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JULY 20,  2016

REPUBLICAN CONVENTION - DAY THREE

Donald Trump does it again, and that's not a compliment.

The day began with a speechwriter in the Trump campaign taking responsibility for the few plagiarized lines in Melania Trump's Monday night speech.  It sounded like a perfectly believable set of blunders.  But the campaign's stonewalling over two days diminished the admission, and turned what could have been a minor stumble into a semi-crisis.  The speechwriter offered her resignation, but it was refused, showing at least some graciousness in the Trump camp.  There was almost no more talk about the issue.

The rest of the day went surprisingly well for the Trump campaign.  Mike Pence gave an excellent acceptance speech for the vice-presidential spot, showing how valuable his political skills are.  So did Newt Gingrich, who made the best case yet for the Trump candidacy.  Eric Trump, another Trump child, continued the rhetorical winning streak for the Trump children, one more articulate than the next.

Ted Cruz was the bump in the night.  He made, in his usual way, a brilliant speech supporting conservatism, but he did not endorse Trump, bringing a chorus of boos from the crowd.  He was essentially booed off the stage.  Many felt that Cruz was acting the sore loser, more concerned about himself and his feelings than party unity.  Others believed he was expressing true principles.  I frankly think this will hurt him in his political career, especially if Trump loses by a slim margin in November.   But I was once again impressed by his eloquence and his devotion to the Constitution.

The atmosphere, with the exception of the Cruz bump, was remarkably positive.  The hall was alive with the feeling of victory, if not complete unity.

And then...kaboom.

Toward the end of the evening it was revealed that Donald Trump had just given an interview on foreign policy to The New York Times.  As David Axelrod, former campaign strategist for Barack Obama, and a CNN commentator, immediately asked, why would a presidential candidate give an interview on complex subjects to a hostile newspaper on the eve of the most important moment of his campaign – his acceptance speech at his national convention?  An absolute blunder.

And the interview, which we'll discuss tomorrow, was a disaster.  Trump came off as incoherent, lacking knowledge and depth, and given to absurd statements, like questioning whether he'd come to the aid of a NATO country under attack until he looked up how that country met its obligations.  Sorry, Donny, it's a treaty obligation.  He also suggested that the United States, because of its own internal problems, should not be pressuring other countries on human rights – a position negating more than a half century of Republican foreign policy, and a view held by such worthies as Russia and China.

The interview will be used against Trump, to the extent that we can figure out what he was saying.

Trump will formally accept the Republican nomination tomorrow (Thursday) night.  It will be the speech of a lifetime.  For the first time in memory, a presidential candidate will have to give a speech in which he exhibits more intelligence, poise and maturity than his own children.  It's a tall order for Donald Trump.  He's been built up as this fatherly captain of industry.  He'd better come off that way.

July 20,  2016     Permalink

DRAMA AT FOX NEWS – AT 12:46 P.M. ET:   One of the great boosts to conservatism in the last 20 years has been the growth of Fox News as a journalistic powerhouse.  While Fox's slogan is "We report, you decide" and its sub-slogan is, "Fair, balanced, and unafraid," Fox tilts right and has given conservatives a voice they don't have on other networks.  We can see stories on Fox that the others simply won't carry because they don't fit into the approved narrative."

Now Fox is going through convulsions.  The man who built it, Roger Ailes, appears to be on his way out.  From the New York Post, which is owned by the same corporation as Fox News: 

Roger Ailes’ 20-year reign as the boss of cable TV’s No. 1 news outlet could soon be coming to an end as he negotiates his departure from Fox News Channel.

Ailes, 76 — who built Fox News into an influential, $3 billion business — is reportedly being shunted aside in the wake of a sexual harassment suit filed against him by former anchor Gretchen Carlson.

Ailes has strongly denied the accusation.

And while most FNC female staffers lined up to support Ailes, one did not: Megyn Kelly.

Kelly, a prime-time anchor, has remained publicly silent on the matter. On Tuesday, however, New York magazine reported that she told Fox lawyers conducting an internal probe that Ailes had sexually harassed her, too, in the mid-2000s, when she was a Washington correspondent. It was not clear what kind of harassment she alleged.

After the article emerged, several news outlets reported that negotiations on Ailes’s exit were under way. Late Tuesday, his lawyer, Susan Estrich, confirmed that the discussions were in the advanced stages, according to the New York Times.

