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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Trump Hiding Behind A SEAL’s Death: Possibly The Nadir in A Speech Full of Lows

Trump Hiding Behind A SEAL’s Death: Possibly The Nadir in A Speech Full of Lows

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From the Guardian:

… In attendance tonight is Carryn Owens, the widow of a US Navy Special Operator, Senior Chief William “Ryan” Owens, who died in a raid in Yemen in January, shortly after Trump’s inauguration…

Carryn Owens is in tears as the Chamber gives her and her late husband a standing ovation.

Trump notes that the clapping just “broke a record” because it went so long.

“Ryan laid down his life for his friends, for his country, and for our freedom –- we will never forget Ryan,” says Trump…

Earlier today:

Reader Interactions

103Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    I guess I’m curious if the widow believes in Trump or felt like she had to be there because the president asked her to honor her husband.

  5. 5.

    Renie

    trump has no class at all

    he gets her husband killed in a reckless raid and then tries to score points by bringing her to his speech

    what a pig

  7. 7.

    Lizzy L

    My prediction: the Villagers are going to love this speech; they’re going to say it was “presidential.”

    Yeah, no.

  12. 12.

    lamh36

    Donald Trump using the death of a Navy Seal and that Seal’s widow as an applause line, when he signed off the raid, just because he was goaded into it by “his generals”, SHOULD PISS OFF EVERY MAN OR WOMAN WHO CURRENTLY SERVE, OR WHO HAS SERVED IN OUR MILITARY!

    tasteless as fuq!

  14. 14.

    Patricia Kayden

    Trump has zero class so blaming soldiers for their own deaths seems par for the course. Can you imagine if President Obama had said the same about any soldier who died on his watch?

  16. 16.

    amk

    Hopefully the ‘generals’ will push back vigorously against any future foolish misadventure put forward by this scum of a coward.

  17. 17.

    hovercraft

    @Baud:
    I suspect that like the majority of our armed forces and vets, she is a supporter. She is probably steeped in military culture and therefore surrounded by trumpsters. If I am mistaken, I apologize to her, but far too many military people are still enamored with W and now Twitler, it boggles the mind.

  22. 22.

    Steeplejack

    Reposted from downstairs:

    Fuck you, Tweety. The big moment of the speech for him was Karen Owens, the SEAL widow. Of course. He probably splooged in his $2,000 suit. What a fucking tool.

  24. 24.

    lamh36

    Ya’ll…I swear I didn’t watch the speech. I BARELY even came in at the last few bits on twitter.

    But that damn Ryan Owens widow shit…done pissed me da fuq off.

    I had finally gotten rid of the seething anger that had been holding on to ever since last November…but that anger coming back after this bullshit..

    Ugh…i need a woosah break…so I don’t turn that anger onto Widow Ryan…she did recently lose her husband…but UGH

    http://68.media.tumblr.com/8027f3ef0b83acd4a7c88d3a11d4d2ed/tumblr_mwltvp1C4z1t0i9qbo1_400.gif

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack

    Okay, now MSNBC switched to Steve Beshear giving the Democrats’ response.

    He’s hitting his Crackro-American background hard. Bonus points for “my dad and granddad were Babdist preachers.” (Emphasis mine.) That’s Southern!

  26. 26.

    The Thin Black Duke

    And unfortunately, I have a sick feeling that Ryan Owens won’t be the last soldier that Donald gets killed.

  27. 27.

    JWR

    @Lizzy L:

    My prediction: the Villagers are going to love this speech; they’re going to say it was “presidential.”

    Such has been the reaction of PBS’ David Brooks and Amy Walters, both Villagers to the core.

  29. 29.

    hilts

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Don’t forget the Republicans that enabled him.

    I will NEVER forget and I will NEVER forgive those rat-fucking bastards like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. They deserve to burn in Hell.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    Miami Herald had a long and very good article on this this weekend, with interview with Bill Owens, father of “Ryan” Owens. Photos and background on Ryan, who always wanted to serve in the military.

    Slain SEAL’s dad wants answers: ‘Don’t hide behind my son’s death’

    [Bill] Owens, also a military veteran, was troubled by Trump’s harsh treatment of a Gold Star family during his presidential campaign. Now Owens was a Gold Star parent, and he said he had deep reservations about the way the decision was made to launch what would be his son’s last mission.

