SWOONING OVER THE UNSPEAKABLE

I was appalled yesterday when I read a Slate article about the "Holmies" -- young women who've been blogging about their hero-worship of James Holmes, the movie theater shooter (or I should say the Colorado movie theater shooter, because, as I'm sure you know, we have a new theater shooter in Louisiana). The Holmies are disturbing:

He was the most loathed man in America, but on Tumblr, a small group of women felt something more like attraction. “I need to feel his lips pressed against mine,” one woman wrote. “His eyes are penetrating the fuck out of my soul,” wrote another. And “I know people are going to think I’m fucked up, but I bet he looked really hot in that ballistic gear.”

They called themselves “Holmies,” and as they awaited the next glimpse of Holmes in court, they constructed a digital daydream of who he might be. They soaked up his tiniest biographical details (his car smelled like strawberry air freshener!), swooned over a surfaced photo of Holmes squinting and shirtless by the pool, Photoshopped his face onto pornographic GIFs, and used a photo-morphing app to conjure baby pics of the future children they would have with him. They weaved friendship bracelets out of orange string and dressed up in plaid homages to Holmes’ arrest outfit

They're reminiscent of the "Free Jahar" crowd -- the fans who swooned over Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and insisted he was innocent of the Boston Marathon bombing.

What gets into these young women? Is it decadent twenty-first-century culture? Is it the Internet? Is it youth? Is it rampaging adolescent female hormones?

I think all that -- and then I read about a grown man who drove five hours to replace a tiny divot in a Memphis park next to the grave of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate general and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan:

Some people are calling a religious group vandals and claim they broke the law when they dug up a patch of grass next to a Confederate general’s grave in a Memphis park Wednesday.

Thursday, a man drove hundreds of miles to plant new grass.

“When I saw this last night, my wife couldn’t understand why I was shaking so badly,” Scott Hudson of Lincoln County, Tennessee, said....

“I’m going to repair the blatant disregard for this cemetery,” Hudson said.

He was so outraged that he cut a piece of his own lawn, drove five hours and laid the patch down.

“It just upset me to my core, because my great-grandfather R.C. Hudson fought in the Confederate Army,” he said.

Yes -- this guy drove five hours to repair what a local reporter called "a small divot in the grass," dug by a group of elderly black Christians:



And he was choked up:



Do you see much difference between this guy and the young women who built fan pages to Holmes and Tsarnaev? I don't. They all get weak in the knees thinking about an evil monster. They put an absurd amount of effort into that worship.

This isn't a problem of youth or estrogen or the Net. Some people are just messed up.

DAVID BRODY TELLS US MORE THAN HE REALIZES ABOUT RIGHT-WING EVANGELICALS

Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches directs our attention to this post from David Brody, a political reporter for the Christian Broadcasting Network:

Explaining the Evangelical Attraction to Donald Trump

I get this question a lot so I figured I better write about it. Here it is: "Why are evangelical voters attracted to Donald Trump? I don’t get it."

Well, you may think the answer is a complicated one but actually it's not. Let me explain.

Donald Trump operates in a world of absolutes: A world of right and wrong; a world of winners (him) and losers (McCain, Perry, etc); a world of put up or shut up (literally). Trump's world is colored in black and white. There ain't much grey. And what does Trump get for speaking out so boldly without holding back? Public ridicule.

Now, think of conservative evangelicals. In their quest to champion biblical values, their mindset is much the same. It is a world of absolutes. They believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God. Non-negotiable. They believe there is only one way to heaven and that is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Non-negotiable. They see the world through the lens of spiritual warfare (good vs. evil). And what do evangelicals get for speaking out so boldly without holding back? That’s right: public ridicule.

Posner finds this odd:

That’s a pretty thin argument for an evangelical-Trump bond. Trump’s non-negotiables begin and end with Donald Trump. Not the Bible. Not God. Not Jesus. To compare the non-negotiable of Donald Trump’s ego with, say, divine infallibility or the trinity is a bit of an apostasy, is it not?

What’s more, the “public ridicule” of Donald Trump is not because he is “speaking out so boldly.” It’s because he’s injected a narcissistic circus into the presidential campaign, kept alive only because he has more money than he knows what to do with, and he’s not afraid to bully anyone with it. Is that the comparison to evangelicals that Brody really wants to draw?

She has a point -- but I think Brody has unwittingly told us a lot about conservative evangelicals ... and about how they differ from other Christians.

Many Christians who aren't conservative evangelicals focus on other aspects of Christianity: selfless love; good works; forgiveness; compassion; humility; the universality of sin. But not the religious right. What's appealing about Christianity to the religious right is, as Brody says, an absolute: the idea that, according to Christian doctrine, some are saved and some are damned -- which inspires the immensely satisfying process of keeping score.

We know from looking at regions of the country that are dominated by Christian conservatives that this worldview has great influence on politics and government: Programs to help the less fortunate are disdained because, as Christian conservatives see it, the less fortunate simply don't deserve them. They're failures in life because they're sinners, therefore they're the damned. God has made that obvious!

As Posner notes, a sense of victimization is a big part of this as well. Christian conservatives tell themselves, If I'm saved and those people are damned, why do they have any power whatsoever? Why don't we Christian conservatives get to do whatever we want and run everything, including the heathens' lives? It's not a great worldview for a pluralistic society.

But the source of all this is the obsession with an absolute sense of right and wrong. Other Christians acknowledge Christianity's strict moral code but regard all human beings as sinners; the religious right seems to spend far more time tallying lists of the righteous and the infidels, with themselves firmly in the former category.

And then they apply that vision to politics, in as self-righteous and mean-spirited a way as possible.

LET'S MEET THE WACKOS WHO GATHERED IN TIMES SQUARE YESTERDAY TO PROTEST THE IRAN DEAL

So I guess we're expected to take this seriously:

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Times Square Wednesday evening in protest over the recent landmark nuclear deal with Iran.

As CBS2’s Jessica Schneider reported, some 10 thousand are rallying in solidarity with signs and voices raised against the nuclear deal....

Former New York Governor, and Presidential contender, George Pataki joined the chorus of voices urging lawmakers to block the deal.

The Stop Iran Rally Coalition — which claims to be a bi-partisan group -- is also calling out Sen. Charles Schumer, saying he “has the votes as presumptive leader to override this deal….If this deal is not stopped, New York voters will know whom to blame.”

I didn't attend the rally, so it's possible that some of these people were no-shows, but here was the announced speakers' list:



Let's learn more about a few of those people.

* David Brog. He's the executive director of Christians United for Israel -- a group whose founder and national chairman is Pastor John Hagee. That would be this guy:

Just who is Hagee? Well, here in abbreviated form, are some of his characteristically outlandish opinions:

On Hurricane Katrina: “All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that… I believe that Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.”

... On Muslims: Asked whether he believes that Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews, Hagee replied, “Well, the Quran teaches that. Yes, it teaches that very clearly.”

On women: “Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”

(He's also said that the Catholic Church is the "Great Whore" mentioned in the Book of Revelation and has asserted that God is sending Islamic terrorists to the U.S. because the U.S. supports a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine. Oh, and he's asserted that the Holocaust was God's will, as part of a plan to encourage Jews to return to Israel. Somehow, all of this has made him a favorite of right-wing supporters of Israel; one fan is Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer.)

* Steven Emerson. That would be this guy:

What has this Emerson been up to? He said that Birmingham was a totally Muslim city. On Fox News.

Hang on -- are you sure that’s what he meant? What was the actual quote? He said: “In Britain, it’s not just no-go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.”

Is that true? I just remember it being really hard to find parking. No, it’s not true. Muslims comprise about 22 per cent of Birmingham’s population.

