Americans in rush to believe worst
Bumbling Trump didn’t set out to dis soldier, widow
Everything about the President Trump “condolence call controversy” story is stupid. Everything.
From the original complaints by the crazy hat lady, to Trump’s tweet attacks, to the factual errors from Gen. John Kelly, to the hours and hours of foaming-at-themouth media reaction — all of it is one, long excruciating exercise in idiocy. Because this entire “news” story is based on a lie, and everybody knows it.
Do liberals really believe that Donald Trump was intentionally “disrespectful” to a war widow? That he doesn’t care about fallen soldiers or their families? Bull.
The issue isn’t the Trump he said/she said dispute over his call to the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson When U.S. Rep. Frederica “Crazy Hat” Wilson went on the attack, claiming Trump said “he knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyways,” or words to that effect, I never doubted her. I could definitely see Trump trying to say “Wow, what a hero. He signed up to serve even though he knew the danger he was getting into” and mangling it in his special Trumpian style.
Kelly, the White House chief of staff, confirmed that after first urging the president not to place the calls, he had suggested Trump share those very sentiments in his calls to families of fallen war fighters. He basically confirmed my theory and, I thought, put an end to this story. Fat chance.
Trump haters insist that we hear Trump’s words as an insult. They want to pretend the president was paraphrasing the heartless pundit in the movie “Airplane”: “I say, ‘Let ’em crash.’ ”
“President Trump’s allegedly disrespectful call to the widow of a soldier” is how CBS News describes the story. Really? “Disrespectful?” Not “uncomfortable” or “stumbling” or “incoherent,” but Trump had no respect for this poor woman?
What sort of person believes that? Or rather, what sort of person wants to?
By coincidence, this is the week documents regarding the JFK assassination are scheduled for release. On my “Michael In The Morning” podcast yesterday I interviewed Gerald Posner, who wrote the definitive book debunking the various conspiracy theories that have arisen since Kennedy’s death.
Posner expressed his astonishment over Americans’ willingness to believe the very worst about our politics.
“American citizens are willing to believe the worst things about out government,” Posner said. “There are a whole bunch of people who believe 9/11 is an inside job [despite] the evidence otherwise.”
His point was that, in order to believe the ridiculously awful in the face of facts, you have to want things to be awful. And that is an excellent description of the current attitudes toward Trump.
“Harvey Weinstein’s Fall Grew From Rage Over Trump” is the headline on a piece by liberal commentator Sally Kohn, who somehow blames Donald Trump for Harvey Weinstein’s career as both a liberal hero and lecherous heel. Of course Weinstein’s randy rubdowns are Trump’s fault … because everything is Trump’s fault.
And, of course, Trump would call a military widow and mock her husband’s death because Trump is evil and nothing is beneath him.
None of this is true, of course, and the Democrats and their media allies pushing these claims know they’re not true. But they work. They drive traffic to their programs and drive the hard-left base into a frenzy. It’s a win-win for them.
Some Trump fans are angry that he’s let this story spin out for so long. “All Trump had to do was call Mrs. Johnson again and apologize for the confusion and this would be a dead story,” a conservative who goes by the handle “Conservative Black Man” tweeted this week. “This is political malpractice.”
Unless, of course, you believe the very worst about Trump’s critics. You believe they don’t care about a fallen soldier, either, and just want to score political points.
And that’s the current state of American politics: Each side believing the worst about each other, and then doing their best to confirm that opinion.