On Sept. 17th I put a poll on about how long you thought Kellyanne Conway would stay on with
On Sept. 26th, after the first debate, in another poll, half of the respondents said she would be leaving the staff.
Trump. I put another one on after this first debate.
According to NBC “campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, normally Trump's go-to spokeswoman and his most prominent female advocate, dropped out of planned appearances on Sunday shows.”
It’s hard to believe it’s only three weeks later that we have a breaking news story which suggests she may very well be leaving:
A source within the campaign also strongly implied to NBC News that Conway was considering leaving the campaign in the midst of the latest turmoil.
"Kellyanne is a good practicing Catholic," the source said. "She's thinking 'I have kids. Is this what I want?' She's never shied away from the role her faith plays in her life."
Conway did not respond to a request from NBC News, but told the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza on Saturday she was not quitting the campaign. She also tweeted a photo on Sunday of her and Priebus flying with Trump to St. Louis for the debate. NBC story.
MSNBC just scored a big one to fill the chair for the necessary Trump surrogate for post-debate coverage. One of Trump’s bottom of the basket Trump surrogates, Steve Cortes has managed to make a fool out of himself so frequently that I think he broke Google. Best of all, the MSNBC host who has skewered him the most frequently and effectively will be on the panel tonight — the Daily Kos fave Joy Reid.
Watching Trump go full-on Trump believing he’s — well — The Beloved Donald — will be satisfying enough. But for me having watched Cortes and his self-righteous feigned indignation against Hillary so many times I am waiting with baited breath to see him try to weasel word his way out of admitting that his main man flopped.
I was going to right how this will be icing on the cake for me. It reminded me of the only “dirty joke” my father ever told.
When I was in the Army we had a cook, a master sergeant, who said that if anybody complained about his cooking they’d have KP duty for a month. One of the privates in the kitchen decided to play a trick on him. He made a chocolate layer cake filled with shit. When the desert was served none of the men dared complain except one who couldn’t contain himself. He said “this cake tastes like shit…. but it’s good!”
It’s going on 8:00 PM here in Portland, Oregon. This time tomorrow MSNBC talkers will be offering the post-debate autopsy result — death by 10,000 cuts.
Tonight I’m watching “Justified,” the battle between the good U.S. Marshall and the evil Kentucky hill country ruthless killer gangster Boyd Crowder. 24 hours from now I’ll be watching replays of debate segments between two other forces of good and evil.
There’s no way Trump can show convincing contrition for being a porcine perv because he doesn’t think he did anything wrong. I doubt he’ll even try. Instead he’ll do what he’s said he’ll do. He’ll try to attack Hillary by saying what she and Bill did was far worse than anything he did. This will backfire big time because Hillary will be ready.
I’m hope that during the debate Trump says something so reprehensible or insensitive that it gradually dawns on him that he’d dug his own grave. I hope I see flop sweat, like when a chess player lifts his hand off a move and a few seconds later realizes he’s opened himself to be checkmated.
“It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to.” ― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
By the end of the debate I’ll already know how badly Trump lost — and he will have lost because he is incapable of being anyone but Trump. He’ll be Trump and Hillary will be Hillary and she’ll play him like the bottom feeder he is, reel him in and fry him up and serve him with hush puppies, cole slaw, and greens.
And we were having so much fun writing these things we used to call diaries and now who knows what they’re called.
What will be writing about when the final curtain will fall after Trump blows the debate tomorrow?
But it’s been a glorious time for me what with my addiction to writing and the challenge of figuring out how to get anybody to read what I have to say.
Now the election is all but decided. The corpulent orange blimp has exploded and its ample posterior is in flames. The ocean depths and hungry sharks are waiting to swallow the ship of Trump.
What will wordsmiths do?
I enjoyed making what I called pictoons (captioned photos) and have dozens of them, some even laugh inducing among my friends. Here’s a sample of several of them.
I’m watching Trump supporters in front of Trump Plaza (Hillary for Prison!) and am relishing observing their last hurrah.
I’m not even annoyed by the lamest of the lame Trump surrogates, who are really scraped from the bottom of the barrel, as they Flub-a-Dub their way to come up with reasons why they still support Trump.
Trump’s latest Tweet: Certainly has been an interesting 24 hours.”
