Mr. Trump and "Sacrifice"

Sacrifice:  n. The act of giving up something you value highly for the sake of a higher value, as in, "the doctors sacrificed the patient's leg to save his life,"  or giving up one's life to save other people, as in, "the captain died saving the lives of his men."

This weekend there was a flap over Donald Trump's attack on a Mr. Khan, whose son, a captain in the United States Army, sacrificed his life to save soldiers in his regiment. 

 Mr. Khan pointed out that if Mr. Trump had his way, Mr. Khan's son and in fact the entire Khan family, would not be allowed to live in the United States at all. 

 Mr. Khan said Mr. Trump had not sacrificed anything for the United States, while the Khan family lost their beloved son, for the sake of the the nation.

Mr. Trump, it should be noted, did not respond by saying we should not make a hero out of someone who got killed for his country; Mr. Trump might have said "Hey, the hero is the guy who makes the other guy die for his country. The guy who gets killed is just a loser."

This would be something of a corollary to what  Mr. Trump once said about Senator John McCain, who had been called a "war hero" for his actions as a Navy pilot and later as a prisoner of war.  Mr. Trump disparaged Mr. McCain's war record as that of a loser--we should extol those who fight and do not get captured, not those losers who get captured. By extension, Mr. Trump would argue those who get killed are also just useless losers.  

So we can give Mr. Trump credit for  restraint.

On the other hand, Mr. Trump replied that he had, in fact, made many sacrifices, to build his hotels and his businesses. Presumably, he was saying what the successful businessman often says about how much time he has spent away from his family, all the "sacrifices" he had made as a business person. 

But, of course, Mr. Trump was not sacrificing for his country; he was sacrificing for his own financial gain. 

I suppose Mr. Trump has a point: Mr. Khan said Mr. Trump "had never sacrificed anything,"  rather than, "Mr. Trump has never sacrificed anything for his country."

Nathan Hale. Fire that loser. 

The Donald's proclamation was not exactly "I only regret I have but one life to give for my country," but then again, the Donald would likely say, "What a sap. What a loser, giving his life for his country, when he could have built hotels, casinos or golf courses."

This is where the Donald does not play the Democrats' game:  The Dems try to appeal to what they think are the heartland values of flag waving patriots, soldiers, people to whom you are supposed to say, "Thank you for your service."  

But the Donald says, "Hey, what are you? A loser? Did you make a profit for our country, or for me?  If not, you're fired."

Mr. Trump never served in our military; he got a deferment from service in Vietnam, when he was of age to serve.  What he is saying, presumably, is he would have been an idiot to join, when he could be making money, living in beautiful places and dating beautiful women.  What fool would have chosen to sign up for grunting through malaria infested  rice paddies in steaming heat when he could be in bed with super models back in New York? No profit in Vietnamese rice paddies. 

Falstaff: There's glory for you. It stinks.

Leona Hemsley once observed, "Taxes are for little people."
Mr. Trump has added, "Getting shot is for suckers."

54th Massachusetts: Glory? What a bunch of losers!

It mystifies Democrats, who are trying to figure out what white males in Ohio and Pennsylvania think, when they hear the Donald dismiss Mr. Khan, and his family's sacrifice as nothing more important than his own sacrifices for his businesses.  After all, it's these high school educated white males who have had to serve in the armed forces because they had no way to avoid it, or no better financial options. Don't they cling to their guns and their religion and their sense of patriotism?   

The military is very big on honoring those who served. When they die, the words: "Duty, Honor, Country" ring out. Mr. Trump says, "what losers." Democrats are stupefied when those white males all chorus out, "Amen, brother!"

Maybe, having been in the fight, they are as cynical as soldiers get about war and the "glory" of service and glorious death.  

What would Mr. Trump say about Pat Tillman, who left a lucrative NFL career to join the Army after the 9/11 attacks, to fight for his country and was promptly shot to death in the confusion of a firefight , shot to death, it turned out, by his own fellow American soldiers? 

Mr. Trump would, I am guessing, say Tillman was a fool and a loser to walk away from all that money, a fun career and a good life to join the Army. Was he really fighting for his country or for freedom?  In Tillman's case, you have to believe he was fighting for an idea. He had no economic motive for joining the Army.  But Trump's argument is:  "How is fighting halfway around the world actually defending America?,"  Mr. Trump seems to be asking. Or at least, that's the implication. Well, Mr. Khan, your son has been played for a sucker, so he's fired. Or dead. Same thing. What a chump, says Trump.

Certainly, during the Vietnam years, a substantial number of Americans did not believe soldiers serving there were fighting for freedom or for their country. Now we have Mr. Trump saying, essentially, just that. You guys getting killed in the Army, well you are there because it was the best deal you could find.  And if if you get killed, well that's just another version of "you're fired."


