After having the temerity to criticize Arizona Senator John McCain for having been shot down over Hanoi during a bombing mission in October 1967, captured by North Vietnamese soldiers and then held in captivity as a POW for five years during which he was brutally and continually tortured and beaten, Trump has finally begun to irk even some prominent members of the GOP.
In all honesty, is THAT what it really took for conservatives to crack down on Trump's fringe lunacy?
His tiresome and demeaning verbal tirades were aptly characterized as "Trumpiness" earlier this morning by WNYC talk show host Brian Lehrer during an interesting discussion with Wall Street Journal reporter Elizabeth Williamson on The Brian Lehrer Show.
It was remarkable that leading Republican presidential candidates pretty much ignored or tolerated Trump's divisive and flagrantly racist comments about Mexican immigrants. Some even agreed with him.
South Carolina Lindsey Graham was really only the one of them to publicly condemn the comments and suggest the Republican party needed to repudiate Trump once and for all.
But as an article by Judd Legum posted on ThinkProgress.org observes, some of the very same GOP candidates who were so quick to cloak themselves in righteous patriotic outrage over Trump's delusional dismissal of Senator McCain's service in Vietnam, also openly supported the Swift Boating of Secretary John Kerry's service during Vietnam.
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| 2005 letter from Jeb Bush thanking Swift Boaters (Peter Daou) |
Day was one of the vets who appeared in the notorious Swift Boat TV ads that trashed John Kerry's Vietnam service record using accusations that were later proved to be inaccurate or completely false.
So when someone is tarnishing a Democratic politician's Vietnam service record to score political points for a Republican candidate, it's okay.
But when someone tarnishes a Republican's Vietnam service record it's an outrage?
As Legum's article and Daou's blog post show, it's like hypocrisy on steroids.
But what's even more offensive in my opinion is that these same Republican presidential candidates who need Latino support to win the White House in 2016, showed none of the outrage over Trump's zenophobia, racism and immigrant fear-mongering that they voiced over Trump's comments over McCain's war record.
It tells you a lot about today's Republican party, who seem quite content to allow Donald Trump to represent their brand as he stumps for the primary vote; even when he's denigrating people because of their country of origin.
Trumpiness indeed.
Right about now Hillary is cracking her knuckles and laughing her ass off.
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