Via Alex Leo’s twitter feed, and as transcribed over at GOS, presented for your lunchtime bemusement:
Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist
and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes,
OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart
—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if,
like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the
smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a
conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s
why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went
there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my
like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but
you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would
have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear
is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the
power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of
what’s going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?),
but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it
used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I
would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because,
you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter
right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about
another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are
great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.
OK, then.
Open thread.
Image: Pieter Breughel the Elder, The Tower of Babel, 1563.
Trentrunner
Somehow, having turned off word wrap on Trump’s quote and letting the hard returns break up the lines wrongly is the perfect metaphor for Trump’s “outside the box” thinking.
Who needs “norms” like automatic word wrap and clean margins? LOSERS, that’s who.
canuckistani
I always wondered who the Timecube guy was.
Ryan
I thought it was two. Two Corinthians, the hostages.
greennotGreen
We need a new applet for this blog, a single key that types:
“Wow. Just wow.”
Because we’ve got many more weeks to go, and none of us needs carpal tunnel syndrome.
Luthe
Wtf did I just read? Was that even English? Perhaps it was at one point until Trump waterboarded it into incoherence.
Tom Levenson
@Trentrunner: Yeah. The block quote didn’t like me this time so I messed around with it some. Wish I could claim more artistic intention…
Tom Levenson
@Luthe: I believe my man Jeff Chaucer’s on line one, demanding his language back.
Ryan
@Luthe: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
I guess what we have to determine is what counts as functioning. He was still standing and he was airing both thoughts simultaneously.
MattF
A little manicky?
Feebog
That’s like word salad put in a blender and set on frappe for five minutes. Whoa.
Jeffro
@Luthe: Palin in a Suit.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Trentrunner: That’s some mighty fine free verse.
bystander
@Ryan: And presumably he was breathing.
Speaking of which, do we even know if Melania still is?
Miss Bianca
wtf? what does all the above even mean? What is this guy trying to say? Can anyone find a through-line? It’s like Lucky’s speech from “Waiting for Godot” but way less coherent.
catclub
Proust’s sentences were long, but they could be parsed, and they actually went somewhere.
Enfant Terrible
What. Was. That?
Jeffro
@Feebog:
Maybe that’s why we haven’t seen much of Sarah Palin since her gobbledygook endorsement of Trump…either she’s envious of his truly world-class babble, or she’s like “…dang…I can’t support this clown…”
I mean, if you’re too dumb and/or incoherent for Sarah. Palin. you might want to go back to selling mail-order steaks…
Trentrunner
@Tom Levenson: Oh, sorry. Meant no disrespect. I just assume Trump put out the order to do away with all fancy elitist auto word wrap conspiracies on any of his quoted statements.
Mike in NC
Would say he’s lost his mind but its obvious it was never there in the first place. His best people need to look into that. Believe me, its sad!
catclub
@Jeffro:
Evidence for default favoritism for rich white males. Palin is FAR better qualified than Trump to be President.
Ben Cisco
Sweet Christmas, that was some authentic stream-of-consciousness gibberish. Sarah Palin looked at that and yelled, “COME ON MAN!”
ETA: Jeffro beat me to it.
Major Major Major Major
Nuclear is powerful!
ruemara
Is that real? I’m… aghast, if it is.
BC in Illinois
I really, really want to hear this sentence, read aloud by John Lithgow.
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/7qmvog/the-colbert-report-john-lithgow-performs-gingrich-press-release
vtr
Ok, diagram that sentence.
Mai.naem.mobile
I listened Trumps phoner CNBC this AM. They did not give him a verbal BJ but they weren’t tough either. Anyhoo,he sounded kind of defeated. It’s almost like he was looking for an exit ramp saying crazy stuff and he knows hes screwed up because he can’t win just with the crazies and he’s going to be humiliated. I really want scientists to study this guy’s brain when he dies even if its 30 years from now.
Ben Cisco
@vtr: With what?
Jeffro
@catclub:
Oh please. Trump hasn’t ever once winked at a camera that I’m aware of…
(I kid, I kid!)
catclub
@ruemara: I thought that came from his interview with the WaPo. IN which the transcript wasmuch scarier than anything they could write about it. Then the WaPo came out with an extremely shrill editorial saying that Trump is a danger to our democracy.
I was impressed.
Earl
One of the best things of this election has been watching Trump crap on John McCain, a genuine piece of shit. That McCain choosing Palin paved the way for Trump, and McCain is smart enough to know it, is just too beautiful for words. Sometimes you really do get to see karma in action.
Roger Moore
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
No, it really isn’t; it’s repetitive and lacks imagery.
sukabi
@Luthe: that my friend was word salad run thru an irritable bowel and splattered on the bathroom wall.
Jeffro
@Mai.naem.mobile:
Yes…and it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself that it’s the fault of everyone else, how things have gone lately. After all, didn’t his offensive babble win him all those primaries?!?
I have a funny feeling that pretty soon he’s going to start really training his (verbal) guns on any & every one in the GOP who’s not really ‘with him’, all those folks who, if they’d just gotten in line and shut up, would be helping him soar to victory over History’s Second-Greatest Monster. Should be an exciting end to an amazing summer!
Aimai
@Jeffro: we are already close to hitler, i mean trump, in the bunker.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Huh. He actually used “Persians” very, very properly. Haven’t heard that from anyone in this country since the late 70s/very early 80s.
