TWO PRESIDENTS
One could write volumes about
Donald Trump. But long tracts are sometimes not as effective as powerful
snapshots, so I offer one here.
A recent TV program had a
60-second segment that made me cry. When I described it Pinks this morning, I
got teary again.
The reporter offered up a
comparison of how two Presidents responded to terror attacks in the United
States.
First was Donald Trump, who
made three statements about the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre of eleven
congregants at a shabat service.
The first statement was an unscripted one, on
the tarmac at Andrews, en route to one of his rallies. In those remarks, Trump channelled an
NRA theme: he said that "if the Pittsburgh synagogue had had protection,
the result might have been different."
Second, he refused to cancel his
rally for later that day, joking "I could always say I had a bad hair day." He also defended his decision by saying professional baseball was played the night of the 9/11 attack. That was an outright false statement. At the start of the rally, he read from a teleprompter and called upon the
country to "unify," and "reject anti-semitism" -- a script that the media reported was written by his
daughter and son-in-law.
Third, he progressed into the political part of his rally. He condemned Hillary Clinton and Maxine Waters (both of whom had received pipe bombs in the mail earlier in the week.) His audience enthusiastically responded with "Lock Her Up" while the President of the United States stood
there smiling and silently encouraged the crowd go on and on with the divisive chant.
The comparison was a talk
given by President Barack Obama three years earlier at a black church in
Charleston, South Carolina, where Dylan Roof had shot and killed ten
congregants and their Pastor, Clementa Pinkney. The victims had been attending
a bible study session. Obama took to the
podium at the service for Rev. Pinkney. Here is a segment of his eulogy:
Warning, before you click on
this, get out your handkerchief.
A bientot.
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