For anybody who thought my Friday Daily Kos diary Koskartoon : “Trump conflates G20 summit with more German chocolate “bunter” cake diplomacy for Korea” Ich bin ein Hamburger” to be something of a stretch, I’d like to share the following as an example of our nation’s long tradition of “MissileCake Diplomacy”:
We had finished dinner, we were now having dessert, and we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen, and President Xi was enjoying it, and I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded."
-- President Donald J. Trump explaining how he broke the news of his Syrian missile strike to Chinese President Xi.
"If he came here, I'd accept him, but I wouldn't give him a state dinner like we do for China and all these other people that rip us off when we give them these big state dinners. We give them state dinners like you've never seen. We shouldn't have costly state dinners at all. We should be eating a hamburger on a conference table.”
-- President Donald J. Trump explaining how he’d tell Kim Jong-un, “Sorry, no cake for you,” if the North Korean President every came to Mar-a-Lago for a Xi Jinping-style (or as our Two Corinthians President likes to refer to the Chinese Communist party General Secretary – Eleven Jinping).
“The story of the [Iran/Contra] arms sales broke, originally in al-Shira [Lebanese newspaper] on November 3, 1986. The Iranian Speaker of the Parliament, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, confirmed it in a speech to the Iranian Parliament the following day, adding the details about McFarlane’s delivery of a Bible and chocolate cake as thank –you gifts for the meeting [italics mine].
-- Eric Alterman, “When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences” Viking Press, 2004, pg. 284.
Next time a President tells you negotiation was “a piece of cake,” Google the recipe.