I guess a guy’s entitled to make one enormous mistake on a scaremongering and frequently inaccurate TV news channel. He also said that in “parts of London, there are actual religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to religious Muslim attire.”

... He did acknowledge his error quickly.

... His words subsequently became the subject of much Twitter mockery under the hashtag #foxnewsfacts

* Clare Lopez. Last year, Lopez accused President Obama of treason:

A former CIA officer bluntly told WND, America has switched sides in the war on terror under President Obama....

She said the global war on terror had been an effort to “stay free of Shariah,” or repressive Islamic law, until the Obama administration began siding with such jihadist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates.

Why the switch?

Lopez explained, when the so-called Arab Spring appeared in late 2010, “It was time to bring down the secular Muslim rulers who did not enforce Islamic law. And America helped.”

And why would Obama want to do that?

As she told WND earlier this month, Lopez believed the Muslim Brotherhood has thoroughly infiltrated the Obama administration and other branches of the federal government.

Wait, there's more:

She also came to the conclusion Obama had essentially the same goals in the Mideast as the late Osama bin Laden: “to remove American power and influence, including military forces, from Islamic lands.”

Why would Obama order the killing of bin Laden?

Because the president “couldn’t delay any longer,” once the opportunity was presented, Lopez told WND.

There were “no more excuses” available to avoid it and he “thought it might look good,” she mused.

Admiral James Lyons. Same deal with Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood:

Retired four-star U.S. Navy Adm. James A. "Ace" Lyons controversially claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood terrorism front group has managed to infiltrate every U.S. security agency under President Barack Obama's guidance.

With the Obama regime's support, the radical anti-freedom organization has been given the freedom to penetrate an increasing number of U.S. agencies, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said at the National Press Club in January....

"There's no question we have got a hell of a job ahead of us with the Muslim Brotherhood penetration in every one of our national security agencies, including all our intelligence agencies," Lyons told the audience, describing CIA head John Brennan as a "Muslim convert."

* Paul Vallely. That's this guy:

In 2010, Vallely was one of three retired general officers who expressed support for US Army Lieutenant Colonel Terrance Lee Lakin in his refusal to deploy to Afghanistan based on Lakin's claim that President Barack Obama had no legitimacy as commander in chief. In an interview, Vallely stated "I think many in the military -- and many out of the military -- question the natural-birth status of Barack Obama."

More:

Vallely said he was concerned over the Certification of Live Birth that was released online instead of the long form certificate showing the doctor’s name and hospital “His unwillingness to do it also concerns me. I think Lt. Col. Lakin has a valid point it’s a concern and I’m not sure it has been addressed properly. … He refuses to produce a birth certificate that states the witnessing of the birth, the date and who is the doctor. We don’t know why he won’t come out with that.”

* Allen West. Where to begin? There's just too much in his case -- though I am reliably informed (by Breitbart) that he gave the "best speech of the night" at the rally.

We have to listen to these clowns? Chuck Schumer has to listen to these clowns? Really?

****

UPDATE: I'm reminded in comments that I left out Frank Gaffney:

... Gaffney ... has long advanced a litany of Islamophobic tropes. In a 2009 column for the Washington Times, he argued that Obama was once a Muslim, and “may actually still be.” In 2011, he floated the idea that the manifesto of Anders Breivik, who carried out terrorist attacks in Norway that year, was a “false flag operation” intended to “suppress criticism” of Sharia. And in mid-2012, he stoked controversy over the Muslim Brotherhood, arguing falsely that the group had “infiltrated” the American government.

Gaffney once suggested that the Obama administration’s new missile defense logo was evidence that the president had “submitted” to Islamic law. (He also said the same of David Petraeus and Grover Norquist).

Apologies for the omission!

DAILY BEAST WRITER INADVERTENTLY GIVES WINGNUTS ONE MORE REASON TO BACK TRUMP

I think this story by the Daily Beast's Olivia Nuzzi is meant to sully Trump's reputation, but it's just going to increase his appeal to crazy right-wing voters:

Donald Trump’s brash and bullying style was learned at the heel of Roy Cohn, one of America’s most infamous lawyers.

They met at Le Club, a private disco on the Upper East Side.... Donald Trump, the young developer, quickly amassing a fortune in New York real estate and Roy Cohn, America’s most loathed yet socially successful defense attorney who had vaulted to infamy in the 1950s while serving as legal counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

The friendship they forged would provide the foundation for Trump's eventual presidential campaign....

McCarthy and Cohn, who was gay and would later die of AIDS, claimed that foreign communists had blackmailed closeted homosexual U.S. government employees into giving them secrets. The charge resulted in President Eisenhower’s executive order 10450, which allowed the government to deny homosexuals employment.

Cohn helped McCarthy wage similar witch-hunts on the State Department, Voice of America, and the Army.

When McCarthy was finally censured, in 1954, Cohn was thought to be finished, too.

...But instead of fading into obscurity, Cohn became a socialite with a roster of high-powered, famous, pious, and allegedly murderous clients.

He represented Andy Warhol, Studio 54, Roman Catholic Cardinals Francis Spellman and Terence Cooke, and mafia leaders Carmine “Cigar” Galante and Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno.

Cohn’s tactics were thought to be so unethical and dishonest by the legal establishment (he was eventually disbarred) that Esquire dubbed him “a legal executioner.”

Cohn, who became Trump' lawyer, is given the credit for teaching Trump how to be a brash verbal bomb-thrower. I find that hard to believe (I think Trump was always going to be that kind of guy; it's just his nature). But that's not Nuzzi's point here. Her point is that Trump's close friend, mentor, and lawyer was one of twentieth-century America's greatest sleazebags. Trump's base is not going to respond to the story that way.

Cohn went after the commies? And was nearly destroyed for it? Excellent! the wingers will say. He worked for Joe McCarthy? Those folks love Joe McCarthy -- a decade ago they bought many, many copies of Ann Coulter's pro-McCarthy book Treason. And it's not just Coulter -- Google "joe mccarthy freerepublic.com" and you get results such as "Joe McCarthy Was Right All Along"; "It's Time to See Joe McCarthy for the Hero He Was"; "Joe McCarthy Vindicated, Again"; and "Joseph McCarthy -- American Patriot." They love the guy.

Yeah, Cohn was gay. But he was anti-gay gay! That's a mitigating factor. And here's what's most important: As Nuzzi writes, he loved Ronald Reagan:

Cohn, a registered Democrat, was a Reaganphile. On the grand piano in his law office rested a framed photo of the former president and a letter of thanks he sent to Cohn. He and his law partner, Thomas Bolan, who could not be reached for comment, fundraised tirelessly for his 1980 campaign.

According to Trump’s friend, Cohn acted to “recruit Donald and Donald’s father for Reagan’s finance committee.” In an 1983 [New York] Times report, Trump was characterized as a Reagan supporter and was said to have visited the White House “several times.” There’s a picture of the two together, shaking hands. Trump, his hair darker and fuller, in a pinstripe suit and shiny, light pink tie; and Reagan, looking duller by comparison.

If Cohn was the person who first introduced Trump to the True Faith, it doesn't matter who his sexual partners were -- he's forgiven!

Also:

In 1973, at Cohn’s urging, Trump sued the federal government for $100 million in damages, after the government sued the Trump Management Corp. for allegedly discriminating against blacks in its leasing of 16,000 apartment units throughout New York.

Trump accused the government of making “irresponsible and baseless” charges. “I have never, nor has anyone in our organization ever, to the best of my knowledge, discriminated or shown bias in renting our apartments,” Trump said at a press conference, held at the New York Hilton Hotel, according to a Dec. 13, 1973 New York Times report. Trump said, in true Trump fashion, that the government had singled out his business because it was big....

