Megyn Kelly was at her best Tuesday night as she hosted a debate over Donald Trump’s attacks on the “Mexican” judge (who’s American) who ruled against him in the Trump University fraud case.
Kelly deserves credit not only because she’s probably the only Fox host to openly criticize Trump but she was also the only host on prime time, who discussed the Trump University fraud case at all. However, I note that Kelly focused on Trump’s attacks on the judge, not the extremely damning evidence against Trump.
Trump defender David Wohl came up with the lamest defenses for Trump’s attacks on the judge. First, Wohl tried to dismiss them as a “non sequitor,” meaning, I suppose, that they were irrelevant.
But Kelly wasn’t buying it. “Why does he keep mentioning it over and over when he rips on this judge?” she asked. “To go after the judge as a quote, 'Mexican' and hater takes it to a different level.”
Wohl laughably tried to claim that Trump mitigated his attack because he also reportedly, said, “I love the Mexican people, I’ve got millions of Mexican supporters.”
“Come on!” Kelly said.
Next Wohl tried to defend Trump by calling his attacks a “slip of the tongue.”
“He does it repeatedly!” Kelly shot back.
Then Kelly made a remark that suggested she saw shades of Trump’s attacks on her in his attacks on the judge: “This is what he does. He creates a bias where none exists and then demands that that person be removed.”
Watch it below, from the May 31 The Kelly File.
The reasonably sane and forever dwindling Republican core have only themselves to blame for the mad circus their party has become. They turned a blind eye while their head honchos invited and encouraged the religious crazies; they never raised a peep while their cynical dog whistlers herded racists, misogynists, conspiracy theorists, gun fetishists and every sort of freak splinter group into the tent. Their voices have never been raised over the anti-democratic redistricting of minorities, the callous disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands to combat non-existent ‘voter fraud’ or the many other ways poor and working people have been discouraged from exercising their right to a voice and a vote. No civilised country on Earth would make people queue for hours for the privilege.
When all you care about is winning, whatever the cost to your integrity, you deserve to reap the whirlwind.
When all the pieces of Trump’s approach to foreign policy are put together, the only conclusion is that Trump is an unabashed, wilfully ignorant amateur. He has neither the understanding nor the temperment needed to deal with difficult situations in a manner that respects America’s basic values. He lacks the clear-headedness, determination and, above all, patience that is needed to work through the issues in search of compromise. A far cry from Theodore Roosevelt’s “carrot and stick” school of diplomacy; more like a steamroller (Oh dear, that brought up the image of Tienamen Square).
I think Hillary Clinton’s new voice (more measured, less shrill, always substantive) will be increasingly effective in delivering the message that Trump is not acceptable. I hope that the demolition mode won’t weaken her emphasis on what her administration intends to try to do and the Dems have already laid the groundwork for a platform that will give due attention to the issues raised by Sanders. The media are interviewing an endless list of Bernie-or-die people who resemble Trump’s followers a lot in that they are governed by emotion not reason. For them as for so many right wingers, compromise is a dirty word, a sign of weakness. They forget that compromise is “the” core principle of democracy, where opposing forces meet up to work out the details of what is to be done in the name of the people. Elections are a means for making up the opposing teams, they are not, nor ever can be construed to constitute the end of democratic action.
Anyway, I expect Trump’s lack of knowledge and understanding of the issues (even job creation and ISIS) will become increasingly evident over the next five months. His very limited vocabulary (fewer than 10 adjectives used over, and over, and over, again) cannot but be perceived for what it is: an embarrassing inability to address the issues in coherent paragraphs that present the case, discuss it and draw conclusions. The only two times that he was supposed to be addressing substantive issues, he had to use a teleprompter and he was visibly frustrated, even bored, while doing so. And that puts paid to the Foxy meme that Obama is not competent because he uses those speaking aids (which I don’t like, either, but I remain convinced that Obama can actually speak in coherent paragraphs when speaking off the cuff).
A ray of light in these troubling times: if Trump’s attack on the media is any indication, all we have to do is wait for him to shoot his own campaign down.
It is going to be a fascinating exercise in ‘tipping point’ dynamics as straw upon straw is piled onto the camel’s back, and Americans slowly but surely hit the wall of awfulness that is Trump. For some, it may be the sheer number of lies that are exposed (and sure as shit, they will be); for others, his mafia connections may do the trick; his business chicanery and tax dodging could break through the Mein Trumpf* barrier for yet another.
Just how Fux News retreats from the dead end street it has blundered down is going to be equally fascinating. As we are all too well aware, the whole Fox operation is founded, and prospers, on just two imperatives – to promote anything and everything right-wing, and to deliver hordes of gullible rubes to advertisers hungry to relieve them of every last cent they can be gulled out of.
By November and against mountains of evidence against The Gilded Toad, a pro-Trump stance will be untenable on both counts.
