[EDITORIAL] Donald Trump's unpresidential campaign: Our view

An important part of the modern presidency is the ability to deal coolly with tough questions from the White House press corps and diplomatically with other world leaders.

But in recent weeks, Donald Trump has been acting more like the angry, impulsive president portrayed byDwayne Johnson in Saturday Night Live's "The Rock Obama" skits. Trump has attacked two of the nation’s most popular and influential television journalists, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly and Univision’sJorge Ramos. And he has lashed out against the governments of China and Mexico.

USA TODAY

Donald Trump is 'bold, provocative': Opposing view

Despite these outbursts — or perhaps because of them — Trump has risen to the top of polls in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, confounding pundits and deeply worrying the GOP establishment.

What his actions haven’t done, however, is position him to win the presidency, or to govern effectively were he somehow to get elected. In fact, they have done just the opposite by offending many of the people whose support he would need, needlessly provoking fights with important nations and generally coming off as unpresidential.

Are American voters really looking for a president who spends his evenings sending out nasty and petty tweets about journalists rather than, say, working on ways to defeat the Islamic State? That’s exactly what Trump did when Kelly — whom he criticized for her "unfair" questions during last month's first Republican debate —  returned from a summer vacation.

Are Americans really looking for a president whose security detail temporarily ejected a journalist (Ramos) who was attempting to ask about his unworkable immigration plan? Or a president who barred Des Moines Register reporters from some of his events because he didn't like an editorial? (The Register, like USA TODAY, is owned by Gannett.)

The answer is almost certainly not. America once had a president who became consumed with compiling enemies' lists and vilifying his opponents. His name was Richard Nixon.

The point is not that journalists such as Kelly and Ramos need any special sympathy or protection. It’s that a president, a nominee, even a front-runner for the nomination once the field has narrowed, has to do more in the face of hostile questioning than simply resort to name-calling.

Tough questions test a candidate's coolness under fire. They can provide more information about what's on voters' minds than a candidate might receive from sycophantic aides. They go with the territory.

If there was one lesson from President Obama’s 2012 re-election, it was that the next GOP candidate would have to do better with women and minority voters, particularly Hispanics. Trump's comments about Mexican immigrants have left him with an abysmal 14% approval rating among Hispanic voters, according to Gallup. And his ad hominem attacks against Kelly and a career full of chauvinistic comments about women are hardly likely to endear him to female voters.

Positions such as building a massive wall along the Mexican border or imposing a tariff on Chinese goods are designed to rile up frustrated, angry voters. They will not help enact actual policies or deliver results. The Islamic State isn't going stop its reign of terror because President Trump sends out some insulting tweets about its leaders.

Trump knows that in a splintered race for the GOP nomination, he can maintain a lead with as little as 20% support in the polls, which he can get to by saying outrageous things and by proposing impractical policies. But the further along he gets in the process, the more his antics will work against him.

Via: USA Today

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Hillary Clinton: The long goodbye

The Clintons survived the scandals and wars of the ‘90s because in the '90s there was a lot less cable TV and Internet and no Twitter or social media. (AP Photo)

Which Democrat will be the one to play Barry Goldwater to the Richard M. Nixon of Hillary Clinton? Who will step up to tell the self-wounded one-time colossus that the time has arrived to go home?

On August 7, 1974, Goldwater and the Republican leaders of the House and the Senate called on the president and told him he had lost the support of his party in Congress. The next day, Nixon told the country that he would be leaving his office, and the day after that, he resigned.

Coming on top of the pay-to-play scandals surrounding the Clinton Foundation and the embarrassing, extravagant sums she demands for her speeches, the criminal investigation into the scrubbed secret server maintained and surrendered by the former first lady may make her a burden too great for her party to carry. In a recent poll of registered voters, 58 percent say Hillary lied about the emails and 54 percent believe that she weakened the country's security. Since the main task of the president is securing the country, this doesn't bode well.