The judge dismissed Trump and Cohn’s suit, saying they were “wasting time and paper.”

Trump, under Cohn's influence, said the federal government attacked him for his success. And sued because the feds said he was discriminating against Those People? Wingers will wish Trump could pick Cohn's corpse as his running mate.

No, this won't hurt Trump. To the true believers, this is a puff piece.

HEY, WASN'T ROGER AILES SUPPOSED TO BE TAMED BY RUPERT MURDOCH'S LIBERAL SONS?

Roger Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman confirms the obvious: Rupert Murdoch can't seem to stop Ailes from promoting Donald Trump:

According to sources, Murdoch has tried -- and failed -- to rein in Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, who, insiders say, is pushing Fox to defend Trump’s most outlandish comments. This week, Ailes told his senior executives during a meeting that Murdoch recently called him and asked if Fox could “back off the Trump coverage,” a source told me. Ailes is said to have boasted to his executives that he told Murdoch he was covering Trump “the way he wanted to.” The implication was that he wasn’t going to budge.

Sherman says that Ailes has ordered Eric Bolling of The Five to express support for Trump on the air, and that Ailes injects his own pro-Trump views into Fox and Friends. Murdoch wants Trump downplayed on the air, but Ailes seems to be flaunting his insubordination.

But wait -- wasn't everything supposed to be different for Ailes now, given the fact that 21st Century Fox, the parent company of Fox News, has a new boss? That's what Sherman told us a month ago, at what was supposed to be a moment of public humiliation for Ailes:

Yesterday, 21st Century Fox announced that Ailes would be reporting to Lachlan and James Murdoch [Rupert Murdoch's sons]. For Ailes, it was a stinging smack-down and effectively a demotion.

Just five days earlier, Ailes released what now appears to be a rogue statement to his own Fox Business channel declaring that he would be unaffected by the announcement that Lachlan and James will take control of Fox as part of Rupert's succession plan. "Roger Ailes will continue to run the news network, reporting directly to Rupert Murdoch," Fox Business reported. According to a well-placed source, Ailes directed Fox Business executive Bill Shine to tell anchor Stuart Varney to read the statement on air. "Ailes told Shine to write the announcement of the move for Varney to say," the source said. "In it, Ailes inserted language that he would report to Rupert."

This was, apparently, news to Rupert. And now the Murdochs are correcting the record. "Roger will report to Lachlan and James," a 21st Century Fox spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.

And that was supposed to be a huge problem for Ailes because he'd feuded with both Lachlan and James, and because James is reportedly much more liberal than his father.

The takeover happened on July 1 -- but six days earlier, Ailes signed a new contract that will keep him as head of Fox News into 2018. A press release said he'd "jointly report" to Rupert, James, and Lachlan Murdoch -- and, as a CNNMoney story noted, "in practice, that may mean Rupert will continue to call the shots when it comes to Fox."

Which turns out not to be true, because, in practice, Roger Ailes clearly continues to call the shots when it comes to Fox. The sons have no real power over Ailes, and Daddy Rupert has power but doesn't have the guts to exercise it.

In a way, the Murdochs are behaving toward Ailes the way the party elders and other presidential candidates in the GOP have been behaving toward Trump: they're doing a lot of hand-wringing, but they're afraid of a direct confrontation. They've been reduced to quivering masses of jelly because they're afraid their operations will come crashing down around them if they push too hard. Hey, Republican Party and Rupert Murdoch, I thought you were supposed to be tough guys.

LAW ENFORCEMENT ALWAYS KNOWS HOW TO CREATE REASONABLE DOUBT

Yes, thanks to documentarian Ben Norton, we're now aware of suspicious glitches in the dashcam video of Sandra Bland's arrest:

At several points in the video of Bland's arrest, posted Tuesday to the department's YouTube channel, video of a person walking or a car driving by are cut or repeat themselves as the audio continues uninterrupted....

In one section of the video, a tow truck driver can be seen walking toward Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia's cruiser before walking out of the frame. Fifteen seconds later, the same driver reappears and completes the same walk out of the frame as audio of Encinia speaking plays uninterrupted....

At another point in the video, a white car drives into the camera's view but then immediately disappears. Seconds later, the same car reappears and makes a left-hand turn.

So the editors of the clip -- whoops! alleged editors -- got caught. Who cares? Think about Ferguson: As Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs pointed out repeatedly, Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft (a St. Louis resident) spent months floating a story favorable to Officer Darren Wilson -- that he suffered an “orbital blowout fracture of the eye socket” in his encounter with Michael Brown. Never mind the fact that the story was quickly discredited; never mind the fact that Johnson caught Hoft implying that an image from an online medical site was an X-ray of Wilson's injury; and never mind the fact that Wilson's own grand jury testimony debunked the claim. It was out there, it planted seeds in people's minds (especially after Ann Coulter ID'd the stock image as Wilson's X-ray), and so it helped shape public opinion, as it was intended to do.

The same goes for the lying "Witness 40," who was allowed to testify before the grand jury considering the case despite her massive credibility problems. The Smoking Gun put it best:

... the woman concocted a story that is now baked into the narrative of the Ferguson grand jury, a panel before which she had no business appearing.

... “Witness 40”’s testimony about seeing Brown batter Wilson and then rush the cop like a defensive end has repeatedly been pointed to by Wilson supporters as directly corroborative of the officer’s version of the August 9 confrontation. The “Witness 40” testimony, as Fox News sees it, is proof that the 18-year-old Brown’s killing was justified, and that the Ferguson grand jury got it right.

The video edit of the Bland arrest clip isn't as dramatic, but even if we find out what we didn't see in the clip and what we subsequently learn is damning, this original clip will simply be accepted as fact by those who want to believe in what law enforcement did in this case. The point is to steer the case so that cop supporters can choose their own facts; this clip, regrettably, will help get that job done.

THIS NEW YORK TIMES STORY ABOUT TRUMP AND MURDOCH IS REALLY INCOMPETENT

If everything you knew about Donald Trump's relationship with Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes came from this New York Times story by Amy Chozick and Ashley Parker, you'd have no idea how important Fox has been to the rise of Trump as a candidate. You'd be well informed about Murdoch's distaste for Trump -- it's always important for the mainstream media to highlight evidence of reasonableness on the right! -- but you wouldn't have a clue how important Fox was to the rebranding of Trump as a political figure, thanks to Ailes.

Chozick and Parker tell us that Murdoch finds Trump showoffy. They tell us that Murdoch disagrees with Trump on immigration. They tell us that Murdoch resents the fact that Trump's wife remains friends with Murdoch's ex-wife.

If this were your only exposure to the subject of Trump's relationship to Murdoch's media properties, you'd think it was probably always a struggle for Trump to get any of those properties to take him seriously. Chozick and Parker tell us that Ailes is not on the same page as Murdoch with regard to Trump, but we never see how that's helped make Trump a Fox star for many years.

We're told:

Recognizing that winning over the notoriously headstrong Mr. Murdoch appears unlikely, Mr. Trump has set his sights instead on wooing perhaps the only media executive who wields as much firepower among Republicans: Roger E. Ailes, the chairman and chief executive of Fox News.

"Wooing!" That's right -- according to Chozick and Parker, Trump has to persuade Ailes to give him a tumble!

... Mr. Ailes has been given the freedom to operate largely outside the purview of Mr. Murdoch.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Ailes, whom Mr. Trump has called “one of the great geniuses in television history,” had a private lunch last month in New York. (A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, said they had known each other for about 25 years and had a cordial relationship.) ...

But, according to Choick and Parker:

Fox News has by no means given Mr. Trump a pass for his remarks about Mr. McCain. On Monday, the host Bill O’Reilly chided Mr. Trump. “He was on a bombing mission, he was shot down, he was tortured,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “Come on, Donald, you know that the way that came off wasn’t correct!”

