Go back nearly 65 years in time, to 1959, on The Ed Sullivan Show and a question posed by Ed to Fidel Castro: Are you a communist?
I am not a communist, Fidel replied. Now we know better as if we didnt know then. Three years later came the Cuban Missile Crisis. Enough said.
Now go back to Tuesday last and what was billed by Fox News as a town-hall gathering: Sean Hannity throwing his usual softball questions at FORMER President Donald J. Trump.
A couple, however, were serious I think, but in any exchange between Trump and toady Hannity, you can never be sure.
Asked by Hannity if he was reelected, would he be a dictator and retaliate against political opponents. Only on Day One of his presidency was Trumps reply. Otherwise, he would drill, drill, drill and close the border.
Can we believe that? And does it really matter whether hes telling the Trump? As I typed that sentence, I made a Freudian slip. I meant to key in truth but it came out Trump. Could I have coined a new word? As a noun: trump, or a verb, trump. But how to use it in a sentence? As a noun, a trump could be a statement that might be a truth or is more likely to be a lie. There is no way of knowing and does it matter to the person hearing the message if the sender is trumping? But put that aside for a moment and stay with me in looking at episodes where Trumps words and actions should have been damning but were not.
There are two groups of voters who have members loyal to Trump and that puzzles me: women especially Christian women and military veterans. Check out the verifiable comments he has made about both those groups.
The Access Hollywood tape of Trumps lewd comments about women was made back in September 2005. It came to light on Oct. 7, 2016, and had the potential to scuttle Trumps presidential aspirations and put Hillary Clinton in the White House.
However, Melania Trump, wife No. 3, put her husbands comments aside as locker room talk and suggested her husband may have been egged on by others. Boys will be boys.
Maybe. However, it is indicative at the very least of the boorish behavior that Trump has displayed on multiple occasions. Add to that payoffs of hundreds of thousands of dollars to a porn star and a Playboy bunny for behavior that goes well beyond boorish.
But the Christian women I cited above seem willing to overlook such behavior because Trump is to them unabashedly pro-life. Some see Trump as a victim of the media who are out to get him. A few seem willing to accept a dictatorial Donald Trump if he would bring to fruition an absolute ban on abortion even if it meant dismantling the Republic as we know it. There is no convincing them that at bottom the former president is capable of only one pro stance: pro-Donald Trump.
As I move on to talk about veterans, let me add an alhaigian caveat: not being a veteran is OK. It is not OK for any American, veteran or non-veteran, to denigrate those men and women who have served in uniform and taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Donald Trump never served in uniform, so he never took that oath. In those years the Vietnam War was being fought, Trump avoided the draft through several deferments for college and once for a medical issue with one of his feet (not sure which one).
The latter dodge earned for him the rank of Cadet Bone Spur, from Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a decorated combat veteran, double-amputee and Purple Heart recipient. In Trumps defense, he was one those wealthy young American men who were spared military service during the Vietnam War.
However, President Donald J. Trump did take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. As commander-in-chief, he on more than one occasion exhibited disdain for those warriors who served with valor.
As a naval aviator, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) flew multiple combat missions over Vietnam. On one such mission, he was shot down, severely injured, captured and spent five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Trump faulted him for being captured. The former president, however, did evade being captured by his draft board.
As commander-in-chief, then-President Trump liked to talk about my generals. But, of course, they never were his; he would have preferred generals like those high-ranking Wehrmacht officers who took a personal oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler.
When Army Gen. Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired on Sept. 29 of this year, he made it very clear that those in Americas military members dont take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we dont take an oath to a wannabe dictator. He did not name a wannabe dictator but who fits that mold?
About a week earlier, Trump had suggested that Milley was a traitor. And, of course, the penalty for treason is death.
Its no secret that Im not a Trumpster and will do whatever I can to ensure small as my efforts might be that Donald J. Trump never occupies the White House again.
And while I have made clear my disdain for the FORMER president, I am still willing to listen to his supporters more so, I think, than they are willing to listen to me.
Have a nice day.
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