But worse than the cost of what already happened is the prospect of what still may come. "Until a month ago, one of the arguments I frequently heard ... was that that she'd been vetted like nobody's ever been vetted," wrote Frank Bruni in March. "All the skeletons had been tugged from the Clintons' labyrinthine closets. All the mud had been dug up and flung."

Then came "Clinton Cash" and the conflicts of interest, and when that had sunk in, the unsecured server. Who can swear there's not even more fresh new mud where that came from, ready to start fresh new media frenzies? With the server now in the hands of the government, there's the continuing prospect of fresh new developments from now through November of 2016. News could break during the primaries, after the primaries, during the conventions or shortly before the opening of the polls. Can one run a campaign while under indictment? We may be about to get an answer.

"Dems will put up with a scoundrel, but not a loser," the editors of this paper wrote earlier this year. They cited the undying support of Bill Clinton, who, to be fair, while he was in office never did anything like this. But the problem is that Hillary is becoming a loser because she's a scoundrel, as her lies and the continued exposure of them seem to come more and more to the fore.

Her ratings took a predictable dip in 2013 when she left her old role as diplomat for the tumult of politics. Another dip came in 2014 when her book launch fizzled and she claimed to have been "dead broke" after the White House. But the holes in the hull were punched by the Clinton Foundation and then the emails, which made her approval ratings slide underwater and saw her fall behind many GOP rivals in many important swing states.

The Clintons survived the scandals and wars of the '90s because in the '90s there was a lot less cable TV and Internet and no Twitter or social media. In the '90s, they controlled the White House and party and now they do not. In the '90s, they were in office, not merely seeking it; and Bill was a skilled and adroit politician, which Hillary is not.

For all of these reasons the time may soon come when their party will find that it cannot afford the Clintons. And some solon with indisputable party credentials will take that long walk to their door.

Via: Washington Examiner

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The POW MIA Flag Is Racist (because American prisoners of war are racists and deserve whatever they get)

Sometimes the left does things that are so bizarre that at first blush you think you are being trolled. Take this, for instance. In Newsweek “historian” (this is an appellation that, in this particular case, doesn’t seem to require any academic credentials), accused plagiarist Rick Perlstein claims to have discovered yet another “racist” flag:

You know that racist flag? The one that supposedly honors history but actually spreads a pernicious myth? And is useful only to venal right-wing politicians who wish to exploit hatred by calling it heritage? It’s past time to pull it down.

Oh, wait. You thought I was referring to the Confederate flag. Actually, I’m talking about the POW/MIA flag.

I told the story in the first chapter of my 2014 book The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan: how Richard Nixon invented the cult of the “POW/MIA” in order to justify the carnage in Vietnam in a way that rendered the United States as its sole victim.

The only hint that it isn’t a clever bit of trolling and clickbait is that is is obvious that Perlstein is bleeding from his eyes and whatever as he writes this.

Perlstein’s claim here is pretty much bull***t. The history of the POW/MIA flag is well documented. It was created by POW families and it was in response to widespread outcry over the treatment of US POWs by the North Vietnamese. Contrary to what Perlstein claims, there was widespread concern about US prisoners long before the Peace Talks started, of course, Perlstein was still pooping yellow at the time and can be excused for substituting what was actually being talked about for whatever be picked up in college. The treatment of US prisoners held by the Koreans and Chinese was well-known. The hugely successful film, The Manchurian Candidate was released in 1962.

There was good reason to be concerned. Over 900 US and allied prisoners were known to have been held by the Koreans and Chinese after the armistice. The Soviet Union held Japanese prisoners will into the 1950s and never provided an accounting of who they held or their disposition. So the idea that no one cared about prisoners until the Evil Tricky Dick dreamed them up is simply a rather grotesque lie.

As Sean Davis writing in The Federalist says:

If you can believe it, that’s actually the most coherent passage in the entire piece. Did you know that prisoners of war are members of a “cult?” Perlstein apparently does. Did you know that mistreatment of American prisoners of war in Vietnam is “a pernicious myth”? Perlstein says it is, so it must be true. If I learned anything from his piece, it’s that there is apparently such a thing as a POW Truther.

