Appearing on stage in Ames, Iowa today at something called the Family Leadership Summit, presidential candidate Donald Trump had the above to say about Republican Senator John McCain, with whom he’s recently been at war on the subject of immigration. [Trump, it would seem, has an issue with McCain for not believing, as he does, that immigrants, by and large, are rapists and drug dealers.]
McCain, for those of you who might not be aware, was held and reportedly tortured by the North Vietnamese for five-and-half years after his plane was shot down over Vietnam. [McCain was a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War.]
Trump, sadly, never had an opportunity to distinguish himself in battle, as a painful bone spur in his foot kept him from serving in Vietnam. [When asked by reporters in Iowa today what foot it was that kept him from serving his country, Trump refused to relive the painful episode in his life, instead telling people that they should just look it up.]
I’d feel sorry for McCain if not for the fact that he helped lay the groundwork for the present Trump campaign by plucking Sarah Palin from relative obscurity and making her his running mate in 2008, essentially legitimizing the insanity of the so-called Tea Party, and opening the door to candidates like Trump.
I’d love to just laugh Trump off, but he continues to surge in the polls. A poll that came out yesterday, in fact, shows him leading the Republican field with 18% of likely Republican primary voters across the nation saying that they’d vote for him.
Personally, I don’t think Trump wants to win. I don’t think he wants the responsibility of the Oval Office any more than he wanted to serve his country in Vietnam. Given that, I wouldn’t be surprised if today’s comment about McCain wasn’t calculated to piss people off and push him out of the frontrunner position. I think the responsibility of the presidency would scare him shitless, and that all he really cares about is raising his profile high enough to earn him a few more ratings points on his television show, and get him some better paying speaking gigs once all of this is over. But, who knows. Maybe he really does want to be President. I guess we’ll have to wait and see… In the meantime, here’s my attempt at a new meme. I call it Unimpressed Trump.
8 Comments
I’d have much more sympathy for McCain in this situation, if he hadn’t vouched for Saxby Chambliss in his reelection, after Chambliss had disparaged the patriotism of Max Cleland, Vietnam Vet and Triple-Amputee.
Trump will be speaking in Michigan on August 11.
Read more:
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/michigan/2015/07/18/donald-trump-speak-michigan-next-month/30340031/
I’m not a fan of McCain’s but there’s no question that he’s a war hero. North Vietnamese soldiers shattered his shoulders with their rifle butts and held him in solitary confinement for two years. Also, when his captors discovered that he was the son of an admiral they offered to release him, he declined, saying that he wouldn’t leave until every POW taken before him was released.
“He would only accept repatriation if every man taken in before him was released as well. Such early release was prohibited by the POW’s interpretation of the military Code of Conduct: To prevent the enemy from using prisoners for propaganda, officers were to agree to be released in the order in which they were captured.”
No one deserves the brutal treatment he received as a POW, but McCain’s status as “war hero” was well debated by some. He had a very checkered Navy history. He broke rules continuously, wrecked multiple planes, was involved in one of the deadliest military mishaps in our history, and generally behaved like an arrogant ass according to multiple accounts. In later years he displayed an atrocious voting record and has behaved like a spiteful creep at most turns since losing to Barack Obama. He’s also to blame for Sarah Palin. Hero is a stretch.
you’re complaining about a non-factor attention whore celebrity, when your city is being shot up by gangs? Thought you had a better finger on Ypsi’s pulse.
Of course former military service members deserve praise for their sacrifice for our country. They should be asked every week, on all the Sunday shows how our military should be acting on all parts of the globe. And of course a former Bronze Star and Purple Heart congressman would be in highest demand. How does Charles Rangel have any free time?
The Washington Post explores the different paths taken by Trump and McCain.
Read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/20/what-donald-trump-was-up-to-while-john-mccain-was-suffering-as-a-prisoner-of-war/
Who remembers this?
http://imgur.com/svlVy9Z
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[…] disgust when he says that Mexicans just cross the border to sell drugs and rape our women, or that John McCain isn’t a hero because he allowed himself to be captured in battle, actually flock toward him in greater numbers. [Trump, according to a poll just released by NBC […]