America is in atrocious shape. Its position in the world is sinking so fast it might soon rival Greece. It has had the worst president in its history at a time when the debt is rising exponentially ($3.3 billion a day) and Iran and ISIS are expanding their influence literally from sea to shining sea, Iran about to be handed the bomb on a silver platter by that same president who for some reason prefers the mullah-lunatics to the ISIS-lunatics, at least this week.
The Democratic Party is running a criminal who erases emails by the thousands (Hillary) versus an aging socialist who hasn’t changed a thought since 1968 (Sanders). The Republican have some credible candidates but none of them have as yet risen to the fore. Are people just sick of politicians? They would have a right to be.
Enter Carly and The Donald, business people. Why wouldn’t they be welcome? At least they have had to perform, actually deal with a bottom line.
Thus far they have acquitted themselves well, not behaving with the innate caution of professional pols. That can make them more fun to watch, if nothing else. Carly handled herself shrewdly on The View the other day, facing down that Queen of Self-Regard Whoopi Goldberg who is just as stuck in 1968 as Sanders (although able to make a lot more money out of it than Bernie).
The Donald, as we know, is another matter. His ego is somewhere near the size of Saturn, including the rings. But he too acquitted himself well tonight (at least until the end, more of that in a moment) in his interview with Sean Hannity. (Sean has been by far the most interesting of the Fox crew on the election so far, his populist personality playing well in these lengthy one-on-one interviews.)
Trump even came up with something of an original idea, recommending the US bomb the ISIS-held oil fields (as he pointed out, they can be easily rebuilt) in order to interrupt the cash flow of the incipient caliphate. It wouldn’t be enough to stop them, but it certainly would slow them down, so one wonders why we haven’t done it. (Oh, yes, I forgot. Obama. He’d never do anything that could aid our domestic oil producers, even in the short run and even though they are the ones saving what’s left of the economy for him. How creepy can you get?) Donald also had some logical ideas on the economy and China. But you would expect that.
He went astray when Hannity asked him to rate the other Republican candidates. Wouldn’t you know it, he dissed them all. The only person mentioned he didn’t diss was not a Republican. It was Oprah, who, at one point, he apparently touted as his potential vice-president. Reason? The Donald and Oprah are friends.
That appeared to be his sine qua non. FODs (Friends of Donald) seemed to get the highest marks, especially if they personally came to his office to kiss his ring and ask for support. If they didn’t, arrivederci. That latter was the case for Rubio (branded “ungrateful to Bush”), Bush himself (“he looks like he doesn’t want to run,” in which case he should be grateful to Rubio) and Fiorina (a bad businesswoman in Trump’s not so humble view). All this was, to put it mildly, not gracious.
As for the FODs, Walker was a “nice guy” who did come to The Donald’s office, but, lest things go too far, Trump hastened to point out the governor’s bad jobs numbers in Wisconsin. (Thanks, Don!) As for Perry, another “nice guy,” but “he can’t win.” On second, maybe it was worse to be an FOD.
It was in all a pretty solid display of tackiness that would play well on The Apprentice but not so well in the White House. Before it I was thinking, you know this Trump guy might actually go somewhere, but after… nah.
Roger L. Simon – Co-founder and CEO Emeritus of PJ Media – is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and prize-winning novelist. He is covering the election of 2016 at Diary of a Mad Voter.
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