From this anti-historical beginning, Perlstein not only jumps the shark, he levitates above the very ocean.

During the Nixon years, the Pentagon moved them into a newly invented “Missing in Action” column. That proved convenient, for, after years of playing down the existence of American prisoners in Vietnam, in 1969, the new president suddenly decided to play them up.

He declared their treatment, and the enemy’s refusal to provide a list of their names, violations of the Geneva Conventions—the better to paint the North Vietnamese as uniquely cruel and inhumane. He also demanded the release of American prisoners as a precondition to ending the war.

This was bullshit four times over: first, because in every other conflict in human history, the release of prisoners had been something settled at the close of a war; second, because these prisoners only existed because of America’s antecedent violations of the Geneva Conventions in bombing civilians in an undeclared war; third, because, as bad as their torture of prisoners was, rather than representing some species of Oriental despotism, the Vietnam Communists were only borrowing techniques practiced on them by their French colonists (and incidentally paid forward by us in places like Abu Ghraib): see this as-told-to memoir by POW and future senator Jeremiah Denton. And finally, our South Vietnamese allies’ treatment of their prisoners, who lived manacled to the floors in crippling underground bamboo “tiger cages” in prison camps built by us, was far worse than the torture our personnel suffered.

Missing in action was a term that was used in World War II and Korea. Anyone can look at contemporaneous War Department, Navy Department, or DoD documents and find it. You can also find it in newspapers and casualty reports throughout the Vietnam War. This should be logical to all but the dimmest bulbs.

Actually, through most of recorded history, prisoners have been exchanged (assuming they weren’t killed outright or sold into slavery) were exchanged on a regular basis. In the US Civil War, for instance, prisoners were paroled and exchanged until the Dix-Hill Cartel ended in June 1863. And not to put too fine a point on it, a peace was being “negotiated.” When you “negotiate” it is customary to ask for more than you expect to get and it is usual to pressure the other side to give in. So the history of how prisoners had been treated (and there is no evidence whatsoever that Perlstein is even vaguely familiar with the subject) is really immaterial to a process of negotiations.

North Vietnam was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and was obligated to notify the Protecting Power (Switzerland) of the names of prisoners. Bombing civilians so long as they aren’t deliberately targeted is not against the Geneva Conventions. Wars don’t have to be declared but the Vietnam War was approved by Congress. The treatment of North Vietnamese prisoners is immaterial to the discussion as reprisals against prisoners is not allowed by the Geneva Conventions. Viet Cong were illegal combatants and however the South Vietnamese government wanted to treat them under their own laws or policies was not a subject of international oversight.

So the underpinning of Perlman’s story is, as they say in Germany, quatsch.

Now, why is the flag racist?

Racist is the leftwing codeword for “I don’t like it.” Damp toilet paper, for instance, is racist. America, too, is racist. Supporting American troops is racist. Not liking commies is racist. Perlstein is upset that we don’t see POW collaborators like Larry Kavanaugh, Edison Miller and Gene Wilber as heroes rather than as unindicted traitors and that makes the POW/MIA flag racist.

As David French writes, this is about rewriting American history:

It’s not common to see a leftist still carrying the torch for the Viet Cong and the NVA, but it’s a useful reminder of the rage that beats within some leftist hearts, a rage that can even take a symbol meant to honor and remind Americans of the undeniable fact that there are — in fact — men who are missing in Vietnam, men we can’t account for an may never be found, and turn it into a symbol of — you guessed it — racism. Never mind that Americans were dying to defend people of the exact same race as the enemies they fought. Never mind that families fly the flag to remind their neighbors of their sacrifice, and our nation flies it to remind citizens of the men of courage who fought a deadly Communist enemy. It’s not a battle flag, nor is it a flag of conquest. It’s a flag of remembrance.

But that’s the entire point. Perlstein hates that people don’t remember the Vietnam War the way he wants it remembered, as a racist, unlawful enterprise. The POW/MIA flag is merely a pretext for him to repeat the tired arguments of the 1970s, arguments that lost their sting when the NVA finally triumphed, and the world watched a Communist dictatorship work its vengeance on the South Vietnamese population. He won’t bring down the flag, but he apparently does want to re-start a historical battle that the Left has largely and rightly lost since the Fall of Saigon. His piece is further evidence that the defense of history — like the defense of liberty — requires constant vigilance.