The concept of karma comes from ancient India. Karma is “the spiritual principle of cause and effect where intent and actions of an individual (cause) influence the future of that individual (effect).[2] Good intent and good deed contribute to good karma and future happiness, while bad intent and bad deed contribute to bad karma and future suffering. Karma is closely associated with the idea of rebirth in many schools of Asian religions. In these schools, karma in the present affects one's future in the current life, as well as the nature and quality of future lives - one's saṃsāra.” (From Wikipedia)
Karma is also a concept in Christianity, only there it’s described with the phrase “you reap what you sow.”
Galatians 6:7 - Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
2 Corinthians 9:6 - But this [I say], He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.
Proverbs 16:18 - Pride [goeth] before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 14:14 - The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways: and a good man [shall be satisfied] from himself.
Luke 6:38 - Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
Trump has been sowing a lot of, to put it most simply, badness. Much of this has come from his misogyny. He wants us to believe he loves women but in truth he hates them. He has treated them as objects for his desire.
He has sowed a lot of tainted seed, now reaping time is here.
Bonus:
What do they tell the “Kids for Trump?”
I won’t bore anyone expounding on what is just common sense… except to say that I feel for the kids, not for their parents, and I hope that parents use this as a teaching moment. I believe Democrats will. I have my doubts about the more ardent Trump supporters. Read and comment here.
Friday, Oct. 7, 2016 Dear Readers, I thought I’d get through the day without any news I’d want to write about…. read and comment here please
If you think Bill Clinton’s asking about the meaning of “is” will go down as the most lame political defections, Trump just beat him.
Bachmann is representative of the kinds of excuses we will be hearing. Having her on Hardball as the surrogates address this shows how Trump has to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get people to appear on TV for him.
“This is locker room banter. Bill Clinton said worse to me on the golf course.”
Last week I wrote “What will be the final straw,” adding, for the Dicken’s fans “consider Mr. Dombey and his woes” because the straw that broke the protagonist of “Dombey and Sons” was a minor one compered to what he suffered before.
This is what I wrote:
I’ve added to this “picoton” (above) periodically, wondering why nothing, from bombshell or smaller explosive device, blew up the orange beast. Nothing stuck.
While the saying “the straw the breaks the camel’s back” and the shorter “the final straw” goes back in various forms to 1677 it was Dickens who popularized it in “Dombey and Sons” in the 1840’s.
It is relevant that Mr. Dombey was very rich and full of pride. He had one woe after another pile on him until a comparatively small sadness broke him:
We’ve been counting the bombshells one after another and keep thinking one will finally break Trump and turn a significant number of his less hypnotized supporters away from him.
One might be tempted to say “he’s only human” when speculating that they has to be a cumulative effect on him. But he’s not a typical human like Mr. Dombey who had feelings.
As many have said, he and his core supporters live in an impermeable bubble. But despite that psychological phenomena of delusion combined with wishful thinking combined with the extreme narcissism of Trump himself something has to seep through the wall of defenses.
At some level he has to know that things have gone horrible wrong for him. I am sure he doesn’t dwell on this, and neither do his strong supporters.
So what could be the last straw?
Like with Mr. Dombey, it could be something comparatively insignificant.
I won’t bother adding what I’m referring to since by now since you already know this will be the worst crude misogynistic thing Trump has already said. You can read the words he said here.
Chris Mathews calls it a potential bombshell. How often have we used this word?
On a strictly bomb worthy measurement this isn’t even a megaton — the Eichenwald and Farenthold revelations were called bombshells, and when launched indeed that had multiple super megaton warheads. But none of them went off.
My hunch is that 1) they were too complex and 2) not that many undecided or committed Trump voters care. In addition these voters don’t see that they all fit a long standing pattern of Trump’s behavior.
Mathews asks “is this the cliff he can fall off.”
Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post made the insightful that this didn’t only show what a disgusting person Trump is when it comes to women, but in other comments about how he could get away with such behavior he bragged about his position of power.
Trump is not denying the veracity of the tape. He can’t. Some commentators are basically saying that Trump just has to make an apology that sticks, which to me is ridiculous since Trump already dismissed it as part of his being in the entertainment business.
You don’t have to have a crystal ball to say that if anything could squeeze politics into the hurricane coverage (which I wrote about yesterday) it is a sex story with a presidential story that comes along with a lewd soundtrack?
I put a poll on after every bombshell story. Most of you, about 75%, didn’t think the story would have much impact and would die out within a week or two.
