Trump-ettes, You Can’t Have It Both Ways By Frank Salvato
BasicsProject.org
A funny thing happened on the way to the “Forum,” the “guy who doesn’t back down,” the “fighter,” got his nose bloodied and his sycophants didn’t care for it one bit. If that sounds harsh, then let me borrow from the “fighter’s” own words. I don’t have time for political correctness. I also don’t have time for so-called Republicans and Conservatives who want the game disingenuously skewed to their advantage. Nor do I have time for hypocrites.
This is not a screed that poses to apologize for FOX News. I have my own reasons – events that happened to me personally when I was asked to appear on The O’Reilly Factor so many years ago – for not kneeling at the FOX altar. But neither will I bow to the knee-jerk canonization of Donald Trump as the end-all-be-all for the Conservative cause in 2016. Nor will I acquiesce to the Janus-faced whining of those who don’t want to see the “guy who doesn’t back down” asked legitimate questions.
The two questions that have the “Trump-ettes’” undies in a bunch were legitimate questions. Period. Dot. In fact, they were pointed questions, the kind that we on the Right side of the aisle wish we would have seen posed to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during any CNN or MSNBC sponsored debate of election cycles past. Yet, when hard and pointed, and legitimate questions are posed to a so-called champion of the Right his supporters cry foul? How absolutely Progressive! By that standard, Mr. Obama’s sycophants are vindicated in their calling anyone who doesn’t agree with him a racist. Do you see how duplicitous the Trump-ettes are?
Of the first question, Jonah Goldberg – who some on the Right are now attempting to label an “establishment guy,” said this:
“This was literally the stage – like the physical stage – of the next Republican convention. This was the first debate in the contest for the nomination to lead the Republican Party. Donald Trump is the frontrunner in the polls for that nomination and he has, several times in recent weeks, suggested he might take his marbles and go if he’s not the nominee. But it was unfair to ask him about it?…
“Contrary to what you might have read over the urinal at ‘Mother Jones,’ Bret Baier doesn’t work for the GOP. So even if you think it’s unfair for a Republican to expect an answer to that question…you have to have your head so far up Donald Trump’s red-velvet-lined ass you can see the glow of the nickel slot machines, to think it’s out of bounds for a journalist to ask that question.”
I concur. Not only was it a legitimate question, it was a necessary question because the debates were about nominating the Republican nominee. So, if we are not to ask the “fighter” at this forum, then where? To call the question an “attack” is the definition of disingenuous.
The second question, and the one that stirs up more controversy, was equally as legitimate because it showcased the “fighter’s” own words (illustrating his often flippant demeanor) and his reaction to being called on those words.
FOX News’ Megyn Kelly queried Mr. Trump on past diatribes that bordered on – if not crossed over to – being sexist and insulting, to the point of misogyny:
“You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ that it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president? And how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who is likely to be the Democrat nominee, that you are part of the war on women?”
Put aside, for the moment, the absolute fact that should Mr. Trump get to the General Election main stage as the GOP nominee he most definitely will be called on his words by the Clinton campaign and it will resonate. I can guarantee that.
Mr. Trump tried to joke his way out of being confronted by his own words in referring to Rosie O’Donnell, but acquiesced to Kelly in admitting he had made comments like those about other women as well, doing so before smartly deflecting to his abhorrence for political correctness. If he would have stopped there – and if he would have at least feigned some humanistic remorse for having said such things – I think he would have remained viable. But he didn’t. Instead, he doubled down both at the end of the question by saying that perhaps he would be “not so nice” to Ms. Kelly in the future (a thoroughly childish response) and by taking the initiative to call into Don Lemon on CNN to say:
“I just don’t respect her as a journalist. I have no respect for her. I don’t think she’s very good. I think she’s highly overrated…She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions…You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off base.”
So, being asked about your own publicly recorded words towards others is off-base? How so? Are we to believe that other media operatives are going to refrain from going after “the fighter,” “the guy who doesn’t back down”? How incredibly naïve are the Trump-ettes to believe such lunacy?
The person that Republicans and Conservatives put forth as their nominee in 2016 must possess the intellectual prowess to navigate such questions and queries without alienating half of his/her own political party (let alone half of the electorate), doing so while not acting like a three-year old who threatens to “take his ball and go home” if he doesn’t get his way in the process. To wit, do the Trump-ettes even understand that Trump is extorting the entirety of the political Right by saying if he isn’t the nomine he will execute actions to see Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States? How can Trump say he loves his country if he would narcissistically put his own ego ahead of keeping a dyed-in-the-wool, turn of the century Progressive from the Oval Office?
Lastly, please think about this long and hard, especially all you Trump-ettes. If a man were to call your wife, your daughter or your mother a “fat pig,” “a dog,” “a slob,” or a “disgusting animal,” would you want him leading our country? Would you even bother to refrain from giving the guy a well-deserved thrashing? If you would then your honor, dignity and morality should be called into question.
Donald Trump for the 2016 Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States? Nope. Mr. Trump, you’re fired.
Optional:
Frank Salvato is the Executive Director of BasicsProject.org a grassroots, non-partisan, research and education initiative focusing on Constitutional Literacy, and internal and external threats facing Western Civilization. His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention. His opinion and analysis have been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times, The Jewish World Review, Accuracy in Media, Human Events, Townhall.com and are syndicated nationally. Mr. Salvato has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on FOX News Channel, and is the author of six books examining Islamofascism and Progressivism, including “Understanding the Threat of Radical Islam”. Mr. Salvato’s personal writing can be found at FrankJSalvato.com.
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