Via: Red State

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Van Jones Blames Obamacare Problems on Media, Richard Nixon, Heritage Foundation, and GOP

Perhaps the Obamacare apologists are running out of people to blame for the failed Obamacare rollout and the President's "you can keep your insurance, period" lie.

During the panel discussion on Sunday's State of the Union with Candy Crowley, Van Jones blamed the launch issues first on the mainstream media misinformation, then on a long list of usual and not-so-usual suspects, including former President Richard Nixon, the Heritage Foundation, and the tried and trite, Republican Party.

Of course, Jones left one conspicuous name off his increasingly desperate list...

Fellow panelist and CNN Commentator Ross Douthat asked Jones if there will be a moment where the left-wing of the party demands a presidential candidate "who will push not to fix Obamacare which was always a compromise, but for single payer."  That's when Jones launched into his shameless blame gaming:

It's conceivable, but I think we're a long way from there. What it's going to come down to is, does the media get tired of pretending that Obamacare is just a website that didn't work and these cancelation notices? If the media were going to be fair, here's what they would do: For every one story about a cancelation notice, there would be three stories about people benefiting from Obamacare right now. Even with the website broken, every woman across American is benefiting because they can't be discriminated against. Even with the website broken, you have every kid under the age of 26 being benefited. We don't tell stories of successes right now. Maybe we get bored with this. We only talk about the downside. The minute that Democrats get it together to promote the incredible successes --

Douthat interrupted Jones by jokingly asking if he was going to run against Hillary Clinton as champion of single-payer in 2016. Jones replied by cramming more villains into his blame list:

I'm for single-payer. Part of the problem is we gave up on single-payer without a fight. Now it looks like this moderate Romneycare thing is a left-wing plot, when in fact this Romneycare thing that Obama is putting in place came from Richard Nixon, the Heritage Foundation, and the Republicans.

Via: True Revolt
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[VIDEO] George Will: Other Than Nixon ‘Has There Ever Been a Worse First Year of a Second Term?’

Syndicated columnist George Will asked a marvelous question Sunday that few in the liberal media will.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Will said, “Has there ever – with the exception of Richard Nixon in 1973 - been a worse first year of a second term?” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: George, your thoughts about the President’s apology.

GEORGE WILL: Well, it’s one thing for Bill Clinton to say, “I feel your pain.” It’s another thing for Barack Obama to say, “I feel your pain that I have caused,” and for him to say it was caused by a situation. That’s the word he used in the operative sentence.

We this week marked the one year anniversary of his re-election. Has there ever – with the exception of Richard Nixon in 1973 - been a worse first year of a second term? The Pew survey this week has approval of his performance on healthcare – healthcare, his signature issue - disapproval 59 percent. That’s a little bit less than the 60 percent disapproval on immigration and 65 percent on the economy.

And now the Democrats are going to get to vote on some things maybe, or at least Mr. Reid will have to stop them in the Senate. Here’s for example the “If You Like Your Health Plan You Can Keep It Act” from Senator Ron Johnson. It’s four pages long which makes it 902 pages shorter than the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. And these are opportunities for discomfort for the supporters of the Affordable Care Act.

Fabulous question - one that virtually all media members and outlets would be asking if Obama had an "R" next to his name.

Via: Newsbusters

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SO WHEN DID THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS BECOME KENNEDY’S ‘VICTORY’?

That Khrushchev swept the floor with Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis was mainstream conservative conclusion throughout much of the Cold War. Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater, for instance, represented opposite poles of the Republican establishment of their time.

“We locked Castro’s communism into Latin America and threw away the key to its removal,” growled Barry Goldwater about the JFK’s Missile Crisis “solution.”

“Kennedy pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory,” complained Richard Nixon. “Then gave the Soviets squatters rights in our backyard.”

