Bill Dalton: Lucy's football

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.

Have you noticed that every few days Donald Trump gets everyone in the world excited about a possible end to his war with Iran?

And every time the result is "never mind."

It reminds me of the old Peanuts cartoon and Charlie Brown. Lucy, his bullying confidante, would hold a football. Charlie would run and just as he’s about to kick the ball, Lucy would pull it away, and Charlie would fall on his backside.

Donald Trump is Lucy. We Americans are Charlie Brown.

Lucy would reassure Charlie that he could trust her. He'd try one more time and, sure enough, Charlie wound up on his rear end.

There’s an important lesson here, but let’s also try to understand why Trump keeps pulling the ball back.

If we’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that he has two huge flaws: A) He’s not too bright and B) He’s not too honest. That’s really all you need to know about him other than the still-unsolved mystery: C) Why would anyone in their right mind trust him?

Certainly, not the despicable Iranian militants. Nor our incredibly patient NATO allies. And neither should any of us Charlie Browns.

So, why does Trump keep pulling the "peace ball" back at the last minute? One possible answer: Maybe it's a tactic to enrich his friends and family. Every time a halt to hostilities appears imminent, oil prices drop, the markets rally, and the world economy breathes a sigh of relief.

But only Trump knows when it’s a head fake. Insiders are probably laughing all the way to the bank — like the Big Oil companies with their record profits — as they reap the rewards of manipulating oil prices and the markets.

The beauty part is that there is no one to investigate if Trump is actually doing that behind the scenes. Certainly not a cowardly Congress. Definitely not the corrupted Justice Department. Forget the Securities and Exchange Commission. He controls all of them, and we Charlie Browns are paying the price.

The only good thing is that we can safely ignore Trump’s repeated nuclear threats. Iran was not close to producing a nuclear weapon before the war began five months ago, thanks to our bombing raids last summer that Trump said "obliterated" their nuclear infrastructure, remember? 

It’s fair to assume Trump will be more than 100 years old before Iran develops The Bomb, if ever. But it’s difficult to decide which would be worse — Iran with a nuke, or Trump still creating chaos 20 years from now. Either way, this latest version of a non-existent weapon of mass destruction is just an excuse for continuing the war.

Strangely, the Treasury Secretary a few weeks ago unveiled a proposed $250 bill bearing Trump’s mugshot from when he was booked into the Fulton County jail, making a mockery of real American heroes gracing our currency such as Washington and Lincoln.

But the timing couldn’t be better. A $250 bill would almost cover the cost of filling up your SUV and feeding your family at McDonald's.

Seriously, if Trump’s face is going to adorn our currency, the best place would be a phony $3 bill.

It’d almost be funny, like watching Charlie Brown fall, if it wasn’t so sad.

— Bill Dalton is a former reporter and editor for The Kansas City Star and worked for several Michigan newspapers. He spends summers on the family farm near Fennville. His novel "The Bank Game" — a crime thriller — is available on Amazon along with "Dalton's Bend."

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