been close to him, notably Steve Bannon, the foremost theorist of the "America First" doctrine that did so much damage to America's leadership and respect in the world last year.
He and Trump remain committed to that doctrine if no longer to each other. Bannon, dismissed as a presidential adviser in August, reportedly has given author Michael Wolff some candid observations on the President, in the book due for release on Tuesday. Trump responded by threatening to sue him and his lawyers are trying to stop publication on the book. This is one more mark of Trump's poor judgment.
US Presidents have to live with books that purport to be insider accounts of their White House often written, or at least informed, by disappointed or disgruntled former aides. The criticisms they make are usually credible and their unflattering observations on the character and attitudes of the President and those around the President are part of the picture the public ought to receive.
