When I was younger, the father of a contemporary of mine told me of his son “the truth ain’t in him”, followed by “if his lips are moving he is probably lying.” Unfortunately, the same is true of our 71 year old president. According to the Washington Post he has lied over a thousand times. And that was just through August! This is not “fake news”. The Post has done its due diligence.
It comes as no surprise then that the president was caught off guard Monday when asked about the four Special Forces soldiers who were killed in Niger. It had been twelve days without any acknowledgment by the president of their deaths. It is doubtful that Trump even knew where Niger was or why we had armed forces there in the first place.
The president made some lame excuse in an attempt to make a recovery for his lack of knowledge about the incident in Niger by saying “letters will be going out today or tonight” to the families of the fallen soldiers. But that response didn’t hold water either. The White House concluded that the fact Trump wasn’t aware of the four deaths in Niger was the fault of poor staff work. A convenient excuse for the president. However, the remains of the four soldiers reached Dover Air Force Base on Friday October 5th and were publicly acknowledged. Meanwhile over the weekend between rounds of golf, Trump was blasting Senator Bob Corker, the NFL, Puerto Rico, the mainstream media and fake news on Twitter. Surely being such an ardent viewer of the cable news networks, Trump had to see the reports of the fallen dead soldiers. It wasn’t poor staff work. It was Trump’s insensitivity to the ultimate sacrifice a person can make for his/her country. Just another lie by the commander-in-chief.
Which leads us to the joint press conference at the White House with the president and Mitch McConnell. It was at this point Trump gave his “sending out the letters” response to a reporter’s inquiry on why it had taken so long to affirm the incident in Niger. But Trump couldn’t let It go at that. Instead he is the one who politicized the deaths of the four soldiers by first making remarks that former Presidents Bush and Obama didn’t send letters or make phone calls either. At which point he invoked the fallen son of General Kelly his Chief-of-Staff “ask General Kelly if Obama called him about his son.” And it went downhill from there. Trump slipping into victimization persona.
Trump continues to show is contempt for America’s heroes and gold star families. He continues his tough talk on North Korea, Iran, and even threatening Senator John McCain, a true American hero.
Lot’s of talk but we must remember that when Trump had his opportunity to put his life in harm’s way he ducked out, taking four deferments, having his Daddy buy off the Selective Service with a 4-F draft classification for bone spurs. Those bone spurs didn’t stop him from playing golf or tennis, dancing at Manhattan night spots or as he said “avoiding STDs” as his Viet Nam. My question here is, why is the moral bankruptcy and cultural divisiveness of this president allowed to continue. Trump is obviously unfit to serve this nation for a number of reasons. (see my post of September 30th “Unfit To Serve).
Beyond that I wonder why, with a couple of exceptions, the 81 members of the Congress who are military veterans are reluctant to call this president out! As John McCain said surely most have faced tougher adversaries than Trump. Who has guts to stand up to this president. Who can put country before party and their reelection. Who will stand in the way of a president who would be king.
The Progressive Democrat 