Tuesday, August 2, 2016

MORE DUST

I have received some interesting comments on my last blog. Among them a few that excoriated Mr. Trump for his harsh words for Mr. Kahn.

Trump is not a politician. His reactions and comments sound more like what you might hear in the locker room at the golf club than commentary on public radio. Like it or not, it’s sort of the way ordinary guys talk.

Democrats, of course, and the liberal media, are aghast at Trump’s tweet about the Kahn speech. So are a lot of silk stocking Republicans who delight in “tisk-tisking” everything Mr. Outsider has to say.

It seems like nobody is ready to excoriate Mr. Kahn for parading his personal grief for political purposes. Or Hillary for inviting him to do so. By now, of course, the Trump campaign has gotten the word out that Mr. Kahn has some personal economic irons in the fire as a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and all the lesser federal bureaucrats that he has to deal with in his immigration law practice.

Still, there is no public outcry, no elitist “tisk-tisking” about Mr. Kahn’s political grieving.

Six years ago, I wrote a blog entitled Whose War Is It? Here is the link to it: http://oldjudge.blogspot.com/2010/10/whose-war-is-it.html

The gist of my essay was that the soldiers who were fighting and dying in what had then become Mr.Obama’s war in Afghanistan were predominantly young men and women from small towns and from red states.

Now I ask this question: What would the media and the tongue clickers have to say if Mr. Trump hosts a round table TV interview with a couple dozen  grieving gold star parents? 

I can see it now on the pages of the New York Times and USA Today:

“How dare he use the sorrow of the relatives of brave young American soldiers for his crass political purposes!!! For shame! For Shame!”

Politics is nothing but a down and dirty war for the hearts and minds of the American people. Almost 70 % of them have no college degree and the vast majority have only a high school education.

They may be unsophisticated, but they are not stupid. And they know when they are being hustled by emotional pitches. The Democrats use of a gold star parent to lob a dig at Donald Trump was crass and inexcusable. If Donald Trump declines to respond in kind, he should be given kudos for decency and restraint in the political mud puddle.

If he doesn’t: if in fact he “out gold stars” the Hillaryites, and twangs the heart strings of the silent millions on the other side of America’s TV screens, who could blame him?

If, after all, politics is a war for the hearts as well as the minds of the great unwashed, why not pull out all the stops?

More importantly, from my perspective, is why we do not stop and ask ourselves; Who is fighting and dying for America?

And who is best suited, most determined and truly able to put an end to the handcuffed military dawdling in the Middle East that continues to swell the ranks of gold star parents in America?

I submit that it is not the woman who is the proud heir to the man who has presided over the Travesty in Arabia for the past eight years.

Bernie’s folks are fond of chanting “No More War!” There are only two ways to get out of a war: Either win it, or lose it.

We won World War II, we successfully defended South Korea; we lost the War in Viet Nam. We won the first and second wars against Saddam Hussein. We’re not doing any better in Afghanistan than the Russians did.

I have no idea how to go about winning a war against anything as ephemeral as “terror.” But it may just be possible, with the help of the civilized world, to conquer the Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Let’s hear the candidates talk about that issue.

7 comments:

  1. I suppose we should forget about Trump's December 2014 statement in which he proposed to ban all Muslims, not people from certain terrorist-prone countries. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-on-preventing-muslim-immigration

    One has to have that context in order to appraise his changed position, designed it appears to avoid constitutional scrutiny rather than to announce a true change in position. This article is instructive: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-on-preventing-muslim-immigration

    Were the shoe on the other foot, I doubt there would much confusion that the target is religion, not nationality.

    Trump's proposed policy is based on the same emotion and passion-based principles as WWII internment camps.

    Wars fought in the name of religion are not only the bloodiest, but also the most damning.

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  2. Point well taken. It appears that Trump talked about religion, not nationality. Still, I have to wonder if the U.S. is under any obligation to admit people who favor establishment of Shariah Law or the abolition of the Bill of Rights.

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    1. Exactly! People need to do their homework and understand just what is intended by the implementation of Shariah Law in the U.S.

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  3. Doesn't seem to me that Mr Trump started all of this terrorism while praising Allah which is what interjected religion into the issue in the first place and the second place and the third place, etc., etc., etc!

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  4. Here's an opinion that also bears some respect:

    http://time.com/4436759/pope-francis-trump-radical-islam/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter

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  5. Regardless of whether or not one resonates with Donald J. Trump's pep rally quips or his Tweets, he is not fit to be president or even a serious candidate, in my opinion.

    It looks like he soon might drop out or be disavowed. That will be bad for the Democrats, but good for the Republicans and for the country, again, my opinion.

    I grew up in NYC at around the same time as Trump. (He's 2 1/2 years older.) His father, Fred Trump, was a well known developer of middle class housing and small office/retail buildings, mainly.

    When Donald struck out on his own, the NYC media followed him closely, and he learned how to manipulate it. His ghost-written "Art of the Deal" marked Donald's big-time media debut. At around the same time, he made a wonderful but controversial deal, ostensibly for public benefit, to renovate a derelict ice skating ring in Manhattan's Central Park -- in a very high profile manner.

    In short order, Donald learned how to use the media -- personally -- as a key part of his unique constellation of businesses. This is how he has achieved fame and some degree of fortune and a lot of potential power -- up to now. From high profile hotel deals, to casinos in Atlantic City, to wrestling, to football, to beauty pageants, to Trump branded and licensed products and buildings and businesses and resorts and outright scams (Trump "University"), Trump's path has led him to where he is today in presidential politics. And the infotainment media and his gullible public has been supporting him all the way. (Some should know better.)

    Trump's media manipulations are done personally, so his own idiosyncratic personality and behavioral eccentricities have been part of his persona and his business skill set all along, and they have worked well for him. He runs his empire like the small family business it virtually is, with himself as czar.

    This does not demonstrate true executive competence. Rather, Trump's success only proves how possible it is to be a success -- even, maybe especially, for a narcissistic wacko like Trump. You just have to choose the right form of business and the right customers (fans) to suit you own personality.

    Trumps impolitic quips and Tweets mark him as a popular entertainer and symbolic voice of the discontented. But he isn't executive material. Again, my opinion.

    Trump's exalted popular image benefits from the magnification power of distance. When Trump and I were kids, a "long distance" phone call from anyone whatsoever demanded attention and respect -- just because. Experts from afar enjoyed presumed authority and prestige proportionate to the distance they had traveled. For me and other native New Yorkers Trump is nobody special, and his braggadocio is something to flip off, or mock.

    For example, the NY Daily News, a major NYC tabloid, habitually mocks Trump in front page spreads. Here's a recent example:
    http://tinyurl.com/jfv4vkr

    And it also questions Trump's draft deferment in an editorial:
    http://tinyurl.com/jhmkhqq

    Aside: The NY Times looked into his draft record:
    http://tinyurl.com/zr27xp4

    My point is not that Trump's draft record necessarily should disqualify him from the presidency, but that his actual life record does not comport with his rhetoric or with the demands of the presidency. He is unhinged, and a potential would-be dictator.

    In my opinion, Trumps level of support has peaked, and have Clinton's polling unfavorables. If Trump remains the candidate against Clinton, he has nowhere to go but down in the polls, while Clinton has nowhere to go but up.

    But it's a more global world nowadays. Maybe after Trump licks his wounds he'll try his luck elsewhere. Russia might be a better fit for his personality, and he might enjoy as even bigger "long distance" advantage there. Again, my opinion.

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  6. Re: Pope Francis' equating Catholic murderers to ISIS: I have not read of any Christian announcing that the homicide he is committing is done in praise of the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

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