Now let’s see what you think about the negative impact on Trump?
and “I don’t know anything about trade agreements. I don’t know anything about China devaluing the yuan. But if you see somebody who’s not behaving like any other human you’ve known, that means something.nThey need an appointment with a psychiatrist. They need a diagnosis and they need a prescription.” David Letterman explaining how he would have taken down Trump.
How will nearly wall to wall coverage of the hurricane and the subsequent devastation help Hillary?
Added: Some people will say (have said) that it is crass, gauche, and insensitive to write about this. Some have commented that I am rooting for a catastrophe. Others seems to think one story out of thousands of side-bar stories will be taken up by the right wing to show Hillary supporter is a bad light.
I believe many Kos readers and writers, perhaps not most, but at least a significant minority, can handle well thought out political analysis.
Obviously coverage will be very limited for the national news to cover campaign events. Here’s where Hillary has a huge advantage over Trump. As Rachel pointed out last night, Hillary has an A list team of crowd pleasing spokespeople who are scheduled to speak at rallies in battleground states. When she went over the list last night mentioning the “biggies,” Bill, Bernie, Bidden, and Warren, she neglected to note that Al Gore just announced he will be campaigning for her.
Of course Hillary and Kaine will have their own events.
As Rachel noted, all Trump has is Trump and Pence (the boring guy).
These events won’t get much national play unless something dramatic happens as long as the hurricane and its aftermath are making major news. But the local news stations will cover them and that is going to have an impact in the battleground states.
The second reason is Hillary’s advertising advantage. Trump and the RNC haven’t spent much money on advertising to date. Whether Hillary has more money to spend on advertising than Trump (and I’ve read that she does) isn’t as significant as the fact that advertising may be the only way to get the candidate’s messages out to a general audience during hurricane coverage.
This will force the Trump campaign to spend their advertising dollars before they intended to.
Trump has depended on the media covering his rallies knowing that this save him money and that they are waiting for him to say something outrageous. He must know that even networks like MSNBC fall victim to this con and give him substantial air time (much to MSNBC viewer frustration).
Rally coverage is hit or miss for the candidate. They can never know for sure what sound bite will be rebroadcast and make the news.
Advertising messages are controlled by the candidates.
In the case of the hurricane one plus one equals more than merely two when it comes for the advantage for Hillary.
But wait, there’s more…. yet a third reason. Hillary doesn’t have to feign empathy!
Trump can barely fake empathy. He’s Mister Mean. The core of his personality is a me-first attitude that has no rom for the woes of others.
Hillary has genuine warm and empathy.
With people struggling to pull their lives back together as the days and weeks go by all Hillary has to do is be herself. Trump will have to be the consummate actor to even convey a semblance of concern for people whose lives will have been ripped asunder by the devastation of the storm.
Scheduled Hillary Events
Welcome to the redesigned Scheduled Events page. The information presented below not only displays Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine’s events, but anyone representing Hillary for America, including Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and other politicians and celebrities appearing on the behalf of HFA.
Hyperlinks below will lead to the official page for the event where you can RSVP or purchase tickets. The lack of a hyperlink or a blank field indicates that the information for the event is not currently available. For past events, please visit the Speech Archive.
Note: Fundraisers are scheduled a month in advance while public events are only scheduled a few days in advance. The list below will be heavy with fundraisers due to this fact. Check back daily for an updated scheduled public events or visit hillaryclinton.com/... to view events in your area.
These concerns compel us, for the third time since the magazine’s founding, to endorse a candidate for president. Hillary Rodham Clinton has more than earned, through her service to the country as first lady, as a senator from New York, and as secretary of state, the right to be taken seriously as a White House contender. She has flaws (some legitimately troubling, some exaggerated by her opponents), but she is among the most prepared candidates ever to seek the presidency. We are confident that she understands the role of the United States in the world; we have no doubt that she will apply herself assiduously to the problems confronting this country; and she has demonstrated an aptitude for analysis and hard work.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has no record of public service and no qualifications for public office. His affect is that of an infomercial huckster; he traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of America’s nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.
It’s not who wins the night, it’s who wins the morning after, and it’s not Trump and Pence Comments on Daily Kos
Let’s make one thing clear, last night was a face-off between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence. It wasn’t a debate. It was barely moderated. On the surface it was an argument.
This is a totally unique day after because there’s a small media window for the talking heads before Hurricane Mathew hits and as seems likely will cause devastation on the east coast.
