JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

You could see this coming from 1,000 miles away: President Trump looking for any way to give Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman a pass on the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

For six days after Khashoggi’s disappearance, Trump said nothing, not a word. On Day Seven he started in with the equivocating verbiage he always goes to when something looks bad but it’s in his interest to avert his gaze. Then came reports yesterday that the Saudis were working to come up with a “fall guy” theory that would attempt to distance bin Salman from the dirty deed.

And today, in a phone conversation with Trump, that’s exactly what bin Salman did. He again strongly denied any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance and suggested people outside of his control were responsible. Trump, who is dead set on selling hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to the Saudis, engorged the cover story.

“It sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers — who knows?” Trump said.

Trump wants to believe despots like bin Salman and others because he would like to be one.

Never mind  the overwhelming evidence that Khashoggi’s murder was a carefully and clinically planned operation, including:

— That bin Salman had every reason to be pissed off at Khashoggi, who had dared to write persistently and critically about the Crown Prince before leaving his homeland and relocating to the Washington D.C. area last year.

— That American intelligence agencies had previously intercepted communications of Saudi officials discussing a plan to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia and then detain him.

— That two planes carrying 15 Saudi agents, including a forensics expert, flew to Istanbul on Oct. 2, went directly to the consulate and later that day flew back to Saudi Arabia.

— That the Turks had the consulate bugged and reportedly have audio, and maybe even video, of Khashoggi being beaten and killed in the consulate.

But the Crown Prince, who at 33 is inexperienced at high-level skullduggery outside his country’s boundaries, badly underestimated how most world leaders would react. Instead of shrugs, what he got was international outrage.

As for Trump, what he got today from several New York Times’ readers regarding his “rogue killers” theory was sardonic dismissal.

Here’s a sampling of reader comments on the story:

:: Roberta, from Virginia: “Rogue killers?? Well, there’s the cover he’ll hide under. Maybe it was that 400 lb guy in NJ…It has never been so humiliating to be an American.”

:: Mac, from Ruther Glen, VA: “Watch out!! Rogue killers have taken over Saudi diplomatic missions everywhere!!! No one is safe.”

:: Derek Martin, from Pittsburgh, PA: “I wonder what Trump would be saying if the victim had been one of his pals from Fox News?”

**

Reading The Times’ story, I soon thought about the distinctive hear-no-evil/see-no-evil-themed sculpture that stands outside the Kansas City Police Department’s communications building. The bronze sculpture, which has been at 12th and Locust about 25 years, depicts a businessman standing on a briefcase, with a big shoe in his mouth, his fingers tightly planted in his ears and a tie flapping across his eyes.

I’ve always loved the whimsy of that statue and admired city officials’ courage in displaying it so prominently.

The sculptor, Terry Allen, called the work “Modern Communication.” In a 2013 interview with KCUR’s Laura Spencer, Allen, who lives in Santa Fe, NM, said he wasn’t thinking along the lines of “hear no evil, see no evil” when he created the work. The idea that was motivating him, he said, was “how we block communication.”

Little did Terry Allen know back then that well into the 21st Century we’d have a president, symbolically at least, has his fingers firmly planted in his ears and his long red tie flapping across his eyes.