Presidential elections are the breeding ground for hyperbole, but with regard to the foreign policy legacy that will be left to the next president by the current occupant of the White House, I believe it is fair to say we are facing one of the most dangerous periods in living memory.
Though born in the United States, I am a dual American and Israeli citizen, having been raised and grown to manhood in both countries. When I was of draft age I lived on a Kibbutz in Israel, where I had gone to high school, and was drafted into the ranks of the IDF in time to serve in the Yom Kippur War in October of 1973.
I have been a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces for 42 years, serving both in the regular army and reserves and participating in six wars during that period. In my career I have served in the Israel Air Force, as well as its ground forces. I have been in charge of all Israel Air Force training films and have been an armored infantry sniper and squad leader. Since 2002 I have served with the Military Spokesperson Unit and have been a spokesperson for the IDF in multiple conflicts, as well as a military analyst on virtually every major media outlet in the U.S. and Western Europe.
Last year I had the great privilege of being attached to one of Israel’s most elite combat units, The Givati Brigade, and became the oldest officer, at the age of 68, ever to qualify to wear their purple beret, presented to me personally by the Brigade’s commander, Col. Ofer Winter, who, I believe, almost single-handedly saved the State of Israel from one of the most existential threats it has ever faced. Someday, I hope the truth of his contribution to Israel’s security will be fully told.
Several years before the Oslo accords,I authored a Mideast peace plan that was championed by the No. 2 on the House Foreign Relations Committee, the late Rep. Wayne Owens, with whom I traveled, at the direction of the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Rep. Lee Hamilton, to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the West Bank and Israel. I met and negotiated, personally with the leaders of all those countries, and in the case of the Palestinians, negotiated with the heads of the most relevant Palestinian terrorist organizations in the West Bank at the time, including the PLO and the George Habash faction of the PFLP. I did so after asking the other members of the American delegation to leave, and then informing the members of the Palestinian organizations that I was not just an American, but a Jew, an Israeli and an Israeli soldier. I informed them that if there were a button on my side of the table I could push that would make all of them and their families disappear from off the face of the earth, I would do it without hesitation. I said I had no qualms about telling them that since I knew they would do the same to me and my family, were such a button on their side of the table. Absent that, however, I asked if there might not be a way in which we could live together, side by side in peace.
The meeting took place in the basement of The Orient House in East Jerusalem, the PLO’s then unofficial headquarters. I did not get their agreement. I did, however, get their respect. Adversary to adversary. They knew they could trust my word, and I assured them I trusted their word, that their goal was to destroy us. I respected, at the very least, their candor.
I have negotiated with kings and presidents and terrorists. I have had men in my gun sights, just as they have had me in theirs. I lost 50 percent of the hearing in my left ear when a Katyusha rocket exploded a bit too close for comfort. I have been to far too many funerals of those killed in war.
Those are my bona fides in foreign policy.
I had the great good fortune of getting to know several great military leaders, both American and Israeli. One of them imparted a simple yet profound truth, which seems to have escaped the current president of the United States. He said countries only buy the weapons they intend to use, and deploy to the positions from which they intend to either defend or attack. Knowing one from the other will be the best indicator of their intentions.
What’s complicated about that?
Examining the current state of affairs that have resulted from this administration’s disastrous foreign policy decisions, what can one discern?
Under the Obama/Clinton administration, we famously hit a “Reset” button with Putin’s Russia. This was the same Vladimir Putin to whom Mr. Obama promised increased “flexibility” once he (Obama) was re elected. Unlike his health-care promises, Mr. Obama kept that one.
The result?
In 2014 Putin’s Russia annexed Crimea and launched an invasion of Eastern Ukraine in violation of the treaty, which not only Russia had signed but one in which the U.S. and Great Britain pledged to guarantee Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.
World events happen neither in a vacuum nor in the dark. The old saying from the 1960s is truer today than ever: the whole world is watching.