Chyron HR
What I think Trump should do is, I think he should pretend he’s one of those deaf-mutes. That way he wouldn’t give any goddamn stupid insane speeches to anyone.
retiredeng
@Luthe: It appears to be stream of consciousness from the addled brain of a lunatic.
Major Major Major Major
@Ben Cisco: I’d probably use some sort of bleach.
nominus
That was a cool episode of House where the dude thought he was communicating normally but nothing but gibberish was coming out.
Omnes Omnibus
Now who can argue with that? I think we’re all indebted to Donald Trump for clearly stating what needed to be said. I’m particularly glad that these lovely children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.
Citizen_X
HAL made more sense with most of his logic circuits disabled.
JPL
How much will the RNC pay him to leave the stage gracefully?
@retiredeng: this Trump even believes his own gibberish.
David Rickard
Well, after reading… that, I now have a solid excuse for not getting any work done today. I haven’t suffered that much brain damage in that short a time since my last drinking contest in college.
ET
@Feebog: I didn’t understand a word of that either.
retiredeng
@Mai.naem.mobile: He’s 70. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see him stroke out before Labor Day.
shomi
Lol. So the Drumpf gaffe of the day is that he is calling Obama the founder of ISIS. Hahahaha. It just keeps getting better.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Consarn it!
You know your “Blazing Saddles” addiction is bad when all you have to see is “Now who can argue with that” before you start laughing.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Said it before, will say it again. I think the Great Orange Scrote is a rapid-cycling bipolar.
xenos
Trump is not spending money on ads, hw is not spending money on voter outreach. Is he just going to pocket the contributions, a la Pat Buchanan?
pamelabrown53
@Luthe:
ix-Nay on the ig-Pay.: Trump has superseded Pig Latin as the latest bastardized joke of the English language. How scary is it when Palin’s gibberish is more intelligible?.
Ben Cisco
@Major Major Major Major: Sulfuric acid.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Mai.naem.mobile:
A microscope that powerful? 30 years might be an ambitious timeline.
satby
@shomi: and repeating it with the added comment that Clinton was a cofounder and that ISIS will give her “the most valuable player” award.
He’s going to get somebody killed by September.
Villago Delenda Est
@shomi: Well, cause and effect is one of the missing skill sets of the wingtards. There would be no Daesh if it wasn’t for the deserting coward’s Mesopotamian adventure.
Miss Bianca
@srv: you’re really just phoning it in now, aren’t you? Sad!
Tom Levenson
@Trentrunner: No worries. I just wish I were as clever as bad formatting might have made me seem ;-)
Villago Delenda Est
@Ultraviolet Thunder: The microscope could be calibrated first by searching for his fingers.
Villago Delenda Est
@Miss Bianca: The heat of the dumpster fire is so great now that srv can no longer pretend there isn’t a dumpster fire.
Monala
Can I just say how frustrated I am that certain falsehoods have become conventional wisdom? For instance, that somehow Hillary Clinton is responsible for NAFTA and hence the decline of the middle class. (See: Jill Stein commercial blaming her for depressed former factory towns). This ignores the following:
1) Manufacturing was declining long before NAFTA.
2) Union membership has a big part to play in the decline of the middle class, and that is to Reagan’s policies.
3) NAFTA was developed and negotiated by George HW Bush.!!
4) Bill Clinton signed it into law, but only because HW’s time in office ran out. And before B. Clinton signed it, he added workers’ protections and environmental protections to it.
5) And furthermore, Hillary was not in office and thus bears no responsibility for NAFTA.
FlipYrWhig
@satby: Holy cow, he’s stealing my bit!
Barbara
@Earl: As long as the action is short lived I am willing to watch this particular karma.
Carl W
@vtr: Your wish is Lucy Ferriss’s command! Check out Diagramming Trump
Major Major Major Major
@srv: @Miss Bianca: I saw a thing the other day that the morpheme density of popular tweets is actually crazy high and the writing quite good. The 140-character limit forces you to, in the words of Strunk & White, omit needless words.
Gin & Tonic
Just in case his comments were unclear:
This from Google News, but I’m not clicking further.
Davis X. Machina
All those monkeys who are usually in that room typing Shakespeare seem to have been seconded to the Trump campaign for the duration…
FlipYrWhig
@Monala: Agreed. For instance:
schrodinger's cat
This is sad, you know only one language, yet you fail to make sense in it.
Betty Cracker
The Democrats should make the first 60 seconds of that clip an ad. No commentary, just that one minute of stream-of-consciousness self-congratulations and bafflegab, followed by, “I’m Hillary Clinton, and I approve this message, because this man clearly isn’t fit to run a condo association, let alone a superpower.” Boom.
RandomMonster
That word salad practically makes Palin sound like Cicero.
Roger Moore
@xenos:
Of course not. He’s going to spend them hiring his relatives and cronies and renting Trump properties. Don’t be surprised if his campaign winds up deep in debt- he loves debt, you know- from all that spending.
Poopyman
Double down, always double down. There’s no other way.
Gone by Labor Day. Mark it.
Roger Moore
@Ben Cisco:
Thermite. Even better, dust off and nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Ultraviolet Thunder
You know, I wished for this candidacy and rubbed my hands with glee when he announced.
I admit here publically that I’m an idiot and I was wrong.
Adrienne
I would like to see a William Shatner dramatic reading of this, please.
Mnemosyne
Folks, we haven’t even gotten to the debates yet. And there are supposed to be three of them.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
JPL
@Carl W: That’s amazing, but do we know if it is correct?