    Ryan and as many as 29 civilians were killed Jan. 28 in the anti-terrorism mission in Yemen. What was intended as a lightning raid to grab cellphones, laptops and other information about terrorists turned into a nearly hour-long firefight in which “everything went wrong,” according to U.S. military officials who spoke to the New York Times.

    Bill Owens said he was assured that his son, who was shot, was killed early in the fight. It was the first military counter-terrorist operation approved by the new president, who signed the go-ahead Jan. 26 — six days into his term.

    “Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn’t even barely a week into his administration? Why? For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen — everything was missiles and drones — because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?’’

    …. Bill Owens and his wife [later marriage; not Ryan’s mother] sat in another room as the President paid his respects to other family members. He declined to say what family members were at the ceremony.

    Trump administration officials have called the mission a success, saying they had seized important intelligence information. They have also criticized detractors of the raid, saying those who question its success dishonor Ryan Owens’ memory.

    His father, however, believes just the opposite.

    “Don’t hide behind my son’s death to prevent an investigation,” said the elder Owens, pointing to Trump’s sharp words directed at the mission’s critics, including Sen. John McCain.

    “I want an investigation. … The government owes my son an investigation,” he said.

    … There were so many SEALS at Ryan’s service at Arlington National Cemetery that his father’s arm got tired from shaking so many muscled hands. At the end, before his coffin was lowered, each of the SEALS removed their badges from their uniforms and pounded them one by one into the casket. When it over, the casket was covered in gold eagle tridents.

    Bill Owens doesn’t want to talk about Ryan’s wife or his three young children. There are other things that he believes should remain private. He spoke out, he says, at the risk of offending some of his family and friends.

    … “I’d like some answers about all the things that happened in the timeline that led up to it. I know what the timeline is, and it bothers me a lot,” said Owens, who acknowledges he didn’t vote for Donald Trump.

    One aspect of the chain of events that nags at him is the fact that the president signed the order suspending the entry of immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on Jan. 27 — the day before the mission.

    Owens wonders whether that affected friendly forces in Yemen who were assisting with the raid.

    “It just doesn’t make any sense to do something to antagonize an ally when you’re going to conduct a mission in that country,” he said. “Did we alienate some of the people working with them, translators or support people. Maybe they decided to release information to jeopardize the mission.”

  31. 31.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Renie: She shouldn’t have shown up. I gather that Trump’s plan to increase military spending by over $50 billion means many more wars and many more dead and damaged soldiers in our future. Huge sigh.

  33. 33.

    skerry

    I think making Carryn Owens the emotional centerpiece of the speech opens the Yemen operation up to more questions and the need to find out what really happened. Puts more fuel on that fire, if you will.

  40. 40.

    Quinerly

    Van Jones says this is the moment Trump became presidential. God help us. In related news, Rick Santorum is a bit frothy. He loved the speech.

  41. 41.

    lamh36

    @samsteinhp
    i don’t get liberals who can’t acknowledge that this is an effective speech for Trump. Yes, standards are different. but it is.

    So basically Sam, what your saying is since he didn’t get up there and literally grab a woman by the P&^*y makes this an effective speech…gotcha

  44. 44.

    SFAW

    @skerry:

    I think making Carryn Owens the emotional centerpiece of the speech opens the Yemen operation up to more questions and the need to find out what really happened.

    Yeah, the Republican truth-seekers in the House and Senate will be all over that, I’m sure. But only if it is “uncovered” that Hillary green-lighted the operation.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

  47. 47.

    OGLiberal

    Cillizza started fellating him on Twitter about 1/2 hour ago and hasn’t stopoed. Retweeted some Politico dude who said Trump’s shameless use of a dead soldier was “Reaganesque”. I’m going to fucking vomit.

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack

    @mouse tolliver:

    Yeah, just got done watching it on MSNBC. First pundit—didn’t see who—pointed out that it was a 72-year-old ex-governor, rather than, say Kamala Harris, the Castro brothers or anyone who might plausibly represent the future of the party. Sad!

  49. 49.

    hovercraft

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Applause for her is really applause for his decision to authorize the mission.
    @Mike in NC:
    It’s understandable in one sense, they volunteer for an institution that relies on people following orders in order to function normally. On the other hand, you would think they’d value presidents and representatives who do more than just pay lip service to their sacrifices, and who make judicious decisions about when to commit them to dangerous situations.