And what did the world see? A purposefully flaccid U.S. foreign policy, which ushered in the notion of leading from behind. “Leading from behind” was Obama’s euphemism for ignominious retreat.
The world’s worst actors took note.
China has begun creating artificial islands in the South China Sea, claiming them as Chinese territory, extending their territorial waters by 550 miles, challenging on the high seas freedom of navigation and in the “new Chinese airspace,” and not so subtly threatening it’s Asian neighbors including both America and it’s leading Asian ally, Japan, not to mention Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea.
Speaking of South Korea, as I write these words, “‘Lil Kim” has just defied America, the U.N. and China by testing a three stage ballistic missile, which, if their claims are correct, could carry a nuclear warhead to the West Coast of the United States. This comes roughly a month after the Hermit Kingdom tested what they referred to as a hydrogen bomb and what, American officials said, reassuringly, may just have been a standard fission bomb that relies primarily on plutonium or uranium for its explosive yield. What a relief, huh? And what has been our reaction? Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted “The United States strongly condemns today’s missile launch by the #DPRK.” Positively Churchillian.
Strength is never provocative. Weakness always is. Remember bin Laden’s Strong Horse, Weak Horse analogy? No one ever says, ” See that guy who’s 6’8? and weighs 300 pounds and is an MMA champion, with a Glock 9mm in his waistband? Let’s go rob him!”
Weakness, however, is always provocative.
Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi famously told his American captors, who let him go as part of Obama’s snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq,”I’ll see you guys in New York.”
Shortly thereafter, in the wake of American retreat, he declared the birth of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Obama called them the JV team in Kobe Bryant jerseys. At the time, ironically, he was right. He could have wiped out their entire force of black-clad terrorists in Toyota pickups with a couple of F15s who could have “degraded and destroyed” ISIS while they were making their way from Syria in a straight line caravan, 500 pounds at a time, inside of a few hours.
Obama was concerned, however, not with deterrence, but campaign promises to Code Pink.
How much misery has that single moment of simultaneous impotence, hubris and stupidity inflicted on millions of Muslims, Yazidis, Christians, Syrians, Iraqis, Kurds, Europeans and Americans alike?!
The JV team of ISIS is active today, not only in its caliphate, made up of portions of the former Syria and Iraq, but in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, Gaza, Sinai, and of course Brussels, London, Paris and San Bernardino. To paraphrase his predecessor, “You’re doin’ a hell of a job, Barry!”
And then there’s Iran. We just cut a deal with them that guarantees them a nuclear weapon at the latest, if they abide by the treaty, in 15 years!
Of course, if they cheat they’ll get it a lot sooner.
We also just gave them $150 billion dollars and the ability to lock up hundreds of billions more in trade agreements, with absolutely no limits on their inter-continental ballistic missile program or their state sponsorship of worldwide terror. We were so anxious for this Iranian proctology exam that we did the deal despite Iran’s capturing two American naval vessels and violating the Geneva Conventions by forcing our sailors to kneel, hands on their heads, and formally apologize for their crimes on Iranian broadcasts. America was humiliated in the Middle East as it has not been humiliated by the mullahs since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran almost 40 years ago.
And the Obama administration’s response? Technically it was not a violation of the Geneva accords since we are not at war with Iran. Well, if that’s the case, then it was an act of piracy! And the whole world was watching, friend and foe alike, and everyone drew the only conclusions one could draw. America had just ceded regional hegemony in the Middle East to a theocratic, apocalyptic, fascist regime which differs from ISIS only in aesthetics. Both seek to establish a worldwide caliphate under Shariah law. Both chant death to America and mean it. One burns people alive in cages and the other hangs them from cranes in public squares. And if you were an Egyptian, a Saudi, Emirati, Jordanian, Bahai, Mideast Christian or Israeli, you just found yourself under the bus with Obama’s grandmother.