Generals Curtis Le May and Maxwell Taylor represented opposite poles of the military establishment.

“The biggest defeat in our nation’s history!” bellowed Air Force chief Curtis Lemay while whacking his fist on his desk upon learning the details of the deal.

“We missed the big boat,” complained Gen. Maxwell Taylor after learning the same.

“We’ve been had!” yelled then Navy chief George Anderson upon hearing on October 28, 1962, how JFK “solved” the missile crisis. Adm. Anderson was the man in charge of the very “blockade” against Cuba.

“It’s a public relations fable that Khrushchev quailed before Kennedy,” wrote Alexander Haig. “The legend of the eyeball to eyeball confrontation invented by Kennedy’s men paid a handsome political dividend. But the Kennedy-Khrushchev deal was a deplorable error resulting in political havoc and human suffering through the America’s.”That Khrushchev swept the floor with Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis was mainstream conservative conclusion throughout much of the Cold War. Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater, for instance, represented opposite poles of the Republican establishment of their time.

“We locked Castro’s communism into Latin America and threw away the key to its removal,” growled Barry Goldwater about the JFK’s Missile Crisis “solution.”

“Kennedy pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory,” complained Richard Nixon. “Then gave the Soviets squatters rights in our backyard.”

Generals Curtis Le May and Maxwell Taylor represented opposite poles of the military establishment.

“The biggest defeat in our nation’s history!” bellowed Air Force chief Curtis Lemay while whacking his fist on his desk upon learning the details of the deal.

“We missed the big boat,” complained Gen. Maxwell Taylor after learning the same.

“We’ve been had!” yelled then Navy chief George Anderson upon hearing on October 28, 1962, how JFK “solved” the missile crisis. Adm. Anderson was the man in charge of the very “blockade” against Cuba.

“It’s a public relations fable that Khrushchev quailed before Kennedy,” wrote Alexander Haig. “The legend of the eyeball to eyeball confrontation invented by Kennedy’s men paid a handsome political dividend. But the Kennedy-Khrushchev deal was a deplorable error resulting in political havoc and human suffering through the America’s.”That Khrushchev swept the floor with Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis was mainstream conservative conclusion throughout much of the Cold War. Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater, for instance, represented opposite poles of the Republican establishment of their time.

“We locked Castro’s communism into Latin America and threw away the key to its removal,” growled Barry Goldwater about the JFK’s Missile Crisis “solution.”

Via: Human Events

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Obama not Nixon, Carter or Clinton but the president who hates the U.S.

Why do so many empty talking heads and journalists keep comparing Barack Hussein Obama to other presidents?

Journalists: Obama the Worst Since Nixon’ is the latest.

When it comes to presidencies, Obama is not the worst since Nixon, Carter, Clinton, et al, he’s the worst.

“The Obama administration’s hostility toward media and efforts to crack down on whistleblowers and leakers has created “a tremendous chilling effect” on substantive reporting, the Committee to Protect Journalists and veteran reporters said Thursday.” (The Washington Free Beacon, Oct. 18, 2013).

“The CPJ issued last week a scathing report, written by former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr, on the effects of the Obama administration’s efforts to control press coverage, burnish its image, and thwart unauthorized leaks.

“The Obama administration’s aggressive war on leaks, and its determined efforts to control information that the news media needs to hold the government accountable for its actions, are without equal since the Nixon administration and in direct conflict with President Obama’s often-stated goal of making his administration the most transparent in history,” Downie said.

‘The Committee to Protect Journalists and veteran reporters’?

How about ‘The Committee to Protect average Americans from ‘The Committee to Protect Journalists and veteran reporters’?

How about rather than media scribes racing to the protection of committees, and folding like so many cheap suits, they don’t let Obama get away with it by digging deeper in quest of finding the truth?

The growing trend to compare Barack Hussein Obama to other presidents is a trend that takes its source—from Barack Hussein Obama, who started it all back in 2006.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Romney, GOP suddenly plunging onto Democratic turf

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Mitt Romney is suddenly plunging into traditionally Democratic-leaning Minnesota and Pennsylvania, and his GOP allies are trying to put Michigan into play. It's forcing President Barack Obama to defend his own turf - he's pouring money into television ads in the states and dispatching top backers - in the campaign's final week.