She told CNN, “There’s lots of cross talk, but no agreement has been reached.”

FNC referred all calls to its parent, 21st Century Fox.

A departure by Ailes could bring chaos to the Fox News Channel.

Several of the network’s biggest stars — Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren — have clauses in their contracts that would allow them to leave if Ailes exits, according to a report in the Financial Times.

COMMENT:  This is a convulsion.  If Ailes is out, who is in?  For what it's worth, and I claim no inside information, I believe the sexual harassment charge, which is unproved, is simply being used as an excuse to retire Ailes.  Ailes was hired by, and protected by, Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corporation, which owns Fox News.  But Murdoch is aging, and is gradually turning power over to his two sons, at least one of whom does not share Ailes's conservatism.

I fear there will be an attempt to move Fox left.  I think it will fail, and Fox will become just another number on the dial.

That's my theory.  I hope it's wrong. 

July 20, 2016       Permalink 

ON THIS DAY – AT 11:22 A.M. ET:  On this day in 1969, a man walked on the Moon.  I recall putting our two-month-old daughter in front of our black-and-white TV just so she could say, later in life, that she'd seen the first Moon walk.

How blasé we've become about it all.  I don't hear the space program even referred to in American politics today.  No one seems to care.

In 1969, crowds would gather in Grand Central Terminal in New York to watch space events on a huge TV screen.  Today, I wonder if you'd get a foursome.  Young people don't seem aware that we even have a space program.  They certainly aren't aware of the vast technology that the space program developed, technology we use in our own lives.  Today's iPads have more computing power than the computers used in our 1960s space capsules.

Under Barack Obama, the head of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was told that "Muslim outreach" should be one of his main goals.  We depend today on Russian rockets to get us to the International Space Station.  Obama has not shown the slightest interest in the great spiritual adventure that defines the exploration of space.

We need to restore the dreams of the space program, to reignite the excitement we felt that day in 1969 when Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon and announced a "giant leap for mankind."  We sometimes seem to have lost that spirit in this country, replaced by the heavy-handed lectures of pseudo-intellectuals.  I think that spirit is still there, waiting for a new leader to let it fly.

July 20, 2016       Permalink

UNBELIEVABLE – AT 9:55 P.M. ET:  Little by little, the American media is slipping into its usual mode, as promoter of the Democratic Party.  I was just watching Carol Costello's program on CNN.  Costello is a hardened liberal and should simply say so, just as Sean Hannity makes no bones about being a conservative.  But liberals very rarely admit their prejudices.  It's part of their condescending attitude toward their audience.  Those peasants would never understand, would they?  Yeah, they would.

Costello's show tried to extend the narrative about Melania Trump borrowing some lines from Michelle Obama, without attribution.  As I said yesterday, it was a serious mistake, and the campaign has erred by not confronting it directly, apologizing, and showing class.  Okay, blunder.  But it wasn't World War III, yet you'd think it was by watching CNN this morning.  It was their main story – not terrorism, not the murder of police officers, not our weak economy.  Melania and her few sentences – that was the headline.

I will be comparing coverage of this convention with coverage of the Democratic Convention next week.  What do you think I'll find?  Don't hold your breath.

It isn't just the news media that's gone into vulgar mode.  The entertainers have gone berserk.  Bill Maher has said that Donald Trump's wonderful, accomplished sons "look like the date rapist in every after school special ever."  I hope an apology is forthcoming.

Joy Behar, another genius, compared Rudy Giuliani to Mussolini, a particular slur because Rudy is Italian-American.

A film critic called the Republican convention the "world's largest lynch mob."

The coastal elites have raised the rhetoric a few notches since calling Ronald Reagan "an amiable dunce" or a warmed-over movie actor. 

July 20,  2016     Permalink

JULY 19,  2016

REPUBLICAN CONVENTION – DAY TWO

A day that began badly and ended pretty well.

The morning news was dominated by Melania Trump's appropriation of a few lines from Michelle Obama's 2008 speech before the Democratic National Convention.  The mainstream (liberal) media was gleeful.  The Trump campaign handled the issue badly, refusing to own up to the obvious plagiarism and offering all kinds of ridiculous excuses.  They forgot the