In Libya, we led from behind to topple a dictator who was cooperating with us and gave up his nukes when he saw Saddam pulled out of his rat hole. And what was the result of this brilliant piece of statecraft and lead from behind military debacle? Four dead Americans, abandoned by their government, their deaths blamed on a video, and a new ISIS outpost where Christians were beheaded on the shores of the Mediterranean so their blood could wash up on the shores of Europe as a sign of things to come.
Finally, it all comes together in Syria. You remember Syria? The place where Barry O said Assad must go? The place where he drew a line in the sand and then quickly erased it? Here’s our brilliant solution to that festering heart of darkness that has flooded Europe with millions of refugees, some of whom seem to regard gang rape as a New Year’s Eve celebratory right. We have allowed Putin to come back into the Middle East with a vengeance, undoing over 40 years of American diplomacy and the resolve of every administration, Democrat and Republican, since FDR, to keep the Russians from dominance in that region. Putin has created an alliance with the same Assad, the Obama/Clinton administration said must go, and with Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militias and the Iranians, in order not to defeat ISIS, but wipe out Assad’s opponents and create a Shiah crescent from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean under Russian patronage! And to make it worse, we are their wingman! Our air strikes are enabling Putin, Assad, Hezbollah and Iran’s slaughter of the Syrian rebels who supposedly we sought to support!
That is the world Obama leaves to the next president of the United States. The only thing missing is the Archduke Ferdinand in a carriage.
So who on the horizon can best deal with this doomsday array of threats? Bernie Sanders?! He is a self-proclaimed European-styled socialist. They’re doing great at dealing with the world’s threats, right?
How about Hillary? Well, her husband was the one who negotiated the deal that enabled Lil Kim to have nukes. She is the architect of both the famous reset and Benghazi and promises to build on the successes of Obama! Heaven help us!
Make no mistake, all of our adversaries, the Russians and Chinese, Lil Kim, ISIS and the mullahs will test the next president.
Marco Rubio may well have had his Howard Dean moment in the last debate. If he can’t deal with Chris Christie, he’s dog meat with Putin and the mullahs and ISIS. He’s a handsome, bright young man, but he, like Cruz and Obama before him, is a one-term senator who has done nothing in life but seek public office. He comes off like a boy. He won’t just be tested; he’ll be trampled.
What about Ted Cruz? He’s a staunch conservative but when handed what should have been a soft ball, he woosed out like the worst Washington quisling. He was given the three o’clock in the morning phone call. “What would his reaction be to the launching of Lil Kim’s intercontinental ballistic missile?”
He hadn’t been briefed!
Can you imagine Reagan giving that answer? Do you recall what Reagan did when it seemed that Gadhafi might have been responsible for the bombing of a German nightclub frequented by American military personal? He bombed Gadhafi’s presidential palace! And when it turned out that one of Gadhafi’s adopted children had been killed in the attack, there was no apology – just an assurance that America would deliver the same message once again if the first one wasn’t sufficiently understood.
Cruz hadn’t been briefed?! He hadn’t heard that ‘Lil Kim boasted of exploding an H-bomb a month before?! That wasn’t on his radar?
He’s a great Harvard debater. But an effective commander in chief has to have the ability to be decisive and to rally the legislature around him, to make a deal with the very people Cruz boasts that he can’t get along with. That’s fine for a filibuster. But we’re going to need a Reaganesque leader who can inspire our friends to follow us and our adversaries to fear us. I know that’s not politically correct, but the world is a very rough neighborhood thanks to the seven years of rear-end leadership. Our enemies don’t have to love us. They don’t even have to respect us. But they damn well better fear us.
So who else is there? Kasich? Nice man, but you really think Putin, the Chinese, the North Koreans, Iranians or ISIS will look in his eyes and be afraid? Carson? Great doctor. Good man. But he’s not low energy. He’s somnolent.
Which brings us to Mr. Trump.
