Battery Russell, at Ft Stevents, which was attacked by a Japanese sub. There were some people dressed up for Día de los Muertos when we were there.
We’re at Ft. Stevens State Park in Oregon, the site of the only attack on a continental US military base by a foreign power since the War of 1812. While my wife was off looking for birds to add to her life list, I went to the museum and watched some short films about the history of Ft. Stevens, as well as the attack from the Japanese submarine I-25 on the night of June 21, 1942. Ft. Stevens was armed with obsolete cannons that were out of range of the sub. The Colonel in charge ordered an immediate blackout and told his gunners not to fire — the documentary about this shown at the museum indicated that some of the soldiers there were still a little upset that they couldn’t fight back, but firing on the sub wouldn’t have been effective and it would have given away their positions.
Because their positions weren’t revealed, the sub’s bombardment was minor damage, with most of the artillery landing in a swamp or on the beach. If this had happened in 2026, Hegseth would have wanted to have the Colonel’s testosterone levels checked for doing the right and prudent thing.
The thing that impressed me about the documentary, which was filmed around 1990, when a lot of the soldiers and civilians around the fort were still alive, was that everyone was scared. And why not? The Japanese Empire had pulled off a successful sneak attack against Pearl Harbor, and US forces were barely holding our own in the Pacific.
Junior Blackout Kit so kids could keep the Japanese from bombing their houses.
So, when Trump starts making statements like this:
“They can take out a city,” Trump said in Grand Island. “Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” The crowd applauded.
“It’ll be over very soon,” Trump said of the war.
It’s pretty clear what Trump was trying to do with those comments — indicate that Iran taking out San Diego or LA was possible and that he wouldn’t be especially bothered. He was trying to generate some kind of panic or worry. However, when the comments came out, even after ten years of Trump being inflammatory and provocative, there were people in the press, and bloggers, very interested in a careful parsing of his remarks to show that Trump was, I guess, joking? Or maybe, Trump was being Trump:
President Donald Trump’s remarks about the possibility that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego have sparked a firestorm of criticism, with Democrats claiming the president was either calling for a foreign adversary to attack the U.S. or portraying the destruction of two major cities as acceptable collateral damage.
But given the full context — as well as Trump’s numerous past comments on this issue and the White House’s later clarification — that’s not our reading of the president’s comments. While his wording is confusing, a more plausible interpretation is that he meant the war would prevent Iran from posing a threat to U.S. cities, and higher gas prices are a small sacrifice to make. He’s made versions of those points before, using similar language.
Perhaps this is right, and perhaps this is wrong. But I don’t think it matters. The issue here is that Trump didn’t bother to speak clearly. He chose to push out some word salad that could be “misinterpreted” (though I think it’s not that hard to interpret his real meaning, which was to throw some red meat to a base that is conditioned to hate big, blue cities.)
Trump is a big boy. He’s got a big boy job — President of the US. If he can’t speak clearly, then the media’s job is to quote him carefully and say that it’s hard to understand what he’s saying. The media are not interpreters. They wouldn’t accept this kind of word salad from anyone else (certainly not from Biden, or AOC, or Mamdani, or AES). We need to have reasonably high expectations for officials elected to high office when it comes to clarity of communication. It’s just an indication of the failure of the media as an institution that they’re constantly trying to figure out what Trump “really means”. If Trump can’t speak clearly, then that’s a problem at best, and disqualifying at worst. The media needs to accept that it’s a problem, rather than treating the President like a very special boy who needs their help communicating. I think they’ve been mau-maued into submission because they feel that their sworn enemies — MAGA — need to be placated rather than treated like the threat to press freedom that they are.