Tim Kaine did his job. He forced Pence to defend most of the Trump outrages, and Pence was woefully unprepared to do so. All he could come up with was denial, verbal or with a frowning head shake. In every instance he was denying that Trump said what he is on record as saying.
In at least one instance Pence denied saying something he himself said, his comment about Putin being a better leader than Obama.
When Trump weasel Steven Cortes, says that Pence hit a 400 foot home run (as he just did on MSNBC) you know this was a loss. The surrogate advising Trump on Hispanic relations tried to defend Trump’s remark about illegal immigrants being rapists. Pence tried to defend this too by misquoting what Trump actually said. The remark Trump made is at right.
Pence accused Kaine of taking the quote out of context and claimed that Trump said “many are good people.” Not only didn’t he say that, when you hear the way he said the final sentence he paused for effect and said it clearly as an afterthought. This needs to be replayed again and again along with Pence’s lie.
I think by the end of the day it will be clear that Kaine lured Pence into a trap. What do you think?
I’ve added to this “pictoon” periodically, wondering why nothing, from bombshell or smaller explosive device, blew up the orange beast. Nothing stuck.
While the saying “the straw the breaks the camel’s back” and the shorter “the final straw” goes back in various forms to 1677 it was Dickens who popularized it in “Dombey and Sons” in the 1840’s.
It is relevant that Mr. Dombey was very rich and full of pride. He had one woe after another pile on him until a comparatively small sadness broke him:
`So I'm a going to, Sir. One of my little boys is a going to learn me, when he's old enough, and been to school himself.'
`Well,' said Mr. Dombey, after looking at him attentively, and with no great favour, as he stood gazing round the room (principally round the ceiling) and still drawing his hand across and across his mouth. `You heard what I said to your wife just now?'
`Polly heerd it,' said Toodle, jerking his hat over his shoulder in the direction of the door, with an air of perfect confidence in his better half. `It's all right.'
`As you appear to leave everything to her,' said Mr. Dombey, frustrated in his intention of impressing his views still more distinctly on the husband, as the stronger character, `I suppose it is of no use my saying anything to you.'
`Not a bit,' said Toodle. `Polly heerd it. She's awake, Sir.'
`I won't detain you any longer then,' returned Mr. Dombey disappointed. `Where have you worked all your life?'
`Mostly underground, Sir, 'till I got married. I come to the level then. I'm a going on one of these here railroads when they comes into full play.'
As the last straw breaks the laden camel's back, this piece of underground information crushed the sinking spirits of Mr. Dombey. He motioned his child's foster-father to the door, who departed by no means unwillingly: and then turning the key, paced up and down the room in solitary wretchedness. For all his starched, impenetrable dignity and composure, he wiped blinding tears from his eyes as he did so; and often said, with an emotion of which he would not, for the world, have had a witness, `Poor little fellow!'
It may have been characteristic of Mr. Dombey's pride, that he pitied himself through the child. Not poor me. Not poor widower, confiding by constraint in the wife of an ignorant Hind who has been working `mostly underground' all his life, and yet at whose door Death had never knocked, and at whose poor table four sons daily sit--but poor little fellow!
We’ve been counting the bombshells one after another and keep thinking one will finally break Trump and turn a significant number of his less hypnotized supporters away from him.
One might be tempted to say “he’s only human” when speculating that they has to be a cumulative effect on him. But he’s not a typical human like Mr. Dombey who had feelings.
As many have said, he and his core supporters live in an impermeable bubble. But despite that psychological phenomena of delusion combined with wishful thinking combined with the extreme narcissism of Trump himself something has to seep through the wall of defenses.
At some level he has to know that things have gone horrible wrong for him. I am sure he doesn’t dwell on this, and neither do his strong supporters.
So what could be the last straw?
Like with Mr. Dombey, it could be something comparatively insignificant.
It could be as simple as his disappointment after counting on a huge anti-Clinton scandal coming from Julian Assange, or some unanticipated minor affront.
A sympathetic utterance by Hillary has one line which out of context is being used against her:I woke up to this story and read the following on the website that broke the story. Talk about bias!
Asked Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” whether he agreed with the New York businessman, Sanders, who has endorsed Clinton, said she was “absolutely correct” in her assessment of his supporters.