Roger Moore
@Monala:
It goes back a lot further than Reagan. Repeal Taft/Hartley!
Miss Bianca
@Monala: What is it with this logic shit you’re trying to propagate? That’s no way to behave!
inventor
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s exactly it. Notice the conflation of reality and fantasy along with the vague hope that in a post-apocalyptic America, he, and his kind will be on top.
As the despair and fantasy whirl uncontrollably in his mind, I imagine he can only barely hear his mother upstairs yelling: “Why don’t you get out of the basement and go find a job!!!!”
Carl W
@Major Major Major Major: Obligatory xkcd
Percysowner
Steve King has just said that if he gets reelected that he can work with Hillary Clinton, if you know, she HAPPENS to get elected. That really shows which way the wind is blowing. Plus confirms that she’s white.
Peale
@Gin & Tonic: I think its time to drop the 2nd amendment solutions flap and move directly to this accusation. This is what I want Ryan to answer for today.
singfoom
@Monala:I have seen the rust belt. I have looked into that midwestern heart of darkness. The internet was not as prevalent in the early 90s (it did exist, I was on BBS systems). So we don’t have the youtube video of Hillary and Bill gleefully cackling as they knocked down factory after factory with their own pair of Caterpillar excavators repainted in USSR red & yellow along Socialist Realism styling lines.
I was there, when Bill and Hillary strangled the Air Traffic controllers union in the early 80s. I was there, when Bill and Hillary closed the General Motors plant in Flint Michigan in 1992. I was there, when Bill and Hillary gave chemical weapon precursors to Saddam Hussein (that image of Rumsfeld is fake.) I was there….
h/t to James Murphy
Sorry, the wall of Drumpf text just inspired me. And we all know that HRC is history’s biggest monster, guilty of so many crimes against the US citizenry. /s
schrodinger's cat
Tower of Babel is even bettah with a fat cat, an orange Russian fat cat.
MattF
@Mnemosyne: I will put actual money on the proposition that there won’t be any Presidential debates. Trump will make some demand about the moderators, the debate commission will say ‘No’, and that will be that.
Ben Cisco
@Roger Moore: “Game OVER, Man! GAME OVER!”
Matt McIrvin
@Monala: Hillary Clinton is basically being treated as an incumbent/former President. Which has its advantages and disadvantages.
nominus
@Monala: in the goldfish mind of the wingnuts, Obama and Hillary have been alternating as president since Reagan’s direct ascension to heaven
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom: I heard if you go to Mena, Arkansas you can still see those actual bulldozers!
Major Major Major Major
@Carl W: Obligatory blog post I wrote
Ben Cisco
@efgoldman: I’m reading the rest of this thread from under my desk for exactly that reason.
Bill E Pilgrim
Needs more “such as”. Otherwise perfect.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@MattF:
“Three FOX News debates, prime time, I phone in on a 20 foot monitor. That’s my last offer.”
catclub
@efgoldman: Now look at how much more qualified Hillary is than Palin (just in order to be considered serious) and you can see that electing a woman is a huge deal. Hillary is so qualified that it is not even being brought up.
Face
@Poopyman: Gone where? By whom and what army? You think this clown is self-aware enough to know he’s losing? No chance. And by not realizing he’s losing, there’s zilch chance he backs out.
Matt McIrvin
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Trump’s brain is enormous! It’s a solid block of plaster spray-painted gold with TRUMP written on it in huge embossed letters.
Major Major Major Major
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I saw a headline today about Trump complaining that the moderator has to be fair, or impartial, or something. I didn’t read the article.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I gotta get on a plane. Have a good day, all.
Fair Economist
@catclub: I’d agree that Palin 2008 is more suitable to be President than Trump 2016. But I think she’s deteriorated since. She seems much more word salad-y than she was in the 2008 campaign. She was a pathological liar in 2008 but at least she usually made sense.
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
That’s actually quite likely. If he does announce that, I hope that that the debate commission won’t chicken out and cancel the whole thing so that Hillary’s campaign can say that she will show up ready to answer all of the moderators’ questions that night.
Also, doing that would make the Pence/Kaine debate fucking EPIC! There’s no way that Kaine wouldn’t be working Donnie’s cowardice into each and every response as Pence squirms on camera.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Apparently it’s contagious.
Though not entirely certain which was the carrier.
Note: This isn’t the contestant responsible for “such as”, but it is the one responsible for “opposite marriage”.
Joy in FL
It is beyond my comprehension how anyone can listen to Trump for more than a few sentences without deciding that he has nothing to say that is worth listening to. Even the poorly educated, and I do not mean that disrespectfully. Poorly educated people are often not stupid, rather just poorly educated.
I wonder if Hillary’s hardest problem in a debate will be to refrain from merely mocking him as the ignorant narcissist that he is. It would be so tempting, I think.
Tom Levenson
@Mnemosyne: Hmmm. My bet is that if Trump bails, so does Pence. Can’t see how the Veep-aspirant can show up for a rigged, unfair, corrupt debate when the top of the ticket has refused to capitulate to the pathetic requests of failing media.
Fair Economist
@Percysowner:
Does he think anybody will believe that? McConnell and Ryan could work with Clinton, if they chose to. Steve King couldn’t, unless his nutcase behavior has all been an act.
Jeffro
@Roger Moore:
I believe he’s already doing this…several very large bills for “renting” Mar-a-Largo already came to light this spring, back before El Trumpador really stepped on the crazy pedal…
singfoom
If Trump refuses to debate, maybe they can get a cardboard cut out of him made and some canned audio? So HRC can debate his “positions”? I doubt the Commission on Presidential elections would allow it.