Ronald Reagan was the first Republican I voted for. I had just come back from living 10 years in Israel. I had been through a war. The friends of my youth were buried in the cemetery in the forest above the Kibbutz where we were schoolboys together. I well remember the liberal rap on Reagan. He was an idiot. He was a puppet of the corporate interests that pulled his strings. He was an actor. But he had one decisive thing going for him. It was the same thing Menachem Begin had. I say this with absolutely no disrespect, in fact with the greatest admiration. Friend and foe alike looked at Ronald Reagan and said, “That crazy son of a bitch might just do what he says!”
There are times when that is not only an admirable quality, but one necessary for national survival.
But Reagan had another quality. The ability to inspire, to make us see the shining city on the hill. That, plus being the crazy son of a bitch who might just do what he said, is not only what made him great, it vanquished our adversaries. It inspired their fear and ultimately their respect. America kept its word under Ronald Reagan. It didn’t lead from the rear. It led. It didn’t apologize for America. It celebrated it’s exceptionalism, it’s limitless opportunities for greatness. After the malaise of the Peanut Farmer, President Reagan did what Mr. Trump has promised to do. He made America great once again.
Donald Trump is great on the attack. He’s great at getting his opponent off his game. He has a real bond with his followers because, like it or not, he’s saying out loud exactly what everyone is thinking in silence. And he makes no apologies for it.
But he’s got to do more. He’s got a great story to tell. He and Cruz and Rubio are the embodiment of the American dream. The senators are both minorities who came from poverty to be candidates for president of the United States. Trump, unlike them, is a rich white guy. But that doesn’t mean he’s untested. He’s had to declare bankruptcy four times. That would have destroyed many a man. But each time he dusted himself off and came back harder, tougher, more successful than ever before. And unlike Cruz or Rubio , he has not spent his life seeking political power. He’s spent his life building things, creating jobs and yes, thank God, creating wealth, and not just for himself, but the cities he’s revitalized, the projects that have given livelihoods to people who work for a living, not filibuster.
He is the embodiment of Carl Sanburg’s poem:
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny
laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter
laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his
wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people
It’s time to find your inner Reagan, Mr. Trump. If you do, you’ll keep the promise you’ve made.
Dan Gordon is the screenwriter of 15 Hollywood features, including “The Hurricane” (Denzel Washington), and author of eight novels, including the recently published “Day of The Dead, Book One – Gaza.” His plays have been produced both on Broadway and the West End of London. In addition he has served in the Israel Defense Forces for over 40 years, serving in six wars, including 2014’s Hamas/Israel War. He has appeared on virtually every Western media outlet as a military analyst, commentator on Mideast affairs and IDF spokesman.
Bear Klein Said:
Yeah Wow , Baghdad Bob, Please tell us what is next in the Glorious Destruction of the Trump Invasion
@ babushka:
Best Chance for a brokered convention is a three way race.
My guess is Rubio would be the one the mainstream Republicans would back.
However if a candidate such Trump or Cruz was close to the thresh hold they would need to back for at least round two as not to cause a GOP breakup.
But by staying in the race, the Establishment candidates could deny Trump a majority of delegates…at which point it’s
There was a report yesterday that the major corporate donors desire a convention stalemate which produces Paul Ryan as the nominee. Given their proven ability to steal the Mississippi senate seat from Chris McDaniel, they should not be underestimated.
@ babushka:Trouble is dumb Bush might hang on after South Carolina.
Kaisch who I like but do not think he has chance is hanging on until at least the middle of March when Ohio a winner take all state is happening.
Carson my guess is will leave after South Carolina. My guess is half to 2/3rds of his votes could go to Cruz.
Rubio would have a better chance if Bush leaves and Kasich flounders.
Trump is positioned very well because of the split vote in GOP race.
If this continues many Trump wigs will be sold next Halloween before the election.
@ Bear Klein:
Like Romney, Trump is dependent upon divided primary opposition. His negatives among Cruz/Rubio/Carson/Bush/Kasich voters are above sixty percent. As long as they divide the anti-Trump cohort, he will remain highly competitive. But if any of them get him one-on-one, Donald is dead meat.