This is the only example of Fox's coverage of Trump that appears in the story. We're told, without elaboration, that Fox's coverage of Trump has been "serious" -- but we're never shown what that means. And Chozick and Parker float a really cockamamie theory about the coverage:

... in Fox News’s serious handling of Mr. Trump so far, longtime associates of Mr. Ailes discern a larger plan.

If the Trump balloon ultimately bursts, they suggested, it could buy time for other Republican contenders to hone their messages and become more seasoned campaigners. Either way, Mr. Ailes benefits with ratings in the meantime.

Ms. Briganti, the Fox News spokeswoman, called any implication that the channel’s coverage of Mr. Trump was a ploy to help the eventual Republican nominee “absolute nonsense, 100 percent untrue and said by someone who clearly doesn’t know Roger.”

If you read this story, you don't even learn the basic fact that Trump had a regular weekly segment on the morning show Fox & Friends from April 2011 until last month -- nor do you learn that the April 2011 start date coincided with a period when Trump was pondering a White House run while obsessing over birtherism, a subject to which Fox dedicated 52 separate segments over a two-month period, from February to April 2011. (With regard to Fox & Friends, Trump praised the show's hosts -- "they're great people" -- at a campaign appearance yesterday.)

If you read this story, you never learn that Fox gave more coverage to Trump than to any other Republican presidential candidate in June of this year:



And you never learn that Trump's contempt for undocumented immigrants is very much shared by Ailes:

“If I was president I’d do what’s necessary, including putting Navy SEALs on the border with orders to shoot to kill drug dealers who are trying to infiltrate the country,” Ailes told biographer Zev Chafets for the book “Roger Ailes: Off Camera.”

... “The Loudest Voice in the Room,” by Gabriel Sherman ... cites a far more extreme version of the Navy SEAL anecdote than does the Chafets book. “I would make it a requirement that you would have to personally kill an illegal immigrant coming into the country,” Ailes said, according to Sherman’s book. “They would have to bring home a dead body.”

The story emphasizes the reasonableness of Murdoch (Chozick's ultimate boss for eight years when she was at The Wall Street Journal) while giving readers no sense of the extremism of Fox. It's terrible reporting.

But isn't Murdoch's pressure campaign having an impact on Fox? Well, yes, a bit. And then there's this:

Fox Host Steve Doocy: Donald Trump is Kinda Like a Navy SEAL http://t.co/gHyIEeAK2c pic.twitter.com/qumTAudk66

— Mediaite (@Mediaite) July 22, 2015

Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy compared Donald Trump to a Navy SEAL Wednesday morning during an interview with the presidential candidate, saying that they both never back down from a fight.

“It started with John McCain last week, referred to a big crowd you had out in Phoenix as ‘crazies,'” Doocy noted. “Then yesterday you’ve got Lindsey Graham, who you used that inappropriate word about you.”

“You know what? As somebody said to me yesterday, Donald Trump is like a Navy SEAL; he never backs down when he’s in a fight,” he said.

Bet that won't show up in any follow-up from Chozick and Parker.

A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE WALKS INTO A BAR...

Donald Trump gave out Lindsey Graham's cell number today. It's a childish and irresponsible stunt, though there's no reason to believe that it upset Trump's fans -- they loved it at Free Republic, as I learn from an FR thread in which Graham is repeatedly called "Linda" and one commenter posts this:



Meanwhile, The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart got Al Sharpton's take on Trump. Sharpton recalled something he'd heard from an old friend, James Brown:

First time, I went to Vegas ... [James Brown] took me there. And [he] said to me, “Reverend, let me tell you something. ... There’s a difference between the lounge act and the acts that play the main room.” We’re at Caesar’s Palace. I’m about 19 – 20 years old.

And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “When you’re in the lounge, you’re competing with the bars and the barmaids and the slot machines and people gambling. So you do whatever you can to get attention. But when you’re in the main room, they paid to see a show. You’ve got to be ready. You gotta have choreography. You gotta be rehearsed. You gotta have polish.” He says, “When you get on the main stage, Reverend, whatever you did to get out the lounge don’t do that on the main stage.”

Capehart notes that Trump may be doing an unpolished lounge act, but a lot of people seem to like it:

The latest Post poll shows that Trump has surged to a big lead in the GOP pack with support from 24 percent of Republican primary voters. Given that standing, I asked Sharpton, is there a danger that folks like the lounge act? He highlighted another significant number from the poll. The one that shows 62 percent of Americans said they wouldn’t vote for Trump for president. “Folks like the lounge act ... because they’re sittin’ around drinkin’ a beer and laughing,” Sharpton said. “But if you go upstairs to get your wife to go to dinner, she’s going to want to go to the main room.”

But how many people in America are truly excited about the acts who are polished enough to seem worthy of the main room? Jeb Bush? Marco Rubio? Hillary Clinton? They have too much choreography, too much polish. The guy in the lounge is much more entertaining.

Another analogy: It seems to me that Trump is like a young guy in a bar who's getting attention for obnoxious but funny stunts -- some people are disgusted, but that blonde over in the corner keeps laughing, and Trump wants her, so even though he doesn't know what the hell he's doing, he's going to just keep doing it. He wants to go home with the blonde, and she really might keep laughing the more obnoxious he gets.

Are they going to mate for life? Not very likely. But for now this is working. So Trump's going to keep going.

SO DOES NATIONAL REVIEW'S KEVIN WILLIAMSON THINK MITT ROMNEY'S A NAZI, TOO?

Self-delighted arrested-development case Kevin D. Williamson posted a joking-but-not-joking piece at National Review yesterday that essentially called Bernie Sanders a Nazi. Talking Points Memo has a rundown in case you don't want to read the original, but the gist of the piece is that Sanders is a socialist (obviously true, as Sanders would be the first to tell you) who's also an economic nationalist. Nationalist plus socialist equals national socialist. Get it? Get it??

Williamson writes:

In the Bernieverse, there’s a whole lot of nationalism mixed up in the socialism. He is, in fact, leading a national-socialist movement, which is a queasy and uncomfortable thing to write about a man who is the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and whose family was murdered in the Holocaust. But there is no other way to characterize his views and his politics. [There is] incessant reliance on xenophobic (and largely untrue) tropes holding that the current economic woes of the United States are the result of scheming foreigners, especially the wicked Chinese...

Of course, as Williamson himself noted in 2011, Mitt Romney has been known to say very similar things about the Chinese:

I certainly hope Mitt Romney is as insincere as he appears to be. The alternative is that he really does, as he says, “see eye to eye” with Donald Trump on the question of China. In case you’ve forgotten Trump’s position on China, it is:

“Listen, you m----f----s” (and he didn’t say “muffins”) “we’re going to tax you 25 percent.”

... If I thought Mitt Romney were just being a Machiavellian calculator, I might be a little more kindly disposed to him: I am all for Machiavellian calculators in the White House, provided they are ruthlessly pursuing our national interests. But I half-suspect that Mr. Romney half-believes what is coming out of his mouth, which is worrisome. If he really intends to slap a 25 percent tariff on Chinese goods, he is embarking on a dangerous and destructive path.

So does Williamson also consider Mitt Romney to be a Nazi? Or, at the very least, does Williamson believe that Romney ticked the "nationalist" box when he criticized China and need only put a check mark in the "socialist" box to be a full-on goosestepper? And given the fact that Mitt signed Romneycare into law, shouldn't Williamson have called for a Nuremberg trial years ago?