Make America Great Again.  Vote Donald!

Bill O'Reilly and The Well Fed Slaves

Fox News Braintrust

"Addressing Michell Obama's remarks about slaves having built the White House Bill O'Reilly said Tuesday on his Fox News program that those slaves were 'well fed and had decent lodging provided by the government."
His comments  drew swift rebukes online. He fired back on his Wednesday program, saying that the nations first president provided slaves with 'meat, bread and other staples' and 'decent lodging.'"




"Oh, massir, Ah's jez so fortunate to be a happy darkie, working here on da White House. 
They feeds me real good, with chitlins and greens and ifn the dogs doan want 'em, I get bacon scraps!  

And the lodging is so very nice. And the guv'ment gives me the lodging, which is almost as good as what Massa gives me down home. Ah knows Mr. O'Reilly doan approve of no guv'ment housing, no how. He says the private sector is always better.  He says it makes me dependent. 

But you know, tha's what being a slave is all about, actually. 

And massa taught me carpentry and I doan have no student loans neither, but now I can work here on da White House in diz hundred degree heat but Ah knows when da winter comes it'll drop to below freezing but I'll be all right once it gets dark  in my free government lodgings. 

Guv'ment's so very good to me. 

And Ah'm a happy darkie. Ah loves being a slave so I doan have to worry about getting food and lodging. 

The white massas, they give me everything I want.

Well, 'cept for Freedom. 

But you can't have everything in this life.

Swing lo', sweet chariot."

Gave me bread, meat, lodgings and a few whippings

Yes, indeed, Bill O'Reilly has doubled down on his initial reaction to Michelle Obama's observation about the possibility for change and  progress in this nation with his own demonstration that he completely missed the point. 

Oh, slavery wasn't so bad. Think of all the good things: Free food and lodging. 

The same, it must be realized, this is true for all those slackers in prison today: free food and free government lodging. 

In one sense, Mr. O'Reilly is correct: While change has come enough to place a Black family in the White House, change has not come to Mr. O'Reilly's brain, which is still back in the 19th century when white guys like him told each other they were doing Black slaves a huge, HUGE favor.

The really astonishing thing is here we have Bill O'Reilly, a bulwark of Fox News and the Right Wing saying such stuff.  Tell me again, why are we listening to this man?

Happy to be here

Is it not time for him to retire, or possibly be placed in an assisted living facility where they can prevent him from wandering off and molesting citizens who are capable of normal mentation. 

Of course, Donald Trump would have nothing to fear from Bill.

Hi, I'm Hillary Clinton. (You may have heard of me.)

Allow me to introduce myself.  You may know me by many different names:  Crooked Hillary, Hillary the emasculater, Hillary the email marauder, Hillary the ambitious, ruthless career woman, who seeks only fame and fortune. 

To listen to the blow hards of talk radio, the Fox News blondes, and, of course to listen to Mr. Trump, you would think I should be called the wicked witch of the Mid West.

I hardly recognize those other women these people describe. I would simply prefer, "Hi, I'm Hillary Rodham Clinton, and I'd like to ask you to vote for me for President of the United States."

You know, among the many things people have complained about me is that I am rich.  And they are right, finally I am rich.  People pay me ridiculous amounts of money just to give a speech.  I make no apologies for this.  If they want a picture of me on their brag wall and are willing to pay for a photo op, I've got no objection to that.  And whatever you may think about speeches to Goldman Sacks, there were no electricians or carpenters who didn't get paid, no unions got busted and nobody lost a job so I could get rich. Yep, I gave speeches and reaped the benefits of fame. 

But I'm not now nor ever have been in anybody's pocket.

I like being rich. Wasn't always.  We actually left the White House pretty close to broke.  

The thing is, money never really meant that much to me.  If it had, I would have taken any of those jobs people were throwing at me when I graduated from law school. That would have been an easy and comfortable life.

I guess I could have got paid the big bucks for advising real estate tycoons about building golf courses or casinos.  But, you know, golf courses, casinos never seemed all that important to me.  And hotels--I've stayed in enough hotels to know not a one of them is as sweet as what I've got back home. 

Maybe I've got a big ego. Many, if not most Washington types have big egos. And, yes, I'm a Washington type, Heaven Help me. Not because it has ever made me feel bigger or more powerful.

I decided long ago I could either try to help get kids health insurance or I could get myself as much money as I could and let the kids fend for themselves. 

And yes, I voted for the war in Iraq. I believed the generals and the Secretary of State that Saddam Hussein, who seemed perfectly capable of it, had stockpiles of Sarin Gas and other nasty things and I didn't think we could afford to be wrong about that, if he did have them. So, I was wrong and I learned from that mistake. 

Turns out, the best learned lessons are often from our mistakes.