He has the highest BS of all the candidates “by a couple of deviation standard”. In any event, Intelligence Quotient has no real world application. Practical intelligence (street smarts) is crucial, and academic intelligence (book smarts) is also important. Trump does well in both, but not so well when it comes to mental health. He is afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
We’ve just suffered through seven years of this. Enough already.
Latest South Carolina Poll if accurate shows Trump losing a lot of points but holding a 5 point lead. Still many voters say they are undecided or their votes could be changed.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/sc/south_carolina_republican_presidential_primary-4151.html
@ bernard ross:
That is The Art Of The Con Man.
He convinces you that he is deceiving “the other guy”.
But you turn out to be “the other guy”.
Trump excels at the Art of the Deal and he has the highest IQ of all the candidates by a couple of deviation standard.
He made his policies clear when speaking to the Jewish org in NYC, .
1. You don’t win a deal by giving an ultimatum beforehand.
2, Don’t worry , it’s going to be all right. (repeated many, many times – meaning he’s not going to deal to compromise).
What can be clearer than that? Yeah I know there’s these warlike Jews that want him to commit to bombing Iran in his policy statements. Most of these guys need to be chained to stakes to keep from hurting themselves. Taking a public uber extremist position is suicide. He got the whole national discussion to say – “we gotta take a look at these here Muslims – looks like some kind of problem here”.
Who the heck else has ever done that?
Go Trump Go!
Every media propagandist demonizes him because they’ll be out of jobs if he gets in and every lib-left personality knows the truth about Islam will be fully exposed to the public exposing their lies and they are frantic to save their face.
I saw the ladies on “The View” , a while back – they looked genuinely a little frightened – everything they have been shoveling is now coming back to bury them – the liar shields are breaking down, protection for baloney is no longer a sure thing.
babushka Said:
you completely misread him….. he spoke about one side raising their children to hate…he knows the Jews arent that.
I am not worried about Trump campaigning about being neutral, thats in order to pretend to be a broker. He made it clear that he understands that nothing can happen because the arab muslims raise their children to hate Jews. He is now campaigning for the crossovers from the left. trump is simple and straightforward… he is not going to put up with the convoluted BS that comes out of the pals. The most important thing he said is that it is not important to make a deal… no one has said that… he is not hanging his future on making a deal… he doesnt care…. that is more important than all the other BS… if only the US, any prior president, had said that. If the US ahd taken that position there would be no pressure on Israel…. I wish a president would have taken that postion before. what we have is every presidential candidate saying they support Israel and when they come in it changes.
how about the popes hypocrisy:
@ LtCol Howard:
You are correct about Trump. Hope he does not bluster his way to the nomination. Every time he is asked specifics about one of his bold declarations. Such as the wall how will you get Mexico to pay for it oh they will. He will build bigger and cheaper. Sounds like a contractor on steroids not a Presidential candidate.
The most important thing a President does is foreign policy he either makes the USA safer and the world or he can achieve the opposite. Seven (7) years of Obama have gone down hill. No need for another neophyte in the White House who blamed George Bush for 911.
Trump would take years to get to up to speed. Just like someone would not know the real estate world if they walked into the top job day one in a firm. Trump talks brash and bold but knowledge and specific positions matter. He did not even know the embassy was an issue on Israel.
So he will be conned by Putin just like Hillary and Obama were. All Putin needs to is flatter him. Then his over sized ego will take over.
@ ArnoldHarris:
Checkmate
“Trump added that the biggest obstacle between Israel and Palestine making amends is the cycle of hatred between both factions.”
