THE story broke in early 2017.
Donald Trump was president-elect but it raged on, mostly in comedy circuit and gossip mill, weeks after his inauguration until other controversial issues blew it away. For awhile, only to return with a related story on which it would piggy-back.
Then came former FBI chief James Comey’s book, “The Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,” trumpeted last week with pre-release leaks, advance book reviews, and Comey guesting in talk shows.
The resurrected question was whether Trump in a visit to Russia in 2013 for a Miss Universe pageant hired prostitutes to pee on the bed occupied by the Obama couple who had stayed in the same hotel.
It’s no longer whether it was verified to be true, but was it plausible? It’s about Trump, whose credibility is shot through with holes: It could happen, it must have happened.
Unverified
What is the story? Trump, according to a 35-page dossier published by BuzzFeed before he was to take oath, was at Moscow’s Ritz Hotel where he allegedly paid hookers to perform a “golden shower” on the bed the Obamas had used.
The story was unverified, being part of a file prepared by a British ex-spy who was employed to gather damaging material against then candidate Trump. The man’s source was supposed to be material from the Russian intelligence community. But even Comey, pitching in an ABC interview for his book, said he “didn’t know with certainty” if it was true. What he tells in the book is that Trump was obsessed about knowing if a “pee tape” existed and had repeatedly asked Comey to disprove it as it had upset his wife Melania. If Trump was sure the golden shower didn’t happen, there must have been no tape or any such tape would be bogus.
Water and gold
For the uninitiated to understand why “water” and “gold” drew laughs from US audiences in the “pee tape” issue, one must know what “golden shower” is.
It’s slang for the practice of urinating on another person for sexual pleasure, a kind of kinky foreplay. It’s also called “urine play” or “water sport.”
Note how Stephen Colbert of “The Late Show” joked about it for the first time in 2017:
“I think this is just an unfortunate leak that’s making a huge news. And I know I’m being a wet blanket but reporting on this is the worst kind of yellow journalism. And even though jokes about his story are a golden opportunity, I just, I won’t do it. Not to say the story didn’t make a big splash, it did. It flooded Twitter. I will keep you up to date as facts trickle in...”
James Corden in “The Late, Late Show” said “the news was saturated with the story.”
“I’m a germaphobe”
Not only is the story not confirmed, not even by Comey when he headed FBI. It didn’t specify the nature of Trump’s participation in the kinky sex. Did he pee, was he peed on, or did he just watch the peeing spree?
His support in calling the story fake news was that he is a known germaphobe, one who has a pathological fear of germs. Dictionary definition is “extreme fear of germs by one who is obsessed with cleanliness.” Like Michael Jackson, Cameron Diaz, and Trump.
Trump used to recoil at shaking hands. As president though, he has to do it, as he did with President Duterte, requiring him to wash his hands frequently. The germaphobe defense though doesn’t rule out the possibility Trump just watched the hookers pee on one another or on the bed. And, a Trump watcher may surmise, he could’ve used hand gloves and surgical mask.
The first amendment
Americans--and even we and the rest of the world who are amused by it all--must at one moment wonder how their comedians can ridicule their president so savagely.
It’s supposedly covered by the first amendment to the US Constitution. But it’s not the regular media that’s doing it. It’s the comics who do solo, live and standup comedy, as well as the comedians, actors who do improve or sketch. They do it on theater stage, in bars, in video on TV or cable or YouTube. Where the president is mocked and shamed, where he’s figuratively stripped and peed on.
Whether Trump deserves all that is quite another matter.