29 October 2018

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.