Holy Jimmy Carter, Batman! Not the cycle of hatred bullshit!! Which anti-“Zionist” cliche is next – “The Palis understandably resent Israel using the blood of Arab children to make matzos?” Trump sounds just like J Street and every other Jew-hating anti-Israel “neutral” bigot.
http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2015/12/03/trump-blames-israel-invokes-nazi-style-jewish-stereotypes/
Outspeaker, you have been had. You have been folded, spindled, and mutilated by your nefarious NHH: Neutral Hebrewphobic Hero.
But fortunately for you, babushka exists to save your soul and secure your eternal booth in that Big Kosher Delicatessen In The Sky. Here, my gullible friend, is your pro-Zionist salvation:
https://www.tedcruz.org/
Always remember, Outspeaker: When it comes to Israel, “neutral” is a James “Fuck The Jews” Baker word. It is the Naziesque euphemism for “Let’s Treat Them All Just Like Anne Frank”.
did donald just show us the criteria he will use for choosing his VP? I had thought Kasich or Hucakabee…primarily due to having management experience as Governors, not just senators…… which is usually my criteria also. But perhaps he is going to choose Huckabee and is thinking about the effect of his choice in the general election. Perhaps much of what Donald is doing now is geared to the general election.
One thing not mention beside his ability to articulate the main issues of concern of voters….. which is what I think will win the election for him…. is he is not an ideological republican or democrat…. he is issue oriented to issues of concern(like me)….. he is willing to cross the lines and will appeal to those like me who would vote for neither side. I think he is much smarter than folks think. Trump makes his comments to impact voters with the simplest of ideas…… this is why many voters are not concerned about whether he can or will get it done…… they know that if you cant even say the words you will have no chance of getting it done. Reminds me of BB and Israel who cant say the words.
the GOP is nuts if they think they can win a general election in todays times by cutting social security and medicare….. delusional!
I know what you want because I want the same, but you are voting for a guy who endorsed the communist mayor of New York.
@ babushka:
Maybe it is blind, masochistic rage. I truly do not give a damn about your sensitivities or those of anyone else. I want the present rigged and crooked system torn up by its roots and remolded.
Maybe its just in my background and that of my wife. Both of us have advanced degrees from major universities. But both of us grew up in working class families. Stefi was born and raised in Zagreb, living in greatest imaginable privation under a communist dictatorship. I was born and raised in some of the tough and cruel neighborhoods of Chicago, where I had to fight my way to and from school and even in the classrooms, with whatever weapons I could get my hands on.
Now I am pitiless, and I have utter contempt for both the leadership classes of this society, and the welfare cheats who steal from the rest of us.
People such as me and my wife know exactly what we want.
We want a man who will build a wall across our southern frontier, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific coast beaches, guarded by the United States Army and prepared to shoot to kill.
We want a man who will begin and continue the process of expelling any person in this country who arrived here illegally, anchor babies included with their parents. And the expelled ones will not be allowed to return without specific signed authorization of a duly appointed Consulate of the United States.
We want a man who will scrap the trade agreements with China, Mexico and other countries that are destroying our own American manufacturing-based economy that tradionally was the means of employment of millions of Americans who were enabled to become part of the middle class because of such employment, and whose jobs were at least to some degree protected by the labor unions which have now been disemboweled by the international trade agreements.
We want a man who will clamp down on all immigration to this country, and especially barring Moslems whose presence among the rest of us can be guaranteed to be friendly and peaceful.
We want a man who will follow taxation and Federal spending practices that will simultaneously start paying down our soon-to-be 20 trillion dollar debt and making sure the Wall Street crowd pays its fair share of the taxation without sending our national wealth overseas.
We want a man who will avoid fomenting or participating in any foreign wars, the outcome of which cannot or shall not be fought without the utter destruction of our national enemies and which cannot be shown to be vital to the national interests of the United States of America and our people. And the democratization of foreign civilizations is not at all the business of the our government or our people.
We want a man who will protect the constitutional right of otherwise law-abiding Americans to keep and carry weapons for defense of ourselves and of our families.