Can he even weasel out of the debates? I mean, it’s technically possible, but there’s no way I can see that that doesn’t make him look weaker and worse than he already is. He hates being perceived as weak, but maybe he’ll be able to spin it somehow.
Ben Cisco
@srv: I had been unaware of this until your post; thanks for letting me know.
Bill E Pilgrim
@srv: Future zero-gravity road sign: “Next Gas: 736 Million Miles”
catclub
@Mnemosyne:
This would not go well. ALL of the questions would be Benghazi and emailgate.
Part of why Hillary looks good is the compare and contrast with Trump. Her negatives are the highest ever for a candidate – except Trump.
retiredeng
@Joy in FL: His audience hears “blah, blah, blah, Hillary Clinton bad, blah, blah, blah, Obama Muslim, blah, blah, blah.” Not unlike your dog or cat. Except your pets are more intelligent.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
Which was, of course, the actual point of the famous SNL sketch that gave us the immortal line, “I can see Russia from my house!”
MattF
@singfoom: Trump has no interest in a ‘debate’ that he can’t dominate. His overriding goal would be to make the commission submit to his demands. And they won’t.
germy
catclub
@Bill E Pilgrim: But it will be a gas giant.
peach flavored shampoo
Which means whomever is picked, and I mean whomever outside of Sean Hannity, will be unfair and partial. Everyone and anyone, because they were chosen by a Clinton think tank and work for the librul media and wear clothes and breath air and appear to speak English, and more reasons involving heritage and bleeding whatevers. That will “force” him to avoid the “rigged” debates.
kdaug
@Citizen_X: Daisy, Dai…sy
Bill E Pilgrim
@catclub: Oooh nice.
Ran rings around me with that one.
Keith P.
@peach flavored shampoo: When is someone going to ask Trump what is definition of “fair” specifically is.?
jl
Bob Woodward: ass.
Bob Woodward: ‘Excessive Rhetoric’ From Clinton Backers Is ‘Feeding’ Trump
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bob-woodward-excessive-rhetoric-feeding-trump
A lot more interesting news at TPM blog. Secret Service probably getting a bulk discount on psych therapy and stress management for the Trump detail: they had to protect a reporter after Trump ID’d her for personal retribution at a rally a while ago. Trump staffers seem to think pulling guns on each other is a good way to settle arguments.
scav
Little data point to throw into the mix. Ticks the International relations, basic respect for laws and regulations, electronic data privacy, strong-arm tactics, whoops maybe another lawsuit boxes at the very least. Trump’s Scottish golf resort admits breaching data protection law.
I mean, going for lawsuits in multiple countries for a candidate is possibly a new record. America is going to be soooo great.
p.a.
Faulkner could have used Trump’s monologue in The Sound and the Fury.
jl
@Keith P.:
” When is someone going to ask Trump what is definition of “fair” specifically is.? ”
That would be a rhetorical question. ‘Fair’ always means that Trump wins.
Lurking Canadian
Somebody needs to ask him if English is his first language.
Frankensteinbeck
I disagree with comments likening this to Palin’s word salad. Palin strings catchphrases together with no rhyme or reason. There is a consistent theme and process here. It seems like gibberish because A) The vast majority of the content is repetitive filler, and B) The information conveyed is dumb as shit, kindergarten level. He wants you to know that the Iranians totally outwitted Hillary and Obama, that he would do better because he’s one of the smartest people in the world and an expert on nuclear stuff thanks to his uncle, and that this is all very important.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
So? Hillary spent 13 hours answering Benghazi questions in the House and came out smelling like a rose. She’s not a soundbite candidate, she’s a long-form candidate. I’d be happy to see her take an hour to explain at length why Benghazi and Emailgate are bogus.
And yet before she announced she was running for president, she had very low negatives and frequently topped lists of the country’s most admired women. Almost like there’s a dynamic behind those numbers that doesn’t have anything to do with Hillary the person.
ETA: Here are the numbers from Politifact. Her numbers consistently go down when she runs for office and go back up once she wins. It’s a pattern that’s held true for at least 15 years.
Brachiator
@Monala:
The problem with your post is that it contains too many facts, too much logic, too much common sense.
Neither Trump supporters nor Jill Stein acolytes could ever deal with it.
germy
If Corey Lewandowski and Sean Hannity aren’t the moderators, he’ll refuse to show up for the debates.
Ghost of Joe Liebling's Dog
Oh, fuck me sideways — that’s NOT a parody?!?
Major Major Major Major
@srv: lucha libre‘s had gay characters for years.
Mike in NC
@xenos:
The Brinks trucks are backing up to the Kremlin.
jl
@Frankensteinbeck: Palin uses marketing to sell a product that she understands is distinct from her. And I suspect that she is smart and self-aware enough to understand what she is doing (when she shows up sober). That is relative to Trump of course, which is a very low bar for smart and self-aware.. Trump IS marketing. And the product is Trump, the best product ever! Genius, GREAT DEALZ, winner. Maybe that is the difference?
Miss Bianca
@p.a.: particularly when you consider the origin of the title:
WS, Macbeth, Act Five, Scene Five
jl
@Mike in NC: Will Trump stiff as many of his campaign venders as Lil’ Newtie does? That is another good question. The location of moral center of the Serious Daddy Party is an interesting question.