“I think what she said ― and, by the way, during the campaign, we do have our differences, Secretary Clinton and I do disagree on issues,” he said. “But what she was saying there is absolutely correct. And that is, you’ve got millions of young people, many of whom took out loans in order to go to college, hoping to go out and get decent-paying, good jobs.”
Let’s get this right out: Bernie Sander has come out and said that he agrees with her assessment!
The email, which Mellul sent to Nick Merrill, Clinton’s traveling press secretary, contained an audio file of Clinton’s remarks to donors at a McLean, Virginia, fundraiser. In her remarks, she derisively wrote off Sanders (emphasis added) supporters and made other comments that would draw attention when the audio became public. From freebeacon.com/…
It seems to me that her remark was sympathetic, and while her unfortunate use of the generally insulting meme “living in their parent’s basement” it is true that many college graduates can’t afford to move out of their parents house because they are unable to get jobs that will enable them to live on their own. Many no doubt live with roommates and housemates while they’d rather have places of their own.
Here’s more — note the use of the word “roiled.” Look at all the revelations about Trump and this is what it takes to roil the race about Hillary!
The Sanders question prompted a response from Clinton that has roiled the presidential race since Republican candidate Donald Trump seized on it on Saturday in an attempt to drive a wedge between Clinton and the energetic coalition that supported Sanders’ candidacy.
“Some are new to politics completely. They’re children of the Great Recession and they are living in their parents’ basement. They feel they got their education, and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves, and they don’t see much of a future,” Clinton said at the event.
Trump highlighted the comments in a Saturday speech. “Hillary Clinton thinks Bernie supporters are hopeless and ignorant basement dwellers,” he said. <( this was a link to the Trump website. I looked at it so you don’t have to give them a click to read his disgusting words. I put them at the bottom of this story.)
Let me play truth checker, emphasis on the word some (obvious not all or even the majority)
True “Some are new to politics completely.
Mostly True They’re children of the Great Recession
Partially true and they are living in their parents’ basement.
Partially true They feel they got their education, and the jobs that are available to them are
Partially true not at all what they envisioned for themselves,
Partially true and they don’t see much of a future,
Now, watching MSNBC, the story is being covered with a Clinton spokesperson about to come on to talk about the issue….
This is a hyped up scandal. I wonder if Trump and his minions will be able to make it stick in any significant way. I have been adding to my original “pictoon” about how nothing seems to break the back of the orange beast despite the fact that if anything nearly as horrendous as what’s come out about Trump came out about her it would be wall to wall media coverage for weeks.
Vote Hillary: A thinker not a stinker
++++++
The following is from the Trump website:
**Remarks As Prepared**
…
A new audio tape that has surfaced from another one of Hillary’s high-dollar fundraisers shows her demeaning and mocking Bernie Sanders supporters.
In the tape, Hillary attacks Sanders supporters as “living in their parents’ basements,” and trapped in dead-end careers. She describes many of them as ignorant, that they want the United States to be more like Scandinavia but that “half the people don’t know what that means.”
To sum up, Hillary Clinton thinks Bernie supporters are hopeless and ignorant basement dwellers.
Then, of course, she thinks people who vote for Trump are deplorable and irredeemable.
And let’s not forget, at the recent debate, Hillary Clinton all but said that most of the country is racist, including the men and women of law enforcement.
In short, if you are not a diehard Hillary Clinton supporter from Day One, Hillary Clinton thinks you are a defective human being.
How on earth can Hillary Clinton try to lead this country when she has nothing but contempt for the people who live in this country?
She slanders and attacks anyone who wants to put America First, whether they are Trump Voters or Bernie Voters.
Joel Benenson, a Clinton campaign senior advisor, waiting to be interviewed on MSNBC, while coverage cuts to Trump giving teleprompter remarks to military audience.
“The genius of Donald Trump is to make sure he follows the law ... and politically he has said he is going to change these laws,” Christie said. He added that Trump should only be “taking a bow for the fact that he has said, well before this story came out, that we need to change the tax laws because they are harming the American people every day.”Genius, apparently, was the main adjective that the Trump campaign was using in its talking points to handle the story.
Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani used the same descriptor when talking about the candidate.
“My response is, he’s a genius. ... Absolute genius,” Giuliani said. Huffington Post.