  55. 55.

    mouse tolliver

    @Baud: I thought the substance of the Democratic response was on point. Called out Trump for his lies about draining the swamp. Pointed all the people who’ll be left in the lurch by RnR. He even worked the word “indivisible” into his speech. For the optics Dems did exactly what the Villagers have said they should do by getting someone who speaks to white working class issues. (The former gov.of Kentucky.) But now they’re mocking them for doing exactly that. I bet if he was a Republican Tweety would’ve had a thrill up his leg as he imagined the smell of Aquavelva.

  61. 61.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    The desire of the media to normalize this fuckface is disheartening, and I think reveals that we’re well and truly fucked. Like it or not, this is the country we are – the white plurality is unrepentant and hateful; Donald Trump is the national id, insofar as they’re concerned.

    I’m going to quote Jeremiah Wright – God Damn America. We are going to deserve everything that is going to happen – the economic location, wreckage, war deaths, terror attacks. I just hope that it reaches deeply into suburbia and hurts and hurts again. I want pasty, puffy paper pushing “heroes” of the financial service and insurance industries to fucking starve and to watch their families lose everything.

    It took that in the 30s to break the jingoistic ego – it will take that now.

    Hopefully, the end of the United States brings about a better country – some sort of North American Union built from the remaining structures plus Canada and Mexico, focusing on a more democratic model. We’ll need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, too, after a few dozen well publicized trials and revolutionary sentences.

  64. 64.

    Elizabelle

    @Quinerly: I did not watch any of the speech, any of the runup to it, any of the aftermath. No idea what the paid mouths are saying.

    It’s serene.

  70. 70.

    hovercraft

    @Quinerly:
    Van Jones has been hit or miss ever since he was pushed out of the WH. I remember reading somewhere that he was bitter about being pushed out, he felt Obama should have fought harder for him. I didn’t watch the diatribe and I’m not watching the autopsy either, but they have all been desperate for a new story line, and I guess tonight has given them one. Twitler finally comes into his own and becomes presidential. So 2/28/2017, the day Twitler became president. It’ll be interesting to see if the last 41 days get washed down the memory hole and only bitter twisted liberals and haters are petty enough to dwell on them.

  71. 71.

    FlipYrWhig

    Remember when Chris Matthews’s whole take on Trump was that he was the dove and Hillary was the hawk? What a disgrace.

  75. 75.

    Quinerly

    @Elizabelle:
    Been away from all of it for awhile. Marble Canyon Lodge very quiet, kinda funky (in a good way)..old fashioned tv. Yes, I turned it on. After 5 nights on a dry Navajo Reservation, I got serious with a chicken fried steak with green chile pepper gravy and a 6 pack of Modelo. Should have stuck with the food and drink and not taken the tv bait. Killed my chill.

  78. 78.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: I spent the entire Obama Administration, as well as two years of the Bush 43 Administration, either on contracts or term appointments/civilian mobilization. I never once heard my colleagues in uniform publicly badmouth either President when something went wrong and they thought the President should have known better or done something else instead.

  79. 79.

    tobie

    Didn’t watch the speech but it sounds like the mere fact that he was able to read from the teleprompter and to cast himself as the preserver of Ryan Owen’s memory–even after sending him to his death–was enough to make all the pundits go ga-ga. Take heart…he’ll tweet something stupid in the next few days and show he’s manifestly unfit for the office.

  80. 80.

    Renie

    the talking heads are ridiculous; the bar is so low the fact he didn’t vomit on himself and rant & rave makes him look good

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack

    I’d still like to get a reading from someone else re the vocal cheering that went with the applause. Is that a new thing (which it seemed to me), or have I (blessedly) forgotten previous GOP addresses?

  85. 85.

    hilts

    @Quinerly: @Tazj:

    Cable news has devolved into a super-sized steaming pile of excrement. There isn’t any person I can think of on CNN or MSNBC who is capable of providing any meaningful insight.

    Hearing about all the pathetic pundit responses to Trump’s speech makes me grateful for my decision to cancel my cable subscription earlier this month.

    @FlipYrWhig: Over the summer, Chris Matthews was on Morning Blowjob to plug his idiotic Trump documentary and he practically had an orgasm when he started describing how impressed he was with the skyscrapers that trump had erected in NY.

