BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION MARCH 1-3, 2019) — THE PLANET watched enthralled as two unprecedented demonstrations of high political theater played out on the global stage. We refer to the second meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jung Un, as well as the testimony by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, before the House Oversight Committee.

We could write prose tomes on either or each, but we shall be brief on both so that we may present a guest editorial on the Cohen hearing.

TRUMP-KIM II

In terms of results, it wasn’t the Thrilla in Manila or even the Ploy in Hanoi. Those quick to point out the failure of the meeting to produce a signed agreement forget the unprecedented nature of the President’s visit. As a foreign policy initiative, Trump’s dialogues with Kim rival Richard Nixon’s overtures to Mao in China. That these two men are even talking stands as remarkable progress toward the goal of a unified, peaceful, and prosperous Korean peninsula. Given the hostilities that have existed between the two nations for so long, any expectation for a quick solution belongs in Disney’s Fantasyland.

Kim wanted full removal of the U.S. sanctions. Trump wanted complete denuclearization by the DPRNK. The two sides were unable to reach middle ground. In actuality, major agreements of this type typically happen well in advance. Teams of negotiators first hammer out the terms, and the leaders swoop in at the end to shake hands, smile, sign documents, toast each other, and depart. Stephen Biegun, Trump’s special envoy to the DPRNK and his counterpart did not have enough time for the advance work. Therefore, it’s a big deal that the two men each risked talks without certainties safely in place.

This was a win for both sides. Trump didn’t fold. As he said, “Sometimes, you have to walk.” North Korea views that as strength. Trump has earned Kim’s respect. That could pay off big time down the road. Kim, likewise, has a much better sense of the person with whom he is dealing. He knows know what he didn’t know the first time they met in Singapore: He has a serious negotiator partner.

The summit did achieve a few notables:

1. Kim agreed to a moratorium on nuclear testing.
2. Kim also agreed to freeze production of nuclear fuel at the Yongbyon plant.
3. The two leaders built upon the goodwill sown last June in Singapore.
4. The talks remain open.

Given the state of tensions not that long ago, these are remarkable achievements.

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COHEN TALKS

Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee providing a riveting marathon of political drama. THE PLANET watched the hearing in its entirety. The two sides of the aisle performed as predicted. Democrats thanked Cohen for his remarks and accepted his remorse as genuine. Republicans painted him as a convicted felon and liar who will in May be going to prison for three years, a man who could not be believed.

Cohen struck us as truthful and cooperative. It’s rare in these types of hearings to hear direct answers, the kind Cohen delivered all day. As he admitted to the committee, as the “fixer” for Trump in his personal dealings, he acted unethically and illegally out of loyalty to the man who was his employer for 10 years. He got caught and has paid a heavy price. Cohen’s going to jail, his reputation is in tatters, he lost his law license, his family has been put under intense stress, he lost a vast amount of money, and friends have left him. He had nothing more to lose after getting assurances from the committee of protection for his family. He’s a man who knows Trump plays to win at all costs, and he knows what that could mean.

No one knows what’s in a man’s soul. Cohen could have been lying once more. Based on what we saw at the hearing, this looks like a man who has owned his crimes, regrets his mistakes, and wants reparation. As chairman Elijah Cummings noted in his brilliant closing remarks, what kind of a country would we be, what kind of a people would we be, if you don’t allow second chances to those who sincerely want to make amends?

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With that, THE PLANET presents this guest editorial by Michael A. Cohen (no relation).

Michael A. Cohen (newsletters@email.bostonglobe.com)

During the lunch break of Michael Cohen’s (the other one) testimony to the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, I reached out to an old friend, who is a Democratic political consultant, to get his reaction.

His sense, like mine, was that while Cohen’s litany of Trumpian abuses was compelling and disturbing, it probably hadn’t done much to move the political needle. Both of us were momentarily in awe at our cynical, yet realistic response to the day’s proceedings.

It laid bare the fundamental dilemma of the Trump era: the normalization of his brazen criminality and the complicity of Republicans who refuse to hold the president accountable for his actions.

To quote Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, there resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue a “racist, a con man and a cheat.” This isn’t news, but to hear it out of the mouth of a man who had worked intimately with Trump for a decade made it even more disturbing.

During the testimony, we heard that the president may have been alerted to the Wikileaks dump of DNC e-mails by Roger Stone. Cohen made clear that the president was an active participant in a criminal conspiracy to cover-up the payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels — a conspiracy that continued even after he took office. Moreover, Cohen suggested that Trump, along with potentially his lawyers, may have suborned perjury in encouraging Cohen to lie to Congress about the status of a Trump real estate project in Russia.

There were other allegations of insurance fraud, tax evasion, and false statements to the special counsel by the president. Cohen even intimated that Trump knew about the infamous Trump Tower meeting between Russian officals, his son, Don Jr., son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

In short, Cohen’s testimony laid out a pattern of criminality and law-breaking by the president — both before and after his election — that is practically unprecedented in the more than two century history of the American presidency.

And Republican members of Congress could have cared less.

Not one expressed even the slightest concern about the overwhelming evidence that the president has broken the law. Tellingly, few bothered to defend his actions, instead spending their five minutes of questions hurling invectives at Cohen. Ranking Republican member Jim Jordan was particularly hysterical, calling Cohen a “fraudster, cheat, convicted felon and, in two months, a federal inmate.”

Others repeatedly suggested that Cohen is angling for a book or movie deal; that he was lashing out at Trump over bitterness at not being given a plum White House job and, above all, that Cohen cannot be trusted because he’s already pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.

Yet, for all of Cohen’s obvious vulnerabilities as a witness (and his unsympathetic nature), he came across as oddly credible. After all, he was practically the sole person in the hearing room actually willing to defend the president. Indeed, there was something quite strange about listening to Republican after Republican attack Cohen’s credibility, at the same time that he was playing down allegations of Russian collusion against Trump and dismissing the most outlandish and salacious accusations made about the president. Repeatedly, he shot down Democratic conspiracy theories and narrowly focused his allegations against Trump to what he knew, not what he might have suspected.

All of this is more disconcerting when one considers that the attacks on Cohen’s honesty were in defense of a president who lies incessantly. Such is the morally and ethically diminished public careers of Republican politicians who are more focused on maintaining the loyalty of Trump’s cult-like following than upholding their oath of office to support and defend the Constitution.

At the end of the day, truth is the least of the GOP’s concerns. All that matters, it seemed, is carrying water for a president, described by a man who knows him far better than any member of Congress, as ungenerous, unkind, disloyal, and ultimately corrupting.

Indeed, the most telling moment of the hearing came when Cohen turned to the Republican side of the committee room and said, “I’m responsible for your silliness because I did the same thing that you’re doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years. The more people that follow Mr. Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering.”

After watching the appalling performance of complicit Republicans one not only imagines that Cohen is correct — one also hopes so.

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Have a great weekend, everybody.

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“Art is your loudest voice” — Charlie Sam

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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