By that measure, I should have learned a lot over the past four decades and I think I have. I learned the essential truth of that old adage: If you're not failing, you're not pushing hard enough.

I tried to get Health Care passed in my husband's first administration, but we had too many people working on a plan which was too complicated. That effort went down in flames. I learned from that, too. I think President Obama learned from that, and from the ashes rose Obamacare, which Mr. McConnell and every Republican in Congress will tell you is a disaster.  Oh, they hate Obamacare in Kentucky. They love Ky nect, of course, because tens of thousands who never had health insurance now have it, but they hate Obamacare, which is, of course, what Ky nect is.

Funny thing, though. The things which the loud mouths are loudest about are most often not the things I considered mistakes.  Benghazi was a terrible loss. But diplomats die in the service of their country.  We took a risk sending those Seals in to get Osma Bin Laden and every day as Secretary of State, I knew we had diplomats in places across North Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Africa and any one of those could be murdered on any given day. 

A Congresswoman asked me if I went home the night of the Benghazi attack, when Ambassador Stevens and three others died. And when I said, yes, I went home around 4 AM, she asked me whether I spent the whole night alone, as if she were about to uncover some really scandalous indiscretion, and I laughed. And she protested she didn't see anything funny.

But I was laughing because it wasn't until that moment I realized how utterly clueless some people are about what really motivates another human being. Yes, I spent that night alone. I could not bear the idea of not being alone that night because I had to have a conversation with myself,  without anyone else there to try to make me feel better.  

That's the thing about being Secretary of State or President--most of what you do, most of how you really feel,  cannot be shared with anyone. There is no cheering crowd. There is no adulation, just hard choices and defeat and if you are lucky, you move the ball forward five yards at a time. 

People ask me all the time if Rush Limbaugh or Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell get me down.  And the real answer is: No. Not at all. None of them are anything more than self promoters, trying to feel important, trying to get some attention.  But the people you help, the people who couldn't get health insurance, the women who can't go to Planned Parenthood because the government got in their way, the people who are living on Social Security, the people who depend on Medicare,  the people whose bank accounts are insured by the government, they matter. The suits and shills at Fox News do not matter. 

My detractors say I belong in prison.  They have never lived in the confines of public life. 
 I do plead guilty to one thing:  I do believe in government.  Yes, I admit, I believe government, while not the solution to every problem has been, is and can be a force for good, an indispensable element of American life. 

No, the Fox News blondes, the talk radio ignoramuses, the bitter obstructionists of the Senate and the Tea Party House, they don't matter.  If they really mattered, I'd have given up long ago.

What matters is "We the People" and this great experiment we call America, which, if we take care, will go forth boldly into a future which is better than yesterday and better than today.

Thank you.

White Trash and Trump Chumps

Reading Nancy Isenberg's book, "White Trash" brought to mind a disturbing story I heard on NPR one morning.  It was told by a white man from Mississippi about his father.  When this man was about 8 years old, a neighboring farmer, a Black man, got a new mule and with that mule he was able to plow his fields admirably straight. Driving by those immaculate fields with his father, the boy remarked how good the fields looked. The father said nothing, but the next day the boy heard someone had shot the Black farmer's mule. 
"Did you shoot that mule?" he asked his father. 
"Sure did."  
"But, why?"
"'Cause if I'm no better than some nigger, then what am I?"

Just Wild for Adolph

That story encapsulated for me the importance of "pecking order," in American society.  The poor, the uneducated need somebody below them to disparage.  If they cannot feel superior by virtue of having gone to Princeton, well, then at least they can feel good about being white. You may be out of work, or working at some dead end job under the yoke of some boss, but you are at least not a Mexican wet back sneaking into America. You belong. You make America great by your very presence.

70 years later; Just wild for Donnie John

This is much of what underlies the deep resentment of President Obama, an uppity Black if ever there was one, a man so intelligent, articulate, one of the best writers to have ever been President, a man of such virtue the only way to attack him is by attacking his origins--born in Kenya. 

There was that sign I saw in rural New Hampshire: "Somewhere in Kenya, a village has lost its idiot." Only one possible explanation for that sign. You know what the guy who put up that sign is like.

Which means the usual "ground game" of trying to go door to door to persuade people is doomed in this election. Either people have understood the appeal of Mr. Trump as the man who says, "You are what makes America great, that is, white," or they have not. 

Of course, there are also the Bernie or Bust crowd enthusiasts, who are just as pernicious in their own self importance, but numerically, they are not as important.

The fact is, this election is not so much an election as a census, a referendum. How many of our fellow citizens are prepared to shoot that mule?

What Ann Richards Can Tell Hillary Clinton

Ann Richards, the governor of Texas, gave the keynote speech at the 1988 convention which nominated Michael Dukakis, who went on to lose to George H.W. Bush.  Hardly anyone I know can remember much about Michael Dukakis, but I know a lot of people who remember Ann Richards, because of that speech. 

