If the Republicans, conservatives and liberal media can’t torpedo Donald Trump’s ridiculous and destructive presidential quest fairly and based on substance, their problems go a lot deeper than Donald Trump.
Wait a minute—they do!
The attempt to make a big deal out of Trump’s performance on the conservative radio talk show hosted by Earl Warren look-alike Hugh Hewitt is another example of the kind of unfair tactics that will just drive more supporters his way. First Hewitt asked Trump about Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who Washington Post blogger Erik Wemple calls the famous leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force. Really? Famous? I’ll say right now: never heard of the dude. I will also say that if my ethics business required dealing with Iraq, I’d be briefed on him thoroughly before I had to make any substantive decisions. Trump’s “yeeees…” indicated that ether he knew a quiz was coming, or had no idea who he was; then he said, “Go ahead, give me a little, go ahead, tell me.” Then…
Hewitt: “He runs the Quds Forces.” (Listen to this on the Post link. I’m from Boston. Anyone in my high school would have pronounced “Quds” and “Kurds” indistinguishably)
Trump: “Yes, OK, right.”
Hewitt: “Do you expect his behavior–”
Trump: “I think the Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by us.”
Hewitt: “No, not the Kurds — the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Forces — the bad guys.”
Trump: “Yes, right.”
Hewitt: “Do you expect his behavior to change as a result –”
Trump: “Oh, I thought you said Kurds, Kurds.”
This, apparently, shows that Trump is unqualified to be President. (He is, but not because of this.) Count on Democrats using the fact that Hillary can run off these names as proof of her superiority, though she was, you know, Secretary of State. Later, when Hewitt tried more quiz questions about the Middle East, Trump objected:
“That is a gotcha question, though. . . . It sounds like gotcha, you’re asking me names . . . I think it’s somewhat ridiculous, but that’s okay, go ahead . . . when you start throwing around names of people and where they live and give me their address, I think it’s ridiculous.”
“I’m looking for the next commander-in-chief, to know who Hassan Nasrallah is, and Zawahiri, and al-Julani, and al-Baghdadi. Do you know the players without a scorecard, yet, Donald Trump?” Hewitt asked, referring to the respective leaders of Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State.
Said Trump:
“No.”
“You know, I’ll tell you honestly, I think by the time we get to office, they’ll all be changed. They’ll be all gone,” he said. “I knew you were going to ask me things like this, and there’s no reason, because, No. 1, I’ll find, I will hopefully find Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the pack…I will be so good at the military, your head will spin. But obviously, I’m not meeting these people. I’m not seeing these people…Now, as far as what you’re talking about now, I will know every detail, and I will have the right plan, not a plan like this where we’re probably going backwards based on everything that I’m hearing, but we’re probably going backwards, zero respect. We have, we are not a respected country, and certainly as it relates to ISIS and what’s going on, and Iran…The day after the election, I’ll know more about it than you will ever know. I will know more about it than you know, and believe me, it won’t take me long. I will know far more than you know within 24 hours after I get the job.”
Do you doubt him? Why would you? He’ll either know that stuff or have sufficiently informed advisers, appointees and aides that we”ll never know the difference. The news media only pull the “identify arcane leaders with unpronounceable names” test on Republicans, for the most part; Rush Limbaugh says that it’s because conservatives are presumed stupid, and he might be correct. Remember George W. Bush being embarrassed by a foreign leader “gotcha!” question in the first debate in 2000? He then came back for the second thoroughly briefed and spouting weird names with elan like a high school Foreign Policy Club nerd. Neither display proved a thing.
Trump is winging it, of course. Everybody knows that. He is running for Leader, not Wonk, and it’s a good strategy at this point, especially in the wake of President who is an atrocious leader. Names, dates, locations…those are details. Jimmy Carter knew all of those cold, and couldn’t make a decision to save his life. Trump and his defenders in this incident are right: these are questions calculated to make Trump look unprepared for something he doesn’t have to be prepared for now. You don’t need to know names to articulate a coherent anti-terrorist policy.
Now, Trump can’t do that either. Exposing him and making him accountable for that, is legitimate.
The main reason Trump is unfit to be President is shown by how he reacted to the Hewitt exchange and subsequent criticism, which was to call Hewitt a “third-rate radio announcer.”
More on this theme later…
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Sources: Politico, Washington Post
Ethics Alarms 
To call this a “gotcha” is unfair to Hugh Hewitt.
Hewitt’s asked these questions of just about every candidate – and not just this cycle. If Trump had hired competent people, they would have told him that this was the sort of question Hugh Hewitt asks, and he’s asking this of every candidate.
