Couldn't stay away. I tried. I really tried. I tried not to listen to the radio, watch the TV, read the online accounts, engage in debates, or answer questions . . . to no avail. The presidential campaign intruded into my days at the range, cleaning the new granite counters in our kitchen, fixing the rear tail light on my daughter's Tahoe, and it even interrupted my dog-playing time (Unpardonable!) Can't get away from it . . . like a moth to the flame, I am back.
If you trust them, the polls are not looking good right now. I do not for a second believe that Hillary is 10 to 15 points ahead of The Donald. She, however, does seem to have the momentum, and might be 3-5 points ahead. The media has, for now, seemingly made the campaign one of Trump vs. Trump. The execrable Hillary Clinton is safely hidden away behind her media bodyguards and hordes of professional spinners and liars. She hardly seems to appear. It's all about Trump: I have never seen a media feeding frenzy quite like this one: speculation about military coups if Trump wins; speculation about Trump's mental health; comments on whether Trump should be allowed next to the nuclear button; and an endless picking away at, admittedly, at times bizarre comments by Trump, his inability to avoid a fight, some misstatements of no consequence, and a factual error or two, e.g., who currently controls Crimea, whether there is a video of the unloading of the $400 million given to the Iranian terror state.
I am, of course, nobody to give advice on running a presidential campaign. Not since the third grade have I run for office (I lost; it was rigged), nor will I ever do so, again. That said, I have spent my life as a fanatical follower of American politics and foreign policy issues, and spent most of my adult life in service to the country overseas. I offer my opinions; they, of course are probably worth what I am paid to give them.
I am distressed by some of the amateurish errors made by the Trump campaign. There is still time to correct, but not a lot of time. Trump, above all, needs to remember the old advice from George Bernard Shaw, "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."
The Clinton campaign are masters at unleashing herds of trolls to say all sorts of stupid things about Trump. Trump does not need to respond to them; for that he should have his own attack dogs who come after the trolls. Getting involved in a debate with a Gold Star family is something to be avoided. Hillary, for example, ignores the Benghazi families, and the press lets her get away with it. Any questions to Trump on the Gold Star Kahn family should be answered, "I honor their son's patriotism and sacrifice." Period. That's it. Any issues with the Khan family--and there are many--should have been handled by others. Any idiotic questions about what Trump has sacrificed compared to the Khans, should be turned around with, "There is no sacrifice comparable. Please ask Clinton and Obama the same question in regard to the Benghazi families or the families of the cops murdered by radical Democrats." On Crimea? The Russians control it because of the weakness of the Obama-Clinton administration. On NATO? It's falling apart because of the weakness of the Obama-Clinton administration. And on and on.
Get a speechwriter and a script. Stick to the script! The script should be all about tying Hillary to the mast of the SS Barack. Make her defend giving $400 million in ransom to the Iranians at the same time that there are legal judgements in the US holding the Iranians financially liable for terrorism. Make her defend the fake Iran nuclear deal. Bring up Syria, Libya, the rise of ISIS, her emails, her flip-flops on trade deals, her vow to put US energy producers out of work, her ties to the corrupt Clinton Foundation, her countless lies, her phony mega-buck speeches on Wall Street. Remind one and all about the parlous state of the economy. Rising crime for the first time in years. There's plenty of ammo out there. Use it!
That is all. Back to the granite counters.
It's all about perspective:
ReplyDeleteBest advice:
Don't drop a good china cup on that new countertop!
Maybe you should tweet a link to this post to Donald personally. He is a strange one and seems to read a lot of his twitter stream. He may just read your article if his attention is drawn here. As a plus you may get put on the list for appointment over at foggy bottom.
ReplyDeleteThat last part might dissuade Dip from doing what you mention.
DeleteHe'd take it. The chance to clean up State? For any reformer, the grand daydream is having the authority to fight the good fight with a chance of winning.
DeleteAnyone who has tried that in any institutionalized organization would tell you not to even try. The organism is designed to destroy invasive entities. There is no chance of winning.
DeleteBack to the granite counter? I would rather you saw to your daughter's Tahoe. Much more important.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, splendid article.
Well put. I have forwarded to as many as might appreciate what you posted.
ReplyDeleteSince we are quoting ... I suspect you have heard this one before. "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' while you look for a rock." -- Will Rogers
ReplyDeleteI think Trump may have it backwards ...
Trump doesn't know how to say "nice doggie" unless he means it.
