Character, as Charen points out, should assume primacy, but let us also remember he's a mess on the policy level as well.A normal, well-adjusted man does not go to great lengths to prove to a random journalist that he has normal-sized fingers. Some may think it was Rubio who introduced the "small hands" business, but it actually dates back to an encounter Trump had 25 years ago with journalist Graydon Carter. Carter had referred to Trump as a "short-fingered vulgarian" in Spy magazine. Trump could not let it go. Carter told Vanity Fair in 2015:"To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump. There is always a photo of him -- generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers. ... The most recent offering arrived earlier this year, before his decision to go after the Republican presidential nomination. Like the other packages, this one included a circled hand and the words, also written in gold Sharpie: 'See, not so short!'"Notice he didn't contest the "vulgarian" part of the insult. And remember that at a presidential debate, for God's sake, Trump brought it up himself and assured the world that "there is no problem. I guarantee." I don't believe that guarantee, and I'm not talking about his genitals.There is an enormous problem. Trump seems to suffer from narcissistic personality disorder, an insecurity so consuming and crippling that he has devoted his life to self-aggrandizement. This is far beyond the puffery that most salesmen indulge to some degree. It strays well into the bizarre. Asked whom he consults on foreign policy Trump said, "I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I've said a lot of things." What grown man says things like that and continues to be taken seriously? How can he be leading the race for the Republican nomination?People with severe ego weakness are to be pitied -- but also feared. Everything Trump says and does is a form of self-medication for a damaged soul. His need to disparage others, to glorify himself and to be the "strongman" could lead to disastrous judgments by the man in charge of the nuclear codes.
As you know, yesterday I covered S-H's remarks about how American leadership in NATO is to costly and that we spend too much time and too many resources on Ukraine and how countries under our strategic umbrella ought to some how compensate us for it. I was glad to see Hugh Hewitt tweet that it may be the worst-timed foreign-policy pronouncement ever, in light of the Brussels attacks into a and the discovery of how dangerously close Russian subs are to the post-American homeland.
There are no merits to a Donald Trump candidacy. Others see it differently, as we know. The vile and despicable Laura Ingraham wasted no time on her program this morning turning the Brussels attacks into a shill-fest for Squirrel-Hair.
I wonder if a caller wanting her to address Charen's column would get past the screener.
Could you please consider knocking it off with the post-American term? We have always been, and always be in this together. Like you say, you can't be a little pregnant. If I was in a foxhole with some jerk who kept saying he didn't like the post-America he was fighting for I might have to shoot him.
ReplyDeleteAnd now Laura Ingraham is vile & despicable because she won't fall in behind Cruz, is that it? If the voters want Trump they'll get him, but you better be thankful the Dems will likely preserve your bacon.
ReplyDeleteLaura Ingraham is vile and despicable because she uses her very influential position to get people to ignore the very character flaws Charen makes the gist of her column.
ReplyDeleteAnd, sorry, but this is post-America. Any nation whose public schools remove gender designations for restrooms, any nation that purposely tries to bankrupt its providers of cheap, reliable energy, any nation whose awards ceremonies for music and cinema have turned into sybaritic celebrations of perversity, any nation that persecuted its Christans, any nation that thinks nothing is saddling its grandchildren with $19 trillion in debt, is no longer the United States of America.
ReplyDeleteAny nation that concludes there is such a thing as marriage between homosexuals, any nation whose president routinely goes overseas to talk about his country's "arrogance" and "shortcomings," particularly to Communist audiences, any nation in which two morally monstrous individuals are the likely two final presidential contenders, any nation in which one in four children is illegitimate, any nation in which a frenzied mob can get a university president to resign over nothing at all, is no longer the United States of America.
ReplyDeleteWho's holier than thou and thine? Wow!
ReplyDelete