****

If you read Williamson quickly, he can almost seem to be making some sort of sense. But watch how he does it:

... criminalizing things is very much on Bernie’s agenda, beginning with the criminalization of political dissent. At every event he swears to introduce a constitutional amendment reversing Supreme Court decisions that affirmed the free-speech protections of people and organizations filming documentaries, organizing Web campaigns, and airing television commercials in the hopes of influencing elections or public attitudes toward public issues. That this would amount to a repeal of the First Amendment does not trouble Bernie at all. If the First Amendment enables Them, then the First Amendment has got to go.

Williamson, of course, is referring to the Citizens United decision. Savor the clever little word games he plays when he says the decision "affirmed the free-speech protections of people and organizations filming documentaries, organizing Web campaigns, and airing television commercials in the hopes of influencing elections or public attitudes toward public issues." Of course, the decision was about the ability of corporations (not individual people) to pay to broadcast (not film) documentaries -- or, more likely, thirty-second attack ads -- sixty days before a general election or thirty days before a primary. And even if you violated the law that Citizens United overturned, you weren't sent to the camps. But: Nazis!

And what would happen as a result of the constitutional amendment proposed by Sanders? Well, here's the text:

SECTION 1. Whereas the right to vote in public elections belongs only to natural persons as citizens of the United States, so shall the ability to make contributions and expenditures to influence the outcome of public elections belong only to natural persons in accordance with this Article.

SECTION 2. Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to restrict the power of Congress and the States to protect the integrity and fairness of the electoral process, limit the corrupting influence of private wealth in public elections, and guarantee the dependence of elected officials on the people alone by taking actions which may include the establishment of systems of public financing for elections, the imposition of requirements to ensure the disclosure of contributions and expenditures made to influence the outcome of a public election by candidates, individuals, and associations of individuals, and the imposition of content neutral limitations on all such contributions and expenditures.

SECTION 3. Nothing in this Article shall be construed to alter the freedom of the press.

SECTION 4. Congress and the States shall have the power to enforce this Article through appropriate legislation.

If this were to pass, the secret police would not be breaking down the doors of documentarians (or political-ad hacks) and dragging fthem to secret torture prisons. But if you actually believe that's the likely outcome of the amendment after a few minutes with Williamson's demagoguery, then he's done what he set out to do.

CHUCK TODD'S BLOG PRE-BLAMES TRUMP FOR FAILURE OF CANDIDATE NOBODY LIKES (updated)

NBC's First Read blog (lead bylined author: Chuck Todd) acknowledges that John Kasich faces an uphill battle for the Republican presidential nomination, but suggests that that's not Kasich's fault:

Can John Kasich Get Traction in the Summer of Donald?

If the two-term governor of all-important Ohio -- with a 60% approval rating in his state -- announces a presidential bid and no one hears it, did it really happen? That's John Kasich's challenge as he makes his White House run official today at 11:00 am ET amid all of the Donald Trump headlines. Trump leads nationally in another poll! Trump is running second in Iowa! The Des Moines Register wants Trump out of the race! Trump is still feuding with John McCain! And oh, Donald Trump just killed a guy with a trident! Yes, we made that last one up (it's from "Anchorman"), but you get the point: It's the Summer of Donald, and it's become hard for the other GOP presidential hopefuls to break through. Remember that Scott Walker officially announced his presidential bid last week, and he barely broke through all the Trump news, at least nationally.

Yes, but Walker is in double digits nationally and is well out in front in Iowa, which proves that there's been plenty of opportunity for non-Trump GOP wannabes to break through, at least if they're candidates Republicans like. Walker gives GOP voters a lot to like. In a different way, so does Trump. Kasich? Well, Chuck, as you (or your coauthors) write:

Our colleague Kasie Hunt has a good piece on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" profiling the Republican Ohio governor. "Ohio Gov. John Kasich can sound pretty different from the 15 other Republicans running for president. 'Just read Matthew 25. Did you feed the hungry? Did you clothe the naked? If we¹re doing things like that, to me that IS conservatism.' He doesn't necessarily govern like them, either. He expanded Medicaid under Obamacare and favors a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. And even voted for an assault-weapons ban."

Can you say "Jon Huntsman"? Kasich also supports the hated Common Core. Yeah, Jeb does, too -- but Jeb has more money than God, and he's more or less locked up the votes of all Republicans who think they need to make a choice based on pragmatism rather than ideological zealotry. That's a minority of the GOP electorate, though it may be a large enough minority to get Jeb through the early primaries, at which point maybe the rest of the electorate will hold its collective nose and rally around Jeb. But there's no room for Kasich in all this. The GOP isn't a lovely garden where a hundred reasonable right-centrists can bloom. It's a cesspit of carcinogenic rage.

Mainstream political journalists can't stand the thought that GOP voters aren't in sync with them. Just as they never stop insisting that Chris Christie is poised for a comeback, they're certain Republicans would embrace Kasich if circumstances were more favorable (a smaller field, an earlier entry into the race, no Trump). That's nonsense. Kasich would be blown away even in a two- or three-candidate race. He's no GOP voter's idea of an ideal presidential candidate. He'll be lucky to outpoll George Pataki and Bobby Jindal.

****

UPDATE: I meant to include this:

Kasich is for the GOP voter who wants someone as anti-union as Walker but whose plans were scuttled by losing a voter referendum

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) July 21, 2015

See "Bye Bye, SB 5: Anti-Union Law Repealed in Ohio," from Mother Jones, for the background. Right-wing voters like fighters, but they don't like losers. They sure don't like losers who accept the loss and move on,

DONALD TRUMP, WORKING CLASS HERO

Well, it's just delightful -- Donald Trump has an 11-point lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll:

[Trump] leads the 16-candidate field with 24 percent support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who are registered to vote, up sharply from 4 percent in May....

Scott Walker has 13 percent support, Jeb Bush 12 percent, with the rest in single digits.

But it was a multi-day poll, and as news of his remarks about John McCain emerged on Sunday his numbers went down quite a bit:

Trump’s support was 28 percent in this survey’s first three nights of polling. While the sample size of registered leaned Republicans on Sunday is quite small, he dropped to the single digits that day.

Now, that could mean the McCain controversy is the beginning of the end for Trump -- or it could mean that that was the low point of his support, at least for now. Trump and his fan base have been touting the ridiculous Sharyl Attkisson "fact check" of the initial Washington Post story on the incident. The "fact check," posted on Saturday, claimed that Trump really, really thinks McCain is a war hero:

2. When a panelist characterized McCain as a “war hero,” the Post is accurate in reporting that Trump initially said McCain is “not a war hero.” But then, Trump immediately modified his statement saying-- four times-- that McCain is a war hero:

“He is a war hero.”

“He’s a war hero because he was captured.”

“He’s a war hero, because he was captured.”

“I believe, perhaps, he’s a war hero. But right now, he’s said some very bad things about a lot of people.”

3. Did Trump say McCain is not a war hero because he was captured? No, not in the exchanges represented in the Post.

Some of the people who might have been made uneasy by Trump's remarks are actually going to fall for this convoluted attempt to suggest that Trump didn't really speak ill of McCain's military service. They'll stay with Trump.

*****

Meanwhile, who is and isn't supporting Trump? I'm amused by this:

Trump has struck a chord with at least a part of the Republican electorate. He does far better among those who are not college graduates than among those who are.

That's true:





Trump is also in the 30s among Republicans with a household income of less than $50,000 a year.

The conventional wisdom has been that Mitt Romney lost the general election in 2012 because he didn't have the common touch, and therefore Republicans need to nominate someone who's less of an elitist. But then you ask the GOP's working-class voters to pick a candidate -- and Trump's their man. Go figure.