ReplyDeleteThere is an old joke that a resident ambassador is a man sent to lie abroad for his country's good. Obama and Hillary have the "lie" part down pat, it's the "country's good" part they either don't understand or ignore.
I think he should have attacked the DNC for putting that family up there. It was a shameful act to hide behind a family that's lost a soldier. Or that the DNC would discriminate against christian families of slain soldiers in picking a non-representative Gold Star. I dunno.
ReplyDeleteI really see the general logic of how a politician doesn't want to get in a tussle like that. Like how Bush never responded to Cindy Sheehan and her crazy. But the DNC didn't put Sheehan up on a pedestal and have her misrepresent the truth and call him names either.
Returning fire against an enemy hiding among civilian populations is often tricky. I don't think Trump did it 'right', but the standard politician's response is not right either.
- reader #1482
Trump walked into a well set up DNC 'kill box'.
DeleteAgreed. He should have let surrogates find all the facts later.
DeleteThe DNC attacked itself. The entire leadership will have to be absorbed by left-wing "non-profits".
DeleteFrom your lips to God's ear. . .
DeleteKhan family doesn't look so good now. Wish I believed trump did this deliberately. Bumpy ride coming.
DeleteHi Dip,
ReplyDeleteWhat is your take on this ?
http://observer.com/2016/08/yes-american-spies-really-think-trump-is-putins-guy/
I'm an avid follower of both of you. John Schindler published those scathing lines about Trump in The Observer, whose disclosure reads : "Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media."
Generally speaking (and this does not relate only to America), it seems we're stuck between a rock and a hard place : either we support politicians who are in thrall to mass immigration and Islamisation of the West, or we support politicians who are in thrall to Putin.
(French commentator here, so this applies particularly to Front national -- but former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is running for the post again, has also turned into a shameless Putin supporter.)
I agree completely. Why Mr. Trump- has to open his mouth before engaging his brain is beyond me. We all make mistakes and say stupid things but not on a routine basis. At this rate it will be Clinton as POTUS and the US sliding into a Venezuelaian nightmare.
ReplyDeleteWell, the media certainly doesn't want a side by side comparison such as this one at Military Officers Association of America.
ReplyDeleteTrump offers a clear and practical position. Something that terrifies the "professionals" in DC.
http://www.moaa.org/Content/Take-Action/Top-Issues/Currently-Serving/Clinton-vs--Trump--Part-One.aspx
I am afraid, very afraid. The Hilldabeast will say nothing, do nothing and will be pushed across the finished line by the media, Hollywood, Wall Street, and the brain dead. We will lose our Constitutional Republic as Franklin predicted.
ReplyDeleteThe polls are shifting back and Hillary's bounce is going away. This is going to be a roller coaster ride.
ReplyDeleteAs Pat Buchanan said, "Trump is a championship boxer. He needs to focus on the main event and stay out of bar fights!"
ReplyDeleteI think it's finally time to stop asking, expecting or pretending that Trump is going to pivot away from his compulsion to lash out at minor targets and make stupid mistakes, and that instead he would focus exclusively, with candor, knowledge, detail and strategic thinking, on the issues that Really Matter. At this late stage of the campaign, his message remains a mile wide and an inch deep.
ReplyDeleteThe man is 70 years old, and used to getting his own way. He may tread a more-respectable path for a few days, but he'll revert to form. He always does. He is who he is.
He spouts nonsense about trade, he doesn't want to reform entitlements, he talks about abandoning NATO, he thinks debt is a good thing, he insults those whom he should cultivate as natural political allies. If there's any congruence between his positions and the deep-rooted ones that most Republicans adhere to, it seems to be pure coincidence rather than any genuine philosophical affinity.
Beyond that, I'm deeply troubled by his ignorance of, and tolerance of, what Russia is up to these days. The first siren started wailing when he took aboard Paul Manafort, and additional sirens have fired up constantly since then.
Robert Marchenoir, above, beat me to it, but if nothing else, Sr. DiploMad, please read John R. Schindler's piece about what the intelligence community thinks about all this. It's not pretty. The kindest way to put it is: Trump is probably a useful idiot who's unwittingly in Russia's service.
If we learned that Hillary were in a similar situation, it would be just one of the thousand reasons to disqualify her from being president, and we'd be howling about it. But even if this were the one and only reason to disqualify Trump, just one disqualification is all it takes. The country's wisest constitutional Republican might want to be president, but if he (or she) is 34 years old, too bad.
After looking for a window, any window, that might allow me to see my way clear to voting for Trump, I find there isn't one. And I'd cut off my right hand before voting for Hillary.