    Matthews is a fucking moron and I have no idea how he ever got chosen to be aide for Tip O’Neill or Jimmy Carter.

  86. 86.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I think so.

    I grew up going to military services, which were generic Protestant. I would describe my current orientation as somewhere around the intersection of “Buddhist psychology” and “generic mysticism.”

    ETA: The military also had (has) Jewish and Catholic (and probably now Muslim) services, but all the Protestant denominations were lumped together. Didn’t mean to imply that the military had only Protestant services.

  87. 87.

    Lyrebird

    @Omnes Omnibus: UCC (United CoC) is what the modern and open-minded religious descendents of New England congregationalists have become, plus a bunch of other groups less into hierarchy than Lutheran/Methodist/Episcopalian types.

  89. 89.

    Timurid

    So the media is repping this as Gettysburg Address II and the GOP caucus was cheering like they were at the Superbowl… so I take it the elite mood is back to ‘All In.’

  90. 90.

    dww44

    @mouse tolliver: I actually disagree and I’ve long since lost any respect for Steve Schmidt’s journalistic vibes. He’s an angry partisan. Nothing more there. Look at his eyes and his general demeanor. He’s obviously got an axe to grind these days. Neither fun nor rewarding to watch or listen.

    He was critiquing the Democrats as being the party of the olds and that putting up Steve Beshear, age 72 and from that small state of Kentucky, you know, instead of a Cory Booker or a Kamala Harris was a stupid move. I personally believe the motive was to spur the opposition to ACA repeal by giving Beshear a platform to argue for its benefits. I thought he did a passably good job at that.

    Besides, opposition speeches to SOTU addresses are frequently career killers for the younger party members of the out of power party. In this case why not use it to spur support for the Affordable Care Act and give credit to one of the governors who provided care for the citizens of his state.

    FWIW, Rachel likes Schmidt and was obviously taking the silly route and not the thoughtful one when not pushing back against his putdown of the Democratic response. Wanting to be liked seems to matter a lot to her when she sits on those MSNBC panels where she should be the voice of the liberal left as a counter weight to the mostly center right ones there.

  92. 92.

    Lyrebird

    @Omnes Omnibus: PS thanks for the Bully video, in case I forgot to say so before. Perfect mood for responding to the bilge spewed in the halls of congress this evening.

    ETA going to be responsible and close my laptop.

    Losing sleep doesn’t help me support the family or the resistance…

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steeplejack: @Omnes Omnibus: At one point at USAWC I had the garrison chaplain (Catholic priest), one of his deputies (Protestant), and one of the chaplain in the resident course (also Protestant) auditing (the first two) and taking (the last one) my elective. All of them are great people and good friends and colleagues. And I was always on the faculty team with the chaplain on the faculty.

  94. 94.

    Darkrose

    @dww44: Joy Anne Reid pointed out that the people likely to be watching that shitshow are Trump voters, not the Democratic base, so having a white guy who was the former governor of Kentucky talking to them made sense.

  97. 97.

    tobie

    @Darkrose: Joy, as always, comes to the rescue with the sharp insight. Why doesn’t she have a prime time show? I’d be so happy if MSNBC gave her Chris Matthews’ slot.

  100. 100.

    Darkrose

    @tobie: I know! I’ve only been watching her recently because my sleep schedule is screwed up. She should be on prime time, but I guess there are too many blonde white women *NBC needs to find room for.

  101. 101.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Darkrose: ut I guess there are too many blonde white women *NBC needs to find room for.

    Chris Hayes was bragging about his ratings on twitter today– He’s Number Two!. I guess the suits at MSNBC forgot what happens to liberal TV ratings when a RWNJ is in charge.
    ETA: And Joy Reid has been suffering no fools in her stories or on her set lately. Like a non-pompous, more concise, smiling version of Olbermann. You think they remember him?

  102. 102.

    J R in WV

    @Quinerly:

    They don’t care if we white folks bring beer with us, as long as we’re discrete with it, and keep it to ourselves. So it isn’t as dry as all that. But we try to respect the principle of the thing too.

  103. 103.

    Neldob

    Listened to some NPR show this am and they were saying ‘T was amazing, he sounded like a president’. One of them was a Democrat supposedly. While the bumper sticker on the truck next to me said “Trump that bitch”. I then donated to Ossof in Georgia.

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