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca: Well, yes, that’s why Faulkner named it that :P
Roger Moore
@jl:
I think there’s some truth buried in there. Clinton’s surrogates- and Clinton herself on occasion- are deliberately goading Trump to try to get him to act unhinged. I just don’t see that this is an unreasonable campaign strategy. Showing that Trump is a loose cannon who can easily be provoked into stupidity is providing voters with important information that should affect their choice in November.
retiredeng
@Mnemosyne: Are there real statistics on Hillary Clinton’s approval? Or is it that the media has just assumed that her ratings are low? Why did she become so unpopular now?
Iowa Old Lady
I spent years reading convoluted academic prose, and I can’t read what Trump said. My brain bounces off, probably as an act of self-preservation.
jl
@germy:
” If Corey Lewandowski and Sean Hannity aren’t the moderators, he’ll refuse to show up for the debates. ”
I wonder if even Hugh Hewitt would be acceptable. He spouts loser crap he claims to be facts, whatever they are, and hence can be unfair, very unfair.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: Faulkner was writing about Trump?
Major Major Major Major
@retiredeng: Women get unpopular when they ask for stuff–power, promotions… equal rights… There’s experimental evidence of this.
nominus
As usual, Stonekettle redirects the concept of “Fair” – it applies to the debate topic as well. Can’t figure out how to link an FB post:
Mnemosyne
@retiredeng:
I added a link above. Short version is, her approval ratings go down while she’s running for office and go back up once she’s actually in office. Almost like there’s some kind of reason that people decide they suddenly dislike a woman who’s asking for power …. hmmm, what could that reason possibly be …. such a mystery.
bemused
CNN is airing Hillary’s entire speech.
Keith P.
@jl: I’d still like to hear him say it on camera.
jl
@Roger Moore:
I don’t there is any truth behind what Woodward, who has become a complete ass, said
“I think it’s got to be said this is not just about Trump,” Woodward said in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “A lot of the people who really are opposed to Trump, I think, are engaged in some excessive rhetoric also.”
(From my link)
The most charitable interpretation I can make for Woodward’s drivel is that in some sense, HRC and Democrats have used ‘excessive’ rhetoric in calling Trump unfit and irresponsible, unprepared and ignorant, after Trump has said irresponsible ignorant things that show he is unprepared and unfit for the office of president.
Woodward seems to be trying out Howard Kurtz’ job. Kurtz was shocked into responding honestly, for brief moments, to some of Trump’s BS. Maybe Kurtz’ proved himself not disciplined enough for Fox News and is on his way out. They want to step up to a worthless hack with iron discipline, like Woodward?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Miss Bianca: Actually I’ve noticed that Trump uses a trick not unlike the Marc Antony speech in Julius Caesar, “now, Brutus is an honorable man!” intermingled with hints and more direct accusations that he’s an evil bastard who assassinated the beloved leader of the crowd that Antony is stirring up to go find Brutus and kill him.
“And I’m sure some of them are good people” after implying that all Mexican immigrants were rapists was one example but he’s done it more blatantly other times, saying someone is “a good man” and then adding that of course he’s possibly or probably a terrorist, you know, “just saying”.
I’m not granting Trump the oratorical skills of the Marc Antony character or of Shakespeare mind you, so the idea can only go so far, but the disingenious quality struck me as similar, in Trump’s case mixed with smarminess and incoherence.
Frankensteinbeck
@jl:
While I believe Palin is dumber than a stump, I do think you’re right. She’s an active grifter who spews free-association talking points because she’s specifically trying to say what the marks want to hear, and she’s not smart enough to absorb anything more complicated. Of course, the Republican base LIKES that. And Trump is just talking about his favorite subject, how great he is.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog:
Nope. Here’s the C-SPAN video clip of him saying it.
tobie
@bemused: I’m at work so I can’t watch it but will look when I get home. Glad to see that CNN has interrupted its usual programming to air a speech by Clinton. Haven’t seen this in quite some time.
jl
@srv: Trump has been throwing left hooks from time to time for quite a while. And Krugman knows this very well. You need to up your trolling.
The left hook disappear for a month or two, and be replaced with a flurry of right crosses after the big GOP donors and RNC politely ask (that is, threaten to stop funding and organizational support) Trump to drop the commie talk.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: @retiredeng: Here’s one of the studies about it
Mike J
The voter suppression law in Wisconsin restored by appeals court. Can we get an en banc ruling quick?
Jeffro
Yesterday I mentioned that Trump appeared to be the love child of Alex Jones and Alex Jones. I’d like to amend that. He appears to be the love child of a three-way between Alex Jones, Sarah Palin, and Lloyd Christmas. I’ll update this ‘formula’ as events warrant.
jl
@Frankensteinbeck: Talking about the smarts and self-awareness of people like Plain and Trump is like talking about the metabolism of alien life forms, or things that live in rocks far below the surface of the earth. So different from what most of us are familiar with.
Palin has more ‘real life’ smarts and self-awareness. She did have to grow up and gain initial success on her own. She had no gazillionaire daddy to give her everything. It is obvious that Trump learned, understood, and retained, some basic real estate finance rules of thumb from his business and schooling. That may be one of his few contact points with the reality that the rest of us recognize. Sadly, with Trump, this one field he might know something about blends into his mindset of seeing everything in terms of rent extraction and shakedown schemes.
Edit: though whether Trump understands the real world implications of his basic finance knowledge, and can plan consistently enough to put it to good use is another question. His bankruptcies don’t look so mysterious or anything like good, if sharp, business practice after reading what kind of debt burdens he thought some of his projects could service.