There’s a lot more coming on our revolutionary shopping list. But we are beginning to become self-aware of our numbers and of our power. So there will be more.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
Once you cut through the phony rhetoric, this tantrum represents the essence of the Trump phenomenon: blind, masochistic rage. Trump voters are angry at the Establishment, so they are supporting the largest financial benefactor of Mitch McConnell. It is not a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. It is lunacy wrapped in madness inside dementia. Supporting Trump to oppose the Establishment makes as much sense as supporting Chef Boyardee to oppose Spaghettios.
It doesn’t matter what any of you think of what is a purely American national election. But unless some counterweight to Trump’s obvious power to communicate with the American nation arises to challenge Trump’s power, which he exercises better than any presidential candidate in my memory — which goes back to the age of Franklin Delano Roosevelt — then he will sweep the table in one after another of the state primary elections or caucuses, building more power with each such statewide candidate selection event.
And the fact is, he needs no money from any of the hidden political power brokers, and he wants none. And as a secondary fact, he boasts of having spent little of his own money in any case. Because he is the source of about 2/3 of the television news in this election campaign.
And what I think is the most interesting fact about all of the above is that Trump fully and consciously is self-aware of his power over the vast crowds that he attracts.
In any case, if any of you don’t like it, lump it.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
@ LtCol Howard:WHATEVER. I agree with the author of this excellent article.
Agreed. Prior to the emergence of Rubio, no one had ever told more than 135 lies during a single debate. Yet on Saturday, the young phenom smashed that record during the first hour and proceeded to post a truly Ruthian 714 falsehoods and fibs, a standard that experts predict will never be broken (until Rubio’s next debate).
Lord A’Mighty, feel my temperature rising.
Consistent?
How about perpetually contradictory?
Or schizo?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJe0_pPA0x8
@ LtCol Howard:
Irrespective of what you prefer, Trump is well on his way to running the pool table of the Republican Party state nomination primary elections and caucuses.
And I write this not just because he has held the national leadership in the Republican Party nomination polls since he entered the race last summer, but because his main political strength is the white working class of the USA, along with large numbers of the millenium generation who regard the entrenched political class of both parties as purveyors of bullshit and makers of promises they which they almost always break. Most of that white working class has been firmly attached to the Democratic Party. And I think I am accurate in contending that they would not cross over to the Republicans for any candidate other than Trump.
As for the fireman you quote, my own son in law is a well-known firefighter and fire inspector in Wisconsin, and recently won appointment as chief of the fire department in his town. He will vote only for Trump, along with my wife, me, and most people I know.
I am presently reading an updated re-issue of Trump’s well-known book, “Time to Get Tough”. I judge him to be articulate, forceful, and far more logical and consistent than just about anyone else I can think of in public life in this country.
I am sure he will sweep the nomination, and I am comfortable in his ability to do the same thing to Hillary Clinton as Ronald Reagan did to James Earl Carter in 1980.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
Dan Gordon is correct up to the point where he introduces Donald Trump.
.
Unfortunately Trump believes that he can either outfox and/or out deal Putin or that he can strike a win/win deal with Putin.
Also, on nearly every foreign policy issue his dictum is: “I will be strong, I will win. America will win.” This is not a doctrine is puffery at its extreme.
Trump is uninformed on nearly every issue that I know about.
Many of my friends are enthralled with Trump since he articulates the fact of their concerns.
One of my associates, a captain in a local fire department uses this analogy. There is a fire in the building. A man stands on the sidewalk and screams “fire”. The fire department arrives and begins to deal with the fire. Further screaming from this man is counterproductive and makes achieving a solution more difficult.
Another one of my associates who has worked with trump compares him to the balloon in the Macy’s parade: “bigger than life; but full of hot air.”
At this point of time I would say of the candidates, Cruz and Carson have the highest IQs. Carson is probably the best informed. Bush probably has the most administrative experience. Marco Rubio shows the most promise.
I agree that we face difficult and frightening times. I pray for the survival of the United States and the survival of the free world.