Trump has said he would hire the best “experts” to deal with terrorism and foreign policy. Well, if the “experts” he is hiring for his campaign are so incompetent they cannot go to Hugh Hewitt’s website and see his interviews with other candidates, and thus, properly prep the candidate… what doe sthat say about Trump’s credibility in hiring experts?
So he tries gotcha’s on every candidate. So what? What if he asked questions about the line-up of the 1951 Phillies? Would they be fair questions to ask of candidates just because he asked them of everybody? Should Trump get briefed on THAT? This is no different from quizzing Sarah Palin on newspapers. Facility with names is good for Jeopardy—it is not a primary, secondary of tertiary Presidential qualification. Hewitt, in fact, IS a hack, and I have long thought so.
Of course his experts could have mentioned this, but he did not put the effort in to memorize that like he memorized the CEOs of Microsoft, NBC, CBS, and the mayors of Atlanta and New York. Those are more important to him. No, I don’t expect a president or candidate to memorize rafts of data about all issues, but he should have a familiarity with key areas, especially if he’s advocating a change in policy. If he doesn’t get the large swaths but talks big, it’s a hollow posturing and I think signature.
I can pronounce Limbaugh three different ways: does that make me a Republican? (yeah, go ahead, knock yourself out)
I agree that Trump is an idiot. That said, if the Republicans do not do SOMETHING soon, he will be the nominee. And he will be facing Hillary Clinton. Make your choice. Either way, we’re done.
Cheer up. You are dead wrong.
You keep telling me that, and I keep seeing Trump and Clinton as front runners. At the very least, we have become too bloody dumb to pick somebody to be President who can actually do the job.
I’m being proven right on Hillary. Trump makes about a gaffe a day; it is a near certainty that one of them, if not 20, will eventually go too far. There is almost a year before the convention. Someone will play Joseph Welch. The only question is who and when. My top candidates to nail him and rip the gauze from his admirers eyes? Fiorina, Kasich, Christie, Carson. When it happens, it will be this generation’s “Have you no decency?” moment. It will be great.
God, I hope you’re right. This guy (and girl, Clinton) actually scare me.
On the other hand, I admit that THIS is worrisome.
I understand that irresponsible group identification accounts for the black community supporting an atrocious President like Obama. Maybe this means that some blacks have finally realized that Democrats exploit their loyalty, and think Trump can get the economy producing real jobs. I hoip it doesn’t mean that blacks like people who have no business being President. If so, get ready for President Kanye.
That is worrisome. Kardashian’s main squeeze for President? Good Lord, now I AM depressed.
You might find Scott Adam’s blog interesting. He’s predicting a trump win based on persuasion skill alone, and just recently suggested that Kanye West could successfully run for president. See here for the Kanye note, but I suggest some of his other recent blog posts as well.
I don’t agree with him, as I don’t think people are manipulable as he does, but he seems to have done a better job guessing how things would go with Trump than the media did. Note that Scott’s not claiming anything about Trump’s suitability for president, only that he has the skills to actually win the election process.
I assumed someone would start arguing this, just to get attention. The fact that he says West could win a national election for anything makes any opinion about elections disposable. Smart people thought Huey Long, Joe McCarthy and Ted Kennedy would be President too. They don’t understand the office and its symbolism. Selling isn’t enough.
To be fair, he claimed he thought trump had a chance on August 5th, and pointed to his persuasion skills as the reason on the 13th so he’s been doing it for a while. I think he gets enough attention as the author of Dilbert that he wouldn’t write the posts just for that. However, he has used some of his blogs on the subject to push a book he’s written, and I can’t rule out a marketing ploy.
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it…” Pray tell what evidence is there that DT has any knowledge or understanding of history? Fiorina had no trouble giving substantive answers to Hewitt’s questions…answers that showed an understanding of the problems, not just a memorization of the players.
The fact that someone else could answer the questions doesn’t mean anything at all. A completely illogical comment and irrelevant comment. It doesn’t mean Carly is qualified, and doesn’t mean Trump isn’t.
He’s a David Hockney look-alike, judging by that photograph.
I’m sure you’re right, I just don’t know who David Hockney is. I was also influenced by the fact that he looks so much more like Warren than the bald, old community theater actor who portrayed Warren in the “The Secret Service Killed JFK” documentary. Of course, my wife looks more like Warren than that guy…
“David Hockney, OM CH RA (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. He lives in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, and Kensington, London. Hockney maintains two residences in California, where he lived on and off for over 30 years: one in Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, and an office and archives on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.”
I am a little surprised you hadn’t heard of him, what with his artistic connections including the theatre and so much of his career in the U.S.A.
I’m surprised too.
Hockney is the only artist in the world who could make a swimming pool erotic.