Major Major Major Major
From el husbo:
Villago Delenda Est
@CONGRATULATIONS!: He’s going for the 300 voting block.
eric
@srv: I CANNOT FUCKING WAIT FOR THIS! please tell me this is not a joke. Trump has me so gullible now i will believe anything. “Oh my god…wait, is that ABBA; oh my god, it is, here he comes…….”Dancing Queen.”
bemused
@tobie:
I didn’t think the cable news shows had either but I haven’t watched them enough to know either. I hope this continues. What a contrast from Trump. That goes without saying but it’s as if you are in a dark, frightening place filled with menacing people shouting in an indecipherable languages, deafening noise all around you and trying to get out when you suddenly find an exit and there is a room with light, people talking in normal, calm tones and it feels safe and welcoming. That could have been a nightmare I had last night.
Iowa Old Lady
@Major Major Major Major: You see this in jokes or cartoons that show HRC as desperate for the presidency. She’s showing an unseemly desire for power and must be mocked for it.
Trollhattan
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
For the first few weeks when it was still very much a Trump vanity exploit and he was saying out loud the things Republicans say either in code or quietly amongst themselves, when he was pointing out Bush didn’t protect us on 9/11, I was having the time of my life while betting on which gaffe would torpedo the good ship Donny. Little did I understand how weak the Republican establishment actually is. Now we’re all aghast at the non-zero possibility of President Trump. And by “we” I mean the entire globe.
Schlemazel
From America’s finest news source Paul Ryan: ‘The Comments Donald Trump Will Make Over The Next Few Months Are Regretable
http://www.theonion.com/article/paul-ryan-comments-donald-trump-will-make-over-nex-53457
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
Exactly. But some people are as willfully blind to the gender dynamics as they were to the racial dynamics of Obama’s run in 2008.
mike in dc
@Mnemosyne:
If Trump “wins” the first debate, there won’t be any further debates. If Trump loses the first debate badly, there also won’t be any further debates. So, realistically, there may be only one debate, plus the VP debate.
Pogonip
Scott Adams now says that Trump has shot himself in the foot.
The Trump supporters I know have an exaggerated ideaof what a president can do (on his own, not a whole lot outside of foreign policy). Our conversations go like this:
TRUMPER: Trump will [do this good thing]!
ME: No, he won’t. The political class hates Trump. He could come out in favor of apple pie and the flag and Congress would pass a bipartisan resolution condemning those things.
TRUMPER: If we all vote for him, they’ll have to cooperate!
At which point I smile politely and wonder if they’ve ever heard of President Obama, who has spent 8 years struggling to get Congress to do its job, with limited success. A President Trump would have it 100 times worse. The Trumpers don’t want a president, they want a king.
D58826
@Roger Moore: True. After all he doesn’t have to take the bait but he always does.
BR
@Betty Cracker:
Is there a link to the video of this somewhere?
Betty Cracker
@BR: Yes — the Twitter link in Tom’s post will take you there.
ETA: Or use this: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4546796/donald-trump-sentence
Tee
@xenos: Doesn’t have to spend money on ads, MSM publishes whatever he babbles out. #NoTrumpTV refuse to watch any channel that doesn’t just say, “Trump had a rally at x location, x number attended.” That way if anyone cares enough to want to know what he is saying they can either attend a rally or look up his website or talk to a campaign volunteer/staffer. Oh wait rallies are dangerous if you look “other” or are a reporter, there is no “there” there on his website and he is losing volunteers/staffers left right and center so maybe he can wither on the vine until November.
jl
@Iowa Old Lady:
” You see this in jokes or cartoons that show HRC as desperate for the presidency. She’s showing an unseemly desire for power and must be mocked for it. ”
Probably true. I think that GOP propaganda pushes the story line.
I think it might be true that HRC in an odd sense is ‘too ambitious’ for presidency for her own good, and maybe her ambition sometimes gets in her way and she hurts herself. She is too goal oriented to be herself sometimes. In that way, I think she is like Al Gore. Which worries me because I think that played a big role in his defeat. That is just my personal opinion, and I might be totally off base. But I don’t see how that says anything about HRC’s nature as person in other respects.
Edit: point being is that is one reason the jokes work in places like SNL, and why they can be so dangerous in malicious GOP propaganda, and as broadcast through the sexist, lazy and mindless media BS machine.
But, I think a lot of people do paint her entire being in terms of what they perceive as the ugliness of high ambition in a woman.
Frankensteinbeck
@jl:
Not entirely true. By her own grifting skills, she was able to become governor of a state with a population about the same as a medium size city. That is not inconsequential. But she was rapidly self-destructing when she had her sugar daddy moment. Getting picked by McCain, the money poured on her since, those were not her achievements. She won the lottery as the lucky idiot chosen to be Token Conservative Female. Her fortune is based entirely on other people using her as a figurehead, which she has demonstrated time and again she’s not very good at. I will never get over that she was invited to be the guest of honor at a (fashion, I think?) show, and brought her family in to strip the green room, stealing everything, when if she’d waited a couple of hours it would all have been given to her voluntarily. The organizers were offended and surprised.
Patricia Kayden
@Luthe: It’s scary that anyone would believe that someone who talks like that is fit to be President. Trump is an imbecile. I know that he couldn’t explain what we just read and neither could his supporters/enablers.
Go Hillary!!
BR
@Betty Cracker:
Nice. Yes, your idea is great — maybe someone here has the video skills to make a cut of the video and get it out there on youtube and spread via the twitter machine?
