The Annual Column

Every Thanksgiving Maurren Dowd seems to go home and has a meal with her right-leaning family and lets her brother's comments become her column for the week. It is refreshing to realize that the whole family is not like Maureen. If we lived next door to the family we wouldn't be tempted to move.

Maureen's brother Kevin, whose photo accompanies the online edition of her Sunday column, looks more like an Irishman than Robert De Niro trying to play an Irish character in 'The Irishman,' a thoroughly tedious Martin Scorsese rehash of every mob character he ever put on the screen. Kevin is not part of that slice of humanity, but what he does is not revealed, other than what we know about dad being a Capitol police officer who tackled some Puerto Rican nationalists in the 50s who wanted to deprive Truman of his life outside the Blair House.

Kevin is unshakeable in his support of the president, even while admitting President Trump does seem to lack some social graces and is often a bully, "his manners can sometimes be missing. He can be coarse and a bully." Certainly true.

The Donald, certainly never one to miss promoting himself, apparently sent Kevin a signed copy of a Maureen Dowd column he did like, one of course that became Kevin's column. Say what you will about the president, his signature is certainly presidential. In my prior life I used to do audits for a health insurance company and once had to make a field trip to the Hotel Trade Association and verify their membership.

Part of the documentation I reviewed was a copy of a check written my The Donald for his health insurance. It was an unmistakable signature that I, even then, immediately recognized as being authentic. It is of course still unmistakable.

You have to give Maureen credit for putting a family reunion over her sense of politics. And you have to give her family credit for serving her turkey and not making her eat crow.

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