July 16, 2019 — A pony in here somewhere!

“There must be a pony in here somewhere!” This punch line from one of President Ronald Reagan’s famous humorous stories implied an important message then — and should encourage us to confront current discouraging situations … with good-natured determination, but determination nevertheless.

Click here for “Writing for Ronald Reagan,” an interesting July 30, 2003 article by Tatiana Morales based on an interview with Peter Robinson, who for six years wrote speeches for President Ronald Reagan and later authored How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life. Click here for Amazon’s reference to that book based on Robinson ‘s up-close and personal impressions as a rather junior member of Reagan’s White House staff.

Consider the beginning of Chapter One that refers to Reagan’s close friend, Counselor and Attorney General Ed Meese—and think about how it might apply to today’s world.

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Chapter One
The Pony In the Dung Heap
When Life Buries You, Dig
Journal Entry, June 2002:

Over lunch today I asked Ed Meese about one of Reagan’s favorite jokes. “The pony joke?” Meese replied. “Sure I remember it. If I heard him tell it once, I heard him tell it a thousand times.”

The joke concerns twin boys of five or six. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities – one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist – their parents took them to a psychiatrist.

First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. “What’s the matter?” the psychiatrist asked, baffled. “Don’t you want to play with any of the toys?” “Yes,” the little boy bawled, “but if I did I’d only break them.”

Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. “What do you think you’re doing?” the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. “With all this manure,” the little boy replied, beaming, “there must be a pony in here somewhere!”

“Reagan told the joke so often,” Meese said, chuckling, “that it got to be kind of a joke with the rest of us. Whenever something would go wrong, somebody on the staff would be sure to say, ‘There must be a pony in here somewhere.’”

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How I miss Ronald Reagan’s way of using his good humor to make important points!

For example, we could use a bit of humor in reviewing how the “powers that be” are dealing with current daunting challenges of the Washington “Swamp.” Consider a few important issues that are, or at least should be, front and center among the matters occupying the attention of our elected and appointed leaders, their staffs and supporters — and the rest of us, whatever our political persuasion.

While our body politic seems almost entirely devoted to the election 15 months away, our nation courts disaster on several fronts, among them:

Our atrophying strategic forces, ignored for decades, while Russia and China are deploying several new generations of nuclear systems — intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), new hypersonic missile systems to evade our ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems, and new classes of nuclear weapons;
These advanced technologies and associated nuclear weapon capabilities that have been proliferated, most pertinently to North Korea, Iran and their surrogate terrorists, and aligned against us;
Associated capabilities, which can be employed singly or in concert, to attack us and our allies — including to produce wide area-electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects that pose an existential threat to all we hold dear; and
The stagnating Washington Political-Federal Government-Regulatory scene that seems dedicated to framing and tolerating bureaucratic barriers against efforts to deal with these looming threats.

Last week’s message focused on the threat from Iran; President Trump’s strategy of using sanctions to confront it; and his efforts to maintain a coherent policy at home and among our allies where there is significant opposition. No laughing matter.

Meanwhile, congressional opponents oppose the Trump administration’s efforts to modernize our strategic forces to deal with this growing threat — e.g., including to eliminate the “Triad” of ground,- sea- and air-based strategic offensive forces that framed our Deterrent capabilities for the last half-century. Their opposition is more a means to save money than sound strategic thinking.

Moreover, these alliances have not widely warmed to President Trump’s Space Force initiative — positive movement has been notably restrained by intra-service contrary interests within the executive branch.

On the positive side, there is hope for improvement, even as new leadership is preparing to take over key Pentagon positions.

In particular, General Mark Miley has been nominated to become the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Click here for discussion of his confirmation hearing last week, where he strongly supported modernizing our atrophying nuclear strategic forces, creating a Space Force and confronting the growing threat from China with new capabilities.

Amen to all — especially his support for a Space Force which could contribute mightily to dealing with the other issues!

Moreover, as I’ve previously noted, Acting U.S. Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan is on the record as supporting the Space Force, unlike his predecessor. Click here for my Newsmax article discussing this welcome development.

And this week, the Senate Armed Services Committee is holding a Confirmation Hearing for Mark Esper to become the next Secretary of Defense, a position in which he has been Acting Secretary after serving as Secretary of the Army. He is expected to be an advocate for the programs needed to counter the aforementioned threats.

Click here for a report that quotes Acting USAF Secretary Donovan as saying Esper will be supportive of the President’s Space Force initiative in particular.

Thus, the Esper-Miley team can build upon their previous teamwork for the Army. See the photo below of their previous joint testimony to defend Army programs.

If and when they are confirmed, they can advocate the programs the Pentagon needs to confront the list of Washington-Swamp problems mentioned above — and more!

That’s reason for this sometimes “optimist” to think there very well may be “a pony in here somewhere.”

Moreover, as a proud Reaganite, I hope to see a repeat of the accomplishments of my favorite President, who inherited a very broken system in 1980 — and rebuilt the strategic systems that had atrophied for years under both Democrats and Republicans, while the Soviets modernized and expanded their programs that threatened the United States and our overseas troops, friends and allies.

Moreover, he launched his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) — especially its space defense efforts that brought the Soviets to negotiate seriously and to produce the only arms control agreements ever to significantly reduce threatening nuclear forces.

Moreover, as Reagan’s Ambassador and Chief Negotiator, I was privileged to defend his SDI program against the Soviet objections for five years, and as President George H.W. Bush’s SDI Director to prove that such space-based defenses are feasible and cost-effective.

Regrettably, the Clinton administration gutted the SDI program. (Defense Secretary Les Aspin said he “took the stars out of Star Wars.”) And every administration since has ignored the most cost-effective ballistic missile defenses — those based in space, while spending most of the money on building the least effective, most costly BMD systems, that are based on the ground.

Now President Trump is building a team that could revive Ronald Reagan’s vision of exploiting space, especially in the context of his Space Force.

I wish he would employ some of Reagan’s humor as well. It would be neat if he could use that humor to get along with Speaker Nancy Pelosi — like Reagan got along with Speaker Tip O’Neill. See below how these two Irish Americans enjoyed a good laugh together.

While I don’t expect to see a comparable photo of President Trump and Speaker Pelosi enjoying each other, I would note that last Friday President Trump spoke out to say that the Speaker was not a racist, contrary to claims at least implied by AOC and her Congressional “Squad,” with whom there are clear disconnects from many if not most Democrats.

So, there is some hope for more cooperative interactions across the political aisle to benefit all Americans.

Again, I truly believe “There’s a pony in here somewhere!” Stay tuned.

And by the way, President Trump’s March 26, 2019 Executive Order on Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulses possibly sets the stage for dealing with another related important set of threats that have been ignored for far too long. More for another day.

So, maybe there’s more than one pony in here somewhere!!!

Bottom Lines.

America faces several daunting threats that have been ignored too long—by both political parties, even though we have long known how to deal with them.

President Trump has set the stage for dealing with them — though it is sometimes hard to understand that possibility can become reality.

I wish he would develop an ability, like Ronald Reagan’s, to build an alliance with his opposition, especially on Capitol Hill, to deal with these existential threats.

A bit of Reagan humor would be helpful.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org, for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.

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