Major Major Major Major
@jl: Hillary Clinton Is Too Ambitious To Be The First Female President
FlipYrWhig
@Pogonip: It’s not only Trumplings who think that way. Part of the whole ITS ALL RIGGED narrative is that politics is mostly a bunch of obvious good things to do that aren’t being done, even though they’re great and everyone would love them, because of corruption. So the solution is to elect someone with a big mouth who isn’t corrupt and, like, _shame_ the corrupt ones into doing the Obvious Good Thing.
jl
@Frankensteinbeck: I don’t think Palin stays as sober as often as she used to.
jl
@Major Major Major Major: A lot of people seem to think that way about HRC. What is nuts is they tend to admire similar ambition in a man. What puzzles me is how they think a person can be so completely characterized by their ambition.
Whether great ambition is good thing or not depends on other characteristics of a person. What other great or strong character traits influence that ambition. It shouldn’t drive everything else you think about a person.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: You did catch the source, right?
FlipYrWhig
@jl: “The thing I don’t like about Michael Phelps is that he just cares SO MUCH about swimming.”
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Never forget, Al Gore actually WON the popular vote in 2000 by about half a million votes. It was the Supreme Court that handed the presidency to George W Bush. So I don’t think that policy wonks are as unpopular with the broader population as you seem to think.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
There are times when the Onion is kidding on the square, and that’s one of them.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: It’s amazing. They strike again, just barely ahead of some dipshit writing in National Socialist Review or the Weakly Standard
Major Major Major Major
@Villago Delenda Est: It’s from 2006, lol. That may be the funniest part. Plus ça change…
FlipYrWhig
I had never heard of this John Trump before, but apparently Donald invokes him a lot. Here’s Amy Davidson writing about it in the New Yorker in April.
jl
@Major Major Major Major: Sure did. Doesn’t mean the underlying message ain’t true.
@Mnemosyne: True. But I think like a sports fan there. Gore should have been ahead by so far that a corrupt and reactionary Supreme Court should have been irrelevant. I could go on and compare the Gore v Dub title bout to the horrid tragedy of this year’s NBA finals, I suppose. Except that that the Warriors had a slightly better excuse than Gore did.
Edit: what I am saying is that I don’t think Gore’s wonkiness was the problem, it was his inability to handle his ambition in a way that it would not interfere with his campaign. IMHO, HRC might have a similar problem.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: Hillary has a demonstrated capacity to listen and change. I imagine that this applies to her campaign decisions as well. She certainly has some personality defects, and at the end of the day she’s the one making the decisions, but I don’t think ambition is one of them. I think we’ve been spoiled by Obama’s displays of humility, however true they may actually be.
Trollhattan
@jl:
What’s really in that big gulp?
jl
@Major Major Major Major: Fair enough. Maybe I am not thinking about sheer level of ambition in and of itself, but an odd mismatch between ambition and a certain kind of self-confidence being the similarity between HRC and Gore.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: There are few among us who do not have personality defects. It’s just that hers are, well, greatly exaggerated, while Teh Donald’s are fairly obvious if you have two synapses firing, which the Drumpfenproletariat is infamous for lacking.
Roger Moore
@Trollhattan:
Not as much thorazine as there ought to be.
schrodinger's cat
@FlipYrWhig: What of it? My uncle was a well regarded architect, doesn’t mean I can design buildings.
Major Major Major Major
@Villago Delenda Est: Oh, certainly. It’s just that her personality defects are in the popular imagination blown up to apocalyptic proportions for… ahem… some unknown reason…
SiubhanDuinne
@BR:
Yes. I linked it @154.
Berial
Has Trump been sleeping, because that sounds like the steam of consciousness you’d get out of someone that hasn’t slept in a week.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
IQ is somewhat heritable, but not nearly as much as some people seem to think.
jl
@Berial: I’ve read that night time is twitter time for Trump. That is when he is truly awake to, and basks in, his own reality.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: True, but not knowledge of a specific discipline. In this case, physics as Trump seems to be claiming.
Miss Bianca
@Pogonip:
Whoa, stop the presses! Trump’s gone too far for SCOTT ADAMS??
@Major Major Major Major: Is this a fucking joke?
Brachiator
@jl:
I don’t quite see this the same way. I don’t think that Gore really wanted to be president. It was just part of the expectation of a political family. He did not seem to have that fire in the belly.
Clinton seems to want to be president. And sometimes people act as though a woman president would be the first woman political leader ever, but I read that Theresa May always wanted to be the first woman Prime Minister, from a very young age. Thatcher beat her to it, but May’s ambition was always there.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
Trump has a fetish about genes and achievement, especially with respect to Obama.
This has fueled his birtherism.
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: Both of Obama’s parents were smart with PhDs, no less. Didn’t Obama Sr get a scholarship to go to Harvard for his PhD?
Applejinx
@srv: Random acquisition of truth among the gibberish. Clinton will be doing likewise, thanks Mr Cheeto for normalizing this position.
Of course this is rank apostacy among Republicans. The Raging Cheeto obeys no rules, stands to reason he’ll occasionally violate ‘common wisdom’ that is utter bullshit. OF COURSE we need to reinvest in infrastructure, OF COURSE now is the time to do that. For a change he’s not wrong.
The Lodger
@Betty Cracker: “I’m Hillary Clinton, and I can’t even begin to understand this message.”