I just watched it again on youtube and was surprised to see how many of her lines have become part of common reference: Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels; George Bush was born on third base and thought he hit a triple; he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.

But what was really effective was her simple affirmation of what Democrats wanted: good day care, safe abortions, strong labor unions, fair trade treaties and what Republicans wanted:  to divide and to pit one section of the country against another, to let every man fight for himself, to kill government. 

I hope Hillary Clinton will take a look at that speech before she gives hers Thursday night. 

Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtIFhiqS_TY

Michelle, Ma Belle

All Class

"I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves; and I watch my daughters –- two beautiful, intelligent, black young women –- playing with their dogs on the White House lawn."

"Don't tell me this country isn't great, or needs to be made 'great again.' It is the greatest country on earth."


--Michelle Obama

The If Only Donald/Hillary Debate

Tony Schwartz's description in The New Yorker of his magical mystery tour along the way to writing the book, "The Art of the Deal"  sparked all sorts of fantasies about the dream debate between the Donald and Hillary Clinton.

Here's one, of what I'm sure will be many:

The Donald:  Hillary you are so low energy, I don't know why you'd even want to be President. I mean you'd be worn out every day by noon. People love me. I'm on the front cover of all the big magazines. They sell millions when they put my picture on their covers. And you know what? That energizes me. But you, I mean you were the worst Secretary of state in this nation's history. Obama and you are so politically correct you won't even face the terrorists groups who are cutting off heads. Radical Islamists are cutting off heads and you won't even call them Radical Islamists. 

Hillary: Well, it's hard to know which of those fragments of thoughts to respond to, but let's start with the Secretaries of State.  If I'm the worst Secretary of State who's ever been, why don't you name say, five Secretaries of State, who did a better job?

The Donald: There was that lady. 

Hillary: The lady? You mean Condoleezza Rice? Or Madeline Albright? 

The Donald: Condoleezza. Nice lady.  I like Condoleezza. She had some guts. Not bad looking either. People say I'm a racist, but I can appreciate a beautiful woman no matter what her race. Blacks love me. I give 'em jobs.

Hillary: Can you think of other Secretaries of State?

The Donald: Colin Powell. Nice guy. I like the guy. 

Hillary: Oh, the guy who told the nation we had to go to war with Iraq because of all those weapons of mass destruction the Iraquis had hidden away? Remember that? All the nerve gas? I admit, I fell for that one. But that nerve gas thing sealed the deal, for me.  Of course, I didn't write the "Art of the Deal," so what do I know about deals? But then, again, neither did you, write that book, that is.

The Donald: I wrote every page of that book! That Schwartz guy is such a snake in the grass. After all I did for him. He needed the money and I let him in on the deal, and then look how he treats me.  But you, you know you look even smaller in person than I remember. And whoa! You've gained a ton of weight!  Eating too well at all those Goldman Sacks dinners. Crooked Hillary.

Hillary:  So now we're down where you like to live--in the physical world. What was it? "Little Marco Rubio?" Now it's "little Hillary."  

The Donald: Well, it's hard not to notice. I mean, either I've grown or you're shrinking. Maybe you ought to get screened for osteoporosis. I mean, I've had to deal with guys calling me little, which I assure you I'm not. There's nothing small down there. But you...I mean, maybe some women shrink after menopause, but you'd have to be dealing with some big guys as President. I don't think you can stand up to the pressure. 

Hillary:  Oh, but you would be big enough to deal with all those big guys?

The Donald: Absolutely. But you, the incredible shrinking Hillary, not so much. Just too small and weak.

Hillary: Oh, Donald, Donald, Donald.  Donald, you pride yourself on an animal faculty, in which the chimpanzee is your equal--and the jackass infinitely your superior.


The Donald: I don't have to put up with that crap.

Hillary: Oh, but you do, Donald, because this debate, this is occurring in the real world. They're fact checking everything you say and Tweeting about it, even as we speak.  And the fact is, you cannot even name a Secretary of State beyond the last two Republican appointees.  I might have thought you'd have mentioned Thomas Jefferson. Even you must know Thomas Jefferson. He had a role in the musical, "Hamilton." That is where you get your information, isn't it? TV? Show business.  Yes, I agree, I might not have been quite as good as Jefferson, but I think I did a little better than say, Cordell Hull. Surely, you remember that Secretary of State?

The Donald: Never heard of him.

Hillary: Oh, well he was the guy who sent back the boatload of Jewish refugees before we got into the Second World Ward, because he didn't think they had good character.  He wanted them to have letters of reference, character references from the Gestapo.  I might not have been the perfect Secretary of State, but at least I believe turning away people because they are part of an unpopular group at the moment, like say, Muslims, is a pretty savage thing to do.