THE PROPER USE OF THE TROOPS IS TO BASH DIRTY HIPPIES, NOT FELLOW RIGHT-WINGERS

I usually agree with Ed Kilgore, but I think he's wrong in his reaction to Donald Trump's attack on John McCain:

Ever since news spread of the original gaffe, there’s been a robust offline debate among progressive scribblers about what this means for the presidential contest. A surprising number of my friends are convinced that it won’t hurt Trump or could actually help him, since he feeds on both good and bad publicity and his core supporters hate McCain and the RNC anyway.

I dunno. Perhaps I was too affected by the whole Cult of the Vietnam POW (read Rick Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge for a very thorough discussion of Nixon’s exploitation of those POWs to retroactively justify his failed Vietnam policies), but my gut feeling is that mocking a revered longtime POW is within the Republican context close to being the political equivalent of the Sin Against the Holy Ghost. And the over-the-top reaction from other GOPers reflects that belief.

Yes, but when Nixon brandished the Vietnam POWs as a political weapon, his target was dirty hippie America-haters who had long hair and did drugs and didn't bathe and listened to that jungle rock and roll. Ever since, calls for support for the troops have meant one thing and one thing only: Are you a patriot, or are you a commie liberal Democrat who wants our enemies to win?

Unless you're in the latter category, you're in the clear -- you don't really have to hold miiltary service sacred. You can attack John Kerry as a phony war hero, you can deprive U.S. forces in Iraq of adequate protection from IEDs, and you can certainly have an excellent political career in the Republican Party despite never having seen combat. Think Mitt Romney, think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney -- hell, think Dan Quayle, or Ronald Reagan for that matter. That's why The Washington Post's angry article "What Donald Trump Was Up To While John McCain Was a Prisoner of War" won't give pause to most Trump fans, even though its points are well made and should be devastating to Trump:

... McCain languished in a genuine hell. When he wasn’t being tortured -- several times his interrogators rebroke his mended bones -- he was battling everything from dysentery to hemorrhoids.

The prisoner of war survived on watery pumpkin soup and scraps of bread. He saw several fellow prisoners beaten to death, yet McCain refused to sign the confession that would have granted him a speedy release (and a publicity coup to the North Vietnamese).

Trump was living large -- maybe not by today’s Trump standards but larger than most Americans. He ate in New York City’s finest restaurants, rode in his father’s limousines and began hitting the clubs with beautiful women....

It doesn't matter. It didn't matter with Quayle, Bush, Cheney, or Romney. Getting self-righteous about the sacrifices made by servicemembers and the safer lives of civilians is something conservatives do only to attack liberals and Democrats.

Oh, but of course the people who feel this way about liberals and Democrats aren't fond of so-called RINOs, either. Which is why I'm in agreement with Josh Marshall:

Let's not forget: these are supporters who have cheered Trump as he's called Mexicans rapists and criminals and all the rest. They don't have delicate sensibilities. Let's also not forget that these kinds of attacks on McCain (actually considerably uglier ones) have a long history among hardcore base Republicans, just the folks Trump is spiking with. They claim he had a lackluster career before his capture (some real truth in that) and they hint he may have been turned in some way by captors or betrayed his fellow POWs during his captivity (zero evidence for this). But even beyond the hardcore fringe that believes those things, McCain is just really not popular with base Republicans, especially not those who define themselves around the immigration issue. He's the ultimate RINO. All of which is to say, if you're someone who's cheered to Trump's clown car of aggression and derp over recent weeks, I see little here that will make you reconsider your enthusiasm. In fact, I see a lot that will make you see this as more of a brash truth-teller who won't take any crap from the Republican establishment, the media or its favored leaders.

What's more, I think Trump's opponents are still afraid of him. They've come to McCain's defense because they think they're on safe ground there, but I disagree with Kilgore that they're going to go further:

We will now see the entire kitchen sink thrown at [Trump]: the donations to Democratic candidates and to the Clinton Foundation; the lefty issue positions he’s made and only partially abandoned; and of course, his own record of dubious-sounding draft deferments. My guess is he cannot help but lose support, but we’ll soon see.

Who's going to attack him for donations to Democrats and the Clinton Foundation? Jeb Bush who once gave an award to Hillary Clinton and whose father is Bill Clinton's close friend and charitable partner? Chris Christie, who lavished praise on President Obama after Hurricane Sandy?

Who'll attack Trump for flip-flopping? The many Republicans who flirted with immigration reform in the past and are now scurrying to revise their positions in ways that won't alienate GOP primary voters but also won't alienate voters in a general election?

And who'll ding Trump for draft-dodging? Who in this massive field has even served? Jeb? Christie? Paul? Walker? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Rick Perry and Lindsey Graham served, and that's it. Get caught denouncing evasion of military service, and how will you wind up on a ticket with Jeb?

So, yeah, I think Trump is safe for now.

UM, YOU REALIZE THAT TRUMP'S FANS PROBABLY REGARD THIS AS PRAISE, DON'T YOU?

In The New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Michael Barbaro think they're explaining the failings of the Donald Trump presidential campaign, but I suspect that's not how the Trump fan base is reading what they've written:

It was an improvised fit of pique, roundly and vigorously denounced by his rivals all weekend, that exposed the biggest vulnerability of Mr. Trump’s campaign for president: It is built entirely around the instincts and grievances of its unpredictable candidate -- and does not rely on a conventional political operation that protects presidential hopefuls from themselves....

Never mind that his top rivals for the Republican nomination treat campaigning like a full-time job. For Mr. Trump, the task of seeking the White House occupies half his time, he estimated in an interview. (“It’s probably 50-50,” he said.)

The rest of the Republican field’s top tier has cast a wide net to find experienced political aides. But Mr. Trump has plucked much of his team from inside his own corporate empire. (The résumé of his Iowa co-chairwoman: She was a contestant on “The Apprentice.”)...

There is no real policy shop churning out position papers, or for that matter a well-staffed central headquarters plotting his long-term message, or speechwriters drafting -- or modulating -- his words.

To Trump's admirers, all of these things are pluses, not minuses. He's not a politician! He's a citizen who continues his private-sector work as he seeks office! (And not just a citizen - an entrepreneur! A job creator!) He's not surrounded by career political hacks who run all of words past focus groups! He just is who he is!

I'm not sure how many Trump cultists have read this, but those who have might regard it a puff piece -- or see the criticism in the piece as a sign that the political/journalistic establishment values all the wrong things. It's hardly going to diminish their admiration for their guy.

TRUMP'S FANS ARE STILL FANS

We're being told that Donald Trump's candidacy just blew up. We're being informed that we've "probably reached an inflection point ... that will probably mark the moment when Trump’s candidacy went from boom to bust."

Maybe -- but the Trump fanboys and fangirls are still on his side.

I'm looking at the comments to a Fox News Insider story about Trump's attack on John McCain. It sure looks as if the Trumpites (and even some non-Trumpites) are defiant, and are critical of the Trump opponents who've denounced him:

I'm not for or against Trump... I am against the Republican establishment and this response from the entrenched politicians seems to be more of an attempt to attack Trump for any reason than true outrage. Perry and the rest mocking outgrage and disgust are just showing their true colors. I will say at least Trump is at least saying something and not walking a politically correct tightrope.

****

Exactly! Those candidates attacking him are going to end up with egg on their faces. They shouldn't underestimate Trump...he's the only one speaking out whose not worried about PC...that's why we like him!

****

john ma cain didn't even try to beat obama when he ran . that what i don't like about him and he votes for and with obama on everything

****

The only other Republican candidate is Ben Carson besides Donald Trump the rest should step down Until McCain apologizes for calling Trump supporters Crazies I don't think McCain should get an apology by the way my father was a Vietnam Vet that was not captured and didn't get the title of Hero he received the Bronze Star with Valor so don't even go there Politicians. Trump is right my Dad is a Hero he saved lives !!!!!!