Steve in the ATL
@Brachiator:
I disagree. I grew up in Tennessee and he used to come to our house every election cycle looking for money. He really, really wanted to be president, and IMHO would have been a great one.
jl
@Brachiator: Trump is true, down to the marrow of his bones, classic white bigot. We can wonder what other parts of his schtick are PR marketing BS for the campaign. But he is a bigot, a narcissist and has a natural entitled con man mindset. I think we see the true Trump in those three respects.
He is such a true bigot, I think he simply cannot imagine (at all, not even a little) other white people think any differently than he does. If they disagree or are aghast, he can only imagine they are faking it for the sake of PC appearances. Therefore, he thinks these white people are cowards, timid, and natural born losers.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
He got a scholarship to get a PhD, but he only earned a MA. Still, it’s not as if Obama’s parents were a couple of low-achieving dunderheads. Only a toxic combination of prejudice and ignorance could convince somebody Obama is genetically stupid.
Redshift
@Roger Moore:
QFT
NorthLeft12
You know, with Obama, and soon Hillary Clinton, it will be said that any American can be President. I also think that Donald Trump also represents a few groups of people who normally would never have a chance to become President; the ignorant, the illiterate, the foolish, and the ridiculous.
BTW, Der Donald is a bigoted, pathetic loser.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: It seems he invokes John Trump fairly frequently to sustain claims that (1) all Trumps are very smart, (2) nuclear science can be dangerous. It’s apparently a tried and true riff he does: his uncle was a professor at MIT and he went to Wharton so he’s very smart so when he tells you there’s something you need to know then you should know it. My point wasn’t that it was something _worth_ saying, but instead that it’s rather odd that despite the riff’s meaninglessness _he says it a lot_.
schrodinger's cat
@FlipYrWhig: Also too, Donald is wrong about people not knowing how dangerous radioactivity was. The scientists knew, the top brass knew, may be the grunts dd not know. Why else did the US commission the Manhattan project.
ETA: I may be no architect but I did write my master’s thesis on ionization following beta decay.
schrodinger's cat
@FlipYrWhig: Also too, Donald is wrong about people not knowing how dangerous radioactivity was. The scientists knew, the top brass knew, may be the grunts dd not know. Why else did the US commission the Manhattan project.
ETA: I may be no architect but I did write my master’s thesis on ionization following beta decay.
jl
@NorthLeft12: Someone once wrote ‘anyone can become president, and usually does’. I suppose if you take Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Trump together, that illustrates the point.
Ben Cisco
@nominus: Here’s the link.
Ben Cisco
@nominus: I tried to post the link – edited it and everything. If any of the mods could help please…
Lurking Canadian
@Mnemosyne: Here’s where my inner pedant jumps up to maintain that the popular vote is not relevant. There is an argument that Gore would have won a full and fair recount in Florida, but I’m not familiar enough with it to evaluate it.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: Also, it just dawned on me that he’s boasting that via his clever uncle he had insider knowledge of the power of nukes in… 1981? Some early adopter. The story kind of makes you think it was a conversation like in The Graduate, and Professor John Trump says to the young ingenue, “Donnie, one word, ‘nukes.'”
OGLiberal
@CONGRATULATIONS!: The only thing the man knows is wheeling and dealing so he’s probably read up on the bazaaris.
horatius
@Frankensteinbeck: Thank your for translating it. I don’t speak stupid.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat: …
Race. Trump thinks he is superior to Obama because Obama is black. Trump thinks his children are superior. Facts don’t matter. Obama’s grades must be fake.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
As everyone else has said, Trump thinks he’s smarter than Obama because of the color of their respective skins. Period. He tries to bolster it with the my uncle was a nookylear scientist guy, so I iz smart, too!, but really his core belief is that he’s automatically smart because he’s white.
Uncle Cosmo
@Fair Economist: SK could work with HRC when it comes to naming post offices. Maybe. Beyond that, fuggedaboutit.
sukabi
@jl: the political media had their thumbs on the scales so much it wasn’t funny. From dissecting Gores choices of colors, to misconstruing comments he made, while simultaneously fluffing, primping and cleaning up Bush’s speches so they were coherent it wasn’t funny. Gore’s biggest mistake was running away from the Clinton years and picking fucking Lieberman as his running mate.
daves09
@Poopyman: Trump will just slowly fade, very, very busy, lotsa deals, great deals, no time, what, hey never said I was running for, losers,hillary’s a loser crooked hillary, I won, just ask, people are saying, hey Donald, you already won, take a rest, vacation , the greatest just the greatest, some deals, sad, very sad.
At some point he’ll just stop being there.
Roger Moore
@Uncle Cosmo:
I’m sure that Hillary will be happy to accept his vote for the legislation she proposes.
JustRuss
@Poopyman: I know this is splitting hairs in a burning building during a tornado, but how can you have two Most Valuable Players?
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: He is a legend in his own mind. Sad.
FlipYrWhig
@JustRuss: It happened in the National League in 1979: Keith Hernandez and Willie Stargell.
J R in WV
@catclub:
I read that editorial, and it wasn’t shrill at all. It was cold facts about and and quotes from Trump the candidate, leading logically to his complete incompetence and lack of qualifications to become president.
Shrill is your comment, not the WaPo editorial in question.
ETA more clarity.
Brachiator
@Steve in the ATL: RE: I don’t think that Gore really wanted to be president. It was just part of the expectation of a political family. He did not seem to have that fire in the belly.
Interesting. I understand your observations here. Makes sense. I agree that Gore would have been a better president. It is sad that the election was essentially stolen from here. So much pain might have been avoided.