Whether they know it or not, advertisers are fueling a "blood sport" of public shaming both online and off, Monica Lewinsky told a packed crowd at the ad industry's top event. Rather than being put off by her hard-hitting message, though, the Cannes Lions audience on Thursday showed Lewinsky tremendous appreciation, giving her one of the festival's few standing ovations. In a session sponsored by Ogilvy & Mather, Lewinsky asked the world's creative and marketing leaders to help usher in a new era of compassion and empathy. The challenge? Breaking a cycle of invasive, abusive social behavior that may be driven by mean-spirited trolls but is subsidized by the advertisers who buy space in websites and other media that thrive on public embarrassment. from
This is a short think piece…. but consider, Monica Lewinsky is a 43 year old woman now who is an anti-cyber-bullying advocate. She’s mostly avoided the public eye, but she does speaking engagements about cyber-bullying, did a TedTalk, gave an interview to The Guardian, and wrote a candid and powerful Vanity Fair article.
Her interview with Time was the cover story, in the Mar. 15 1999 issue. Tt was the first interview she gave:
TIME: Are you going the celebrity route: Monica Inc.?
Lewinsky: No. I think that if I can use my name to do something that would help people and make a contribution, I’d love to work with kids. I love kids. I have more fun with kids sometimes than I do with adults. I’m only human. There are some things that I’m going to do because it’s fun. And people can criticize me. They criticize me anyway…I don’t consider [myself] a celebrity, because I think that the root of the word is celebrated: someone society should celebrate, and while I haven’t given autographs, people have asked, which is so bizarre to me. I don’t feel that I should be honored for what I’m known for. You need a Time subscription to read it here.
The irony was that everyone in the divorce action was represented by skillful criminal attorneys, and the one chosen by Donald had substantial mob clienteles, including Marla’s lawyer, Jerry Shargel, who was one of John Gotti’s attorneys ... It was a measure of the mud war both parties expected, and predictably, waged. From HuffPo article left
Trump, is a thrice married man who cheated on his wife:
In the summer of 1990, at the height of his bitter divorce from his first wife, Donald Trump was carrying on a very public extramarital affair with a former beauty queen, Marla Maples.
As part of the couple’s divorce proceedings, Ivana Trump’s lawyers asked him under oath about his dealings with other women and whether he had been faithful to his wife.
Instead of answering, Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Over the course of five depositions that summer, he was asked approximately 100 questions related to marital infidelity. He pleaded the Fifth on 97 of them. www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Now he plans to attack Hillary for being an enabler and allegedly insulting Monica in private: emphasis added
The cameras have returned because of the headlines: a conservative Web site has gone poking around the University of Arkansas archive of one of Hillary Clinton’s closest friends and admirers, Diane Blair, and has unearthed a cache of memos from the 1990s. In some of them, Blair, who died in 2000, quotes the former First Lady about her husband’s relationship with me. Though Hillary, according to Blair’s notes, claimed to find her husband’s “lapse” inexcusable, she praised him for trying to “manage someone who was clearly a ‘narcissistic loony toon.’ ”
My first thought, as I was getting up to speed: If that’s the worst thing she said, I should be so lucky. Mrs. Clinton, I read, had supposedly confided to Blair that, in part, she blamed herself for her husband’s affair (by being emotionally neglectful) and seemed to forgive him. Although she regarded Bill as having engaged in “gross inappropriate behavior,” the affair was, nonetheless, “consensual (was not a power relationship).”www.vanityfair.com/...
I can certainly see why Monica would want to stay on the sidelines this political season. But consider that no matter how she feels about Hillary now, and no matter how she feels about Bill, she still is being dragged into the campaign by a notorious misogynist bully (cyber and in every other way) and having Trump as he defender may disgust her enough to speak out.
Few Republicans were keen on discussing Trump’s debate performance or defending the personal dramas he has reignited. McConnell bluntly swept aside questions about Trump.
“This is not something that I am going to discuss today,” the Senate leader told one reporter who asked about Trump’s impact on Senate races.
Pressed by another reporter about why he would not speak about Trump, McConnell replied, “Because I choose not to.”
When Ryan was asked to comment on Trump’s attacks Tuesday on Machado, the Wisconsin Republican demurred: “I was working out and working this morning. I didn’t watch.”
Embattled GOP senators found various ways to avoid evaluating Trump’s debate turn.
“I didn’t see it, guys. I was on an airplane,” Florida’s Marco Rubio told reporters.
“I have no idea. I’m not a pundit,” Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson said.