The question is: Why this Republican move?

GOP efforts in the trio of Rust Belt states could indicate that Romney is desperately searching for a last-minute path to the needed 270 Electoral College votes - without all-important Ohio. Or just the opposite, that he's so confident in the most competitive battlegrounds that he's pressing for insurance against Obama in what's expected to be a close race.

Or perhaps the Republican simply has money to burn. Use it now or never.

(AP) President Barack Obama gestures while speaking during the his visit to the Disaster Operation... Full Image

Former President Bill Clinton was dispatched in response on Tuesday. "Barack Obama's policies work better," he declared on the University of Minnesota campus, one of his two stops in a state that offers 10 electoral votes and hasn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1972.

This late-game expansion of a campaign playing field that, until now, had focused on just nine states was taking place exactly a week from Election Day. At the same time, Obama spent a second day in Washington to focus on his presidential duties and Romney edged back into active campaigning in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy.

"This is a tough time for millions of people ... but America is tougher," the president said during a brief visit to the American Red Cross, where he sought to reassure victims, encourage aid workers - and warn of more storm damage to come with rising floodwater.

In Ohio, Romney, too, spoke of concern for storm victims, telling supporters who were collecting supplies that "a lot of people hurting this morning."

Beyond the candidates' pause from feverish campaigning, the impact of the storm on the election wasn't all that clear.

(AP) Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds bags of food as he... Full Image

National polls show an even race for the popular vote, though Obama appears to have both an edge in key battleground states in the electoral vote hunt and more state-by-state pathways to reach the 270-vote threshold.

Of the nine states where the two men have spent more than $1 billion in advertising since June, Romney is in the strongest position in North Carolina. But public and internal campaign polls show he's locked in stubbornly tight battles in Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada and Virginia and is fighting to overtake Obama's advantage in crucial Ohio as well as Iowa and Wisconsin.

That said, Romney still could win. Anything can happen in the race's closing days - including Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, Pennsylvania or Michigan going Republican.

Via: MyWay

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HOW TO DEBATE PRESIDENT OBAMA

The upcoming Presidential debate on October 3 is the most important single event in Mitt Romney’s political career.

The elite news media is doing everything they can to convince Romney’s supporters that the election is lost.

Americans will be tuning in that evening to see if Governor Romney turns this media narrative on its head.

This will be the first time Americans will see President Obama and his challenger side by side.

This will be the largest audience to watch the two men side by side without editing or distortion by the media. If Romney wins this debate, the next debate will have an even larger audience. If he loses it, the elite media will be giddy in its intense reporting of an Obama victory and the Obama team will be giddy and energized by the proclamation of victory.

The media will attempt to pounce on a strong Obama debate and try to bring back up Bain Capital, 47 percent, income tax returns and a host of wounds as perceived by the left.

On the other hand, a Romney victory will destroy the false media narrative that is determined to avoid President Obama’s failure. Suddenly, unemployment over 8 percent, gasoline rising from $1.89 when Obama was elected to $3.89 today, massive deficits, Obamacare, weakness in foreign policy and a host of other failures will rush to the forefront.

Obviously a lot depends on this debate.

And much of the outcome depends on events and actions which are not part of normal debate preparation.

I have been observing Presidential debates since the very first debates in 1960 between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

Sometimes the outcome of a debate can turn on the most trivial thing.

Richard Nixon vs. John Kennedy

In 1960 then-Vice President Richard Nixon turned down professional makeup.

Television was still black and white and the lights were often harsh. Nixon thought a light application of a roll on makeup stick would suffice. His judgment was further flawed by two realities he ignored. First, Nixon naturally had a strong beard and the absence of makeup would give him a five o’clock shadow even if he shaved just before the debate. Second, he had hurt his leg, gotten infected, spent several days in the hospital and lost weight. The result was that he looked gaunt.

Via: Human Events

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