So in November it's going to be Gary Johnson or a write-in (I'm thinking of maybe a guy named W. Lewis Amselem). All the rest of the way down the ballot it will be straight Republican, because in the bigger picture only a GOP-controlled Congress can put a brake on the worst abuses that we can expect from both major candidates once the winner is in office.
I'm not making this decision lightly, since I live in the swing state of Florida. But it's the only way I'll be able to keep peace with myself, and to avoid complicity in whatever fresh hell either of the two major candidates unleashes from the White House.
This is what it has come to for me: #NeverTrump #NeverHillary
And who will Gary Johnson appoint to the Supreme Court?
DeleteHey Bro, your commentary is about as dippy as Mr. Froggy's! To Wit:
Delete"Hi Dip. . . I'm an avid follower of both of you. John Schindler"...
ZZZzzzzzzzzz~~~~~~
~~~Huh what, Sacre Bleu! Are you equating Dip's stuff with that Dipstick over at the Observer, who is priming, pumping-up, and pimping the "ClintoBama" agenda via the *BGS, Clinon Crime Family hirling Mike( i wanna spen time w/my family) Morell! Get a grip Meesur! Morell's leftist leanings, payoffs and posturing are well known to US Americans, as are those of the GOPe traitors who empower and cloak him!
As for "Shindler's" laughable hit-list of bogus BS, we'd need a payloader and a dumptruck to haul his long ton of manure off the playing field! Suffice to say, what Mike Pence said about Morell's anti-Trump allegations, they are "JV level Absurd", as are those of your goofball scribbler and EX-analyst, Schindler!
Sorry to disabuse you Msr Froggy, but armed 'Americans are NOT the ones between a rock and a hard place', happily, since Trump, and his voters of the same suit have Primarily cleared the field of GOP sticks n' stones, RINOs, and boatloads of RATshat too! Next objective is the excision of the cancerous Queen RAT from the USA body politic! And of course, fix the election rules, and require positive ID at the Polls!
Perhaps then, if time and circumstance allow, an alliance of mutual benefit between the Russian DON Putin, and the New Yorker DON Trump! The two of them, with some help from WE THE PEOPLE over the next 8 years -- we may become enabled enough to defang the slimy Islamic Menace too - you know, those dirty-ankled bastagges that have the UK, EU, and BO's US too, by the short hairs?!
On Watch~~~"Let's Roll"
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beacon_Global_Strategies
There is a choice between Trump, as flawed as he is, and Hillary who should be in prison or a hospital. Or both.
ReplyDeleteVell mein dear colleague Dr. K, pearhaps a Hopital fer da Criminaly Inzane vould be zee most appropos fazility to contain da 'one who must be obeyed' fur a leetle vile anyvays! Ezpecially eef zee long-suffering Villy Jeff may can arrange zee durable Power of Attorney, den it's Partee Time for uberallis Slick Villy, and der eletro-zhock-terapy fer der Madam Zecretary! Octo Libre, case closed!
DeleteZinzeerlich,
Herr Doktor UnVatch~~~
http://theamericanmirror.com/shock-photo-grandma-hillary-helped-stairs/
ReplyDeleteAt what point is the mainstream media going to question Clinton’s health status?
Answer: When she's been dead three days, cause Messiahs always come back by then.
Question: Can't she use a wheelchair like FDR or one of those mobility enhancing exoskeletons? http://www.suitx.com/phoenix
Did you notice that in the last election it was "binders full of women", "dog in a crate on the roof of the car" and "Mitt cut a guy's hair in grade school". The media is the issue, not the candidate. Trump makes a joke about a woman taking her baby out of the rally. "Trump hates babies" is the headline. The attack on the Khans? He thought it was odd that the mother was on stage and didn't get to speak. When it was discovered that the father makes a living getting citizenship for those that can pay for it and also took some money from the Clinton Foundation, the story went away. It will always be like this for Republican candidates.
ReplyDelete"It will always be like this for Republican candidates."
ReplyDeleteToo True Teri, and lord help anyone else, black, white, feminine or not, who is determined to be 'persona non grata' by the Democrat machine!
"Let's Roll"
Trump gets lots of advice like this. He has for months. He has never followed it. He won't now. He can't. He's seventy, and set in his ways. What you see is what you get.
ReplyDeleteThat it's important that he do something different is not going to make it happen.
After all, it's important that Hillary get a whole new personality, a character, new principles, and a substantial set of skills, knowledge, and interests; and that isn't going to happen either.