****

being caclled a hero all depends on how you define the word, in my opinion McShame served like hundreds of thousands of others Trump was right and I agree.

****

If you really want to keep up with the breaking news, check out the backlash agaist Gov. Perry. There is mega support for Trump on the Govenor's own page asking for Trump to appologise. It may have caused Perry any chance in to win GOP. He backed the wrong side. No one cares if McCain is a Hero... McCain long ago sold out to the Dems and his record as a Sen. and on vetrans rights is abyzmal. The VA mess in AZ his state means he has blood on his hands and nothing has been fixed yet. Former Hero or not Trump keeps speaking the plain truth. WE the people get it, it doesn't have to be eloquent, but it does resonate.

This commenter seems to be referring to Rick Perry's Facebook page, where the Trump brigades are attacking Perry for going after Trump:

Quit twisting things Rick, you're acting like a liberal.

****

Perry let it go...McCain is a hero but in our world today we need leadership not career politicians who have sold US out.

****

I appreciate McCain's service but I agree with Trump. McCain is the reason he lost the election to Obama. The only reason I voted for that ticket was because of Palin, not him.

****

This is the wrong way to get our attention and votes. Governor Perry.

****

Be careful Gov. Perry, read what he said. Most republicans and all conservatives agree with Trump.

****

John McCain is a GOP statist that uses his being a vet to get elected and then go against everything we stand for.

Www.donaldjtrump.com

No more politicians, no more lawyers, no more statists.

At Free Republic, they're touting an online poll at a message board called GOP Briefing Room:

Do you think Trump's remarks concerning McCain's POW status will improve, have no impact, or decrease his polling results?

Results as of 6:24 this morning: 90.4% Improve, 7.2% No Impact, 2.4% Decrease.

I didn't see this coming when Trump entered the race, or even when he rose in the polls, but he seems to have developed a Ron Paul-like cult -- people who really are impervious to bad news about their hero and who'll flood the zone (online, at least) when their hero is attacked.

We can also look back to Ross Perot in 1992 -- recall that he rose, declined, dropped out of the race, returned to the race (making paranoid-seeming claims about how George H.W. Bush operatives had compelled him to withdraw in the first place) ... and still managed to finish with 19% of the vote, which was actually 5 percentage points more than the final Gallup poll of the race had predicted. I've said before that I think Trump is a looser cannon than Perot -- I think it's possible that this is the first of several big unforced errors -- but I also think that he has a fan base that might stick with him for quite a while no matter what he says. It's probably a not-quite-big-enough fan base like Ron Paul's, but I don't think it's going to disappear rapidly, as those who see his campaign as a purely media-driven nine days' wonder seem to believe.

TRUMP JUST MADE IT EASY FOR HIS COWARD OPPONENTS TO ATTACK HIM WITHOUT ATTACKING TRUMPISM

Is this the beginning of the end of Trumpmania in the GOP? Possibly, though it's hard to say:

Speaking today in Iowa, Donald Trump attacked John McCain for being a former prisoner of war....

"He's not a war hero," Trump, a Republican running for president, said of McCain. "I like people that weren’t captured. "He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured."

Before we assume that Republican voters consider attacks on McCain's patriotism to be beyond the pale, let's recall that some Republicans have long despised McCain, and applaud such attacks if the attackers come from the right. A 2000 article with the title "Will 'Ace' McCain Flame Out Again?," which depicted McCain as a terrible pilot, was approvingly linked more than once at Free Republic; the article originally appeared in Insight magazine, a sister publication to the Moonie Washington Times. Some right-wingers believe McCain committed treason in Vietnam, as suggested in a flyer distributed in 2008 during the South Carolina primary campaign by a group called Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain, which called McCain a "Hanoi Hilton songbird." And McCain has been called a traitor by conservatives for a number of reasons -- in 2013...

At a recent town hall event held by Senator John McCain (Maverick, Arizona) a U.S. Marine ... said to McCain’s face that the Senator should be “arrested and tried for treason” for supporting al Qaeda terrorists in Syria....

The US Marine, one Blaine Cooper, called McCain a traitor for sending arms and money to support the Syrian rebels, many of whom are al Qaeda, our worst enemies.

... and this past May, by a 2008 Ron Paul delegate to the Republican convention who's also the founder of the Oath Keepers:

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes told a Tempe, Arizona, conservative gathering last week that Sen. John McCain should be tried for treason and “hung by the neck until dead” for going “along with the program of the destruction of this country.”

... “John Cain [sic] is a traitor to the Constitution,” he added. “He should be tried for treason before a jury of his peers — which he would deny you, he supports your denial of a jury trial, he supported the NDAA saying that he could just have the president slam you into a brig in North Carolina or South Carolina or wherever else he wanted to, try you by military tribunal and have you executed. He would deny you the right for trial to jury, but we will give him a trial for jury, and then after we convict him, he should be hung by the neck until dead....”

So McCain isn't entirely above reproach on the right. He's still despised by many for supporting immigration reform and for, in much of the right's eyes, losing a winnable race against Barack Obama. Nevertheless, I think these remarks will alienate a certain number of Trump's newfound fans.

But the real trouble is yet to come for Trump. In theory, he could walk this back and not suffer too much damage within his fan base. But Trump is never going to walk anything back. Never walking things back is practically his entire act.

Which gives all his pants-wetting Republican opponents a golden opportunity. Now they can sanctimoniously attack Trump for besmirching the honor of a great American who suffered torture at the hands of brutal communists -- and they don't have to say a word about every other obnoxious thing Trump has said recently.

And then, I suspect, Trump will just finish himself off, because when they attack him for attacking McCain, he'll just double down, because doubling down is his automatic reaction whenever he's attacked.

It may be that anger at McCain is sufficiently great on the right that Trump can get away with this. Or it may be that something else will happen to make us all forget that Trump ever said this.

But I think this might burst the Trump bubble -- not what Trump said today, but how he'll up the ante in the next few days, because he's too stupid not to.

DEAR GAWKER: IF YOU'RE TRYING TO TAKE THE ELITE CLASS DOWN A PEG, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG

I wasn't planning to join the crowd that's writing about this Gawker thing:

... Gawker published a story about a Condé Nast executive (who's married to a woman) allegedly arranging to meet up with a gay escort while on a trip to Chicago. When the escort found out who his client was, he attempted to blackmail him into helping with a housing-discrimination lawsuit he was embroiled in....

The executive is Tim Geithner's brother, as everyone who read the story before it was taken down already knows. I agree with the widespread criticism of the story:

Geithner is not a public figure in any meaningful sense. What power the CFO of Conde Nast holds is relevant to nobody but the Newhouse family and the company’s employees. Geithner is not a public figure; he has no record of public moralism about sexual issues.

... as [Glenn] Greenwald observes we don’t even know that he was doing anything his wife disapproves of.

But this isn't just about sex and morality -- it's about class and status. Slate's Justin Peters writes about that -- but I think he's a little off base:

On Twitter, Gawker editor Max Read explained his editorial logic [for publishing the piece]:

given the chance gawker will always report on married c-suite executives of major media companies fucking around on their wives

— max read (@max_read) July 17, 2015

In other words, the targeted executive is rich, and, to Gawker, wealth and status have always been inherently worthy of suspicion. ... populist ressentiment has animated Gawker Media since its earliest days.

... Gawker Media ... is still perhaps America’s most resentful major online news property, with what seems to be an internal culture of active umbrage and opposition toward people in any sort of power position. The site is unimpressed by titles and status....

