The art of the deal: How not to be presidential

The office of president of the United States brings with it a built-in prestige.

It commands respect, a reverence as one of the symbols that is the backbone of our democratic form of government.

The men - and almost certainly at some point the woman - who sit in that office are the face of this great experiment we call America.

True, these United States are not always united. Its citizens do not always concur with the actions of the resident of the Oval Office.

But that’s policy. It’s not personal. Respect for the office supersedes that.

We respect the office in both good times and bad. We respected it during the Nixon Administration, even while abhorring the actions that led to his downfall and eventual resignation. We respected it during the terms of George W. Bush, even when we did not agree with some of his policies, in particular launching the second Iraq war.

Same goes for Bill Clinton, who certainly had issues with some of his personal conduct in the Oval Office.

This admiration for the highest office in the land is one of the recurring bedrocks of our government. Until now.

Simply said, it is becoming increasingly difficult to have any respect for the man who currently resides in that office. His actions threaten to do real damage to the office of president.

We do not ask for much from Donald Trump. We understand - and accept - that we are not going to agree with him on most things. That’s fine. It’s happened before; it will happen again.

But in his 11 months in office, we have desperately waited for him to acquire the single trait that defines the office. We wait for him to be presidential.

He consistently fails to be anything remotely close.

On Monday, at a ceremony honoring Navajo war veterans being honored for their efforts as Code Talkers during World War II, the president hit a new low.

In front of these Native American war heroes and a room full of their supporters, the president could not resist taking a shot at another of his perceived foes, Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Trump once again took to deriding her as “Pocahontas.” It’s a term he often deployed during his presidential campaign to mock the Massachusetts Democrat - and clear Trump foe - who once claimed some Native American lineage. In this usage, it is widely condemned as a racial slur.

The steely silence in the room was pretty much all you needed to know about the reaction. The families of these war heroes sat dumbfounded.

“It was uncalled for,” said Marty Thompson, who was at the ceremony and whose greatuncle was a Navajo Code Talker. “He can say what he wants when he’s out doing his presidential business among his people, but when it comes to honoring veterans or any kind of people, he needs to grow up and quit saying things like that.”

It is OK to have issues with Sen. Warren and her claim to some Native American ancestry. This was certainly not the forum – nor the audience – to point that out. And the casual use of this heinous slur demonstrates a man who clearly did not understand, let alone grasp, the gravity of what he was doing.

So much of the Trump persona is less than presidential. The early-morning Tweets. The consistent name-calling. The constant need for self-gratification.

Trump just can’t help himself. Picking a fight is not a character blemish with this guy, it is what he does. Anything or anyone that questions him, that seeks to hold him accountable or is critical is the enemy and must be destroyed at all costs.

His weapons? Constant verbal assaults. “Boring” Jeb. “Little” Marco. “Lying” Ted. “Crooked” Hillary.

But none of that explains why he would resort to a racial slur at a ceremony to honor Native Americans. Here’s one theory: He doesn’t know any better. He was ignorant to the fact that it was inappropriate. He didn’t understand that it would be taken as an insult.

His spokesperson later said a racial slur “was certainly not the president’s intent.”

It’s not his first trip down this path. He has attacked Mexican immigrants as rapists and sought a broad ban on Muslims entering the country. This is our president. Presidential? We’re still waiting for that.