No, the site is not "unimpressed by titles and status." The site is overly "impressed by titles and status." And while the site may take individuals down a peg (or, in this case, many pegs), a fixation on the real or alleged bad behavior of even mid-level "elitists" actually tends to enhance the status of the elite as a group. It reinforces the sense that these people are more important, more significant, than the rest of us.

It would be one thing if Gawker were also eager to expose the surreptitious sexual exploits of the CFO of a midsize industrial flange manufacturer from Kansas City. But that never happens at Gawker. Gawker is reinforcing the notion that the members of the coastal elite are endlessly fascinating, and is even expanding the definition of who belongs to the coastal elite.

Gawker might resent the coastal elite's power, but Gawker is reinforcing it.

DON'T BE FOOLED BY ALL THAT FORELOCK-TUGGING -- DAVID BROOKS DEEPLY RESENTS TA-NEHISI COATES

In his much-mocked column "Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates While White," David Brooks makes a great show of deference to his subject, and to black political activists in general:

The last year has been an education for white people. There has been a depth, power and richness to the African-American conversation about Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston and the other killings that has been humbling and instructive.

Your new book, “Between the World and Me,” is a great and searing contribution to this public education. It is a mind-altering account of the black male experience. Every conscientious American should read it.

But I think Corey Robin reads the column correctly:

Listen to this:

I suppose the first obligation is to sit with it, to make sure the testimony is respected and sinks in. But I have to ask, Am I displaying my privilege if I disagree? Is my job just to respect your experience and accept your conclusions? Does a white person have standing to respond?

Or this:

If I do have standing, I find the....” [That if I have standing!]

Or this:

Maybe you will find my reactions irksome. Maybe the right white response is just silence for a change.

What to make of it? Unsuccessful attempts to disarm his critics? Maybe.

Or maybe we should pay more attention to that tone of aggrieved and bitchy petulance which accompanies these qualifiers: “I suppose...Is my job just...is just silence...” That “just” gives the game away.

"Aggrieved and bitchy petulance"? Yup, that's it. Brooks may say that the book is "great and searing," but he deeply resents the fact that Coates seems vastly more credible than he is, especially at this moment, on the subject of the American Dream as it relates to African-Americans. Coates believes that the arc of history is not bending toward justice for black Americans, and further believes that the essential nature of American society limits black Americans' progress -- and Brooks is just not having it.

Brooks writes,

If I do have standing, I find the causation between the legacy of lynching and some guy’s decision to commit a crime inadequate to the complexity of most individual choices.

It's not just that Brooks's syntax is clumsy here. He also misses Coates's point that the racism in our society is ongoing; there may not be lynchings per se anymore, but the violence takes other forms, such as deaths in police custody.

But even if Brooks acknowledged this, it wouldn't matter, because Coates has besmirched Brooks's precious free will, which, in his view, ought to allow any American to transcend any circumstance (if, presumably, the individual is infused with "emotional intelligence" or "social capital" or whatever the hell it is that Brooks regards as America's Get Out of Oppression Free card).

Near the end of the column, Brooks actually seems to blame Coates himself for black Americans' failure to achieve the American Dream:

This dream is a secular faith that has unified people across every known divide. It has unleashed ennobling energies and mobilized heroic social reform movements. By dissolving the dream under the acid of an excessive realism, you trap generations in the past and destroy the guiding star that points to a better future.

Read that last sentence again. Brooks is suggesting that Coates's own book is going to destroy the American Dream for multiple generations of black people -- a dream to which they could otherwise readily gain access.

The opening statements of respect in this column are not to be read literally. They're Brooks's version of "Brutus is an honorable man." Brooks may respect Coates's book as memoir, but, as political and cultural analysis, it's repellent and dangerous, in his view. Don't let the kind-sounding words fool you.

SO, WILL WE FORGIVE MOHAMMOD YOUSSUF ABDULAZEEZ?

Ta-Nehisi Coates after members of victims' families attended Dylann Roof's bail hearing and said they forgave him:

Very few people called on Americans to "forgive"Al Qaeda.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) June 21, 2015

Can't remember any grand campaign to "love" and "forgive" in the wake of ISIS beheadings.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) June 21, 2015

On The Nightly Show, Reza Aslan made the same point regarding the Boston Marathon bombing:

“It was a big deal about the fact that -- despite the fact that [Roof] did not apologize -- that the victims were forgiving of him, it was splashed on the New York Times, everybody was talking about how amazing it was, that all this forgiveness for him.”

He continued: “Yet we’re having this argument, this debate about whether we should also forgive [Dzhokhar] Tsarnaev, and I’m just trying to figure out exactly what the difference between the two of them are, and I can’t figure out the difference between them.”

So, are we going to forgive Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez for the Chattanooga shootings? You'd think we would, right? After all, Peggy Noonan told us that the words of forgiveness toward Dylann Roof "laid out the essence of Christianity, unedited and undiluted." Aren't we a predominantly Christian nation?

If words of forgiveness directed at Roof were what helped to get the Confederate battle flag removed from South Carolina's capitol grounds, I suppose I'm pleased -- but it offends me that we needed black people to completely put aside an entirely justifiable anger before we would do the decent thing with regard to that flag. Oh, but those family members were forgiving one of us, a white guy, so it was appropriate.

In other cases, we expect murder victims to be angry -- it's even okay if you're black and angry, as long as the murder that stoked your rage is one that stokes the majority culture's rage. (I'm thinking of the killing of Jamiel Shaw, a black teenager, by an undocumented immigrant in 2008; Donald Trump and Shaw's father, who's denounced U.S. immigration policy since the murder, now speak admiringly of each other.)

I'm not advocating forgiveness in any of these cases -- in a similar situation, I can't imagine that I'd forgive. But let's not pretend, as Americans, that we think forgiveness is the proper, Christian response to murder. We only seemed to think that in one case.

SMOOTH WHIZZING CRIMINALS

Yesterday in The New York Times there was a story about changes in city policy regarding public urination. I bring the story up because it included a quote (emphasis added) that I don't think Times reporters Matt Flegenheimer and J. David Goodman fully examined:

For two decades, police officials viewed the enforcement of minor infractions as a way to prevent crime and violence. “Quality-of-life enforcement works to reduce crime,” wrote Jack Maple, a primary architect of the approach during [William] Bratton’s first tour as police commissioner in the 1990s, “because it allows the cops to catch crooks when the crooks are off duty, like hitting the enemy planes while they’re still on the ground.”

On the issue of public urination, enforcement need not be evenhanded, according to Mr. Maple. In his 1999 memoir, “The Crime Fighter: Putting the Bad Guys Out of Business,” he wrote that “Wall Street analysts doing Jell-O shots” on Madison Avenue may be just as likely to urinate in public “as a crew of robbers drinking malt liquor” in East New York, Brooklyn. “But only one of those groups is likely to include somebody who’s relaxing after a long day of robbing,” he added, suggesting that officers should more heavily enforce the law in those areas.

Um, no. The drunk Wall Street analysts are very much likely to be "relaxing after a long day of robbing." I'd like to think we all understand that now, though probably not.

Public urination has become an issue here in the city because the New York Post has devoted two recent front pages to a homeless man caught relieving himself in public on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It's been noted that this is where Post editor Col Allan lives, which explains why he put a minimum of sixteen reporters on the story of one homeless guy whizzing. The irony is that Allan, as noted in a 2007 New York magazine profile by Lloyd Grove, has interesting bladder habits himself:

Allan likes to intimidate employees via public urination: “It was also at the Telegraph that he perfected his management techniques -- which included an unnerving alpha-dog habit of urinating in his office washbasin during editorial meetings. Today, Allan insists the washbasin was behind a closet door.”

Rupert Murdoch can't die soon enough.

I pulled the post titled "A Well-Informed Public." I got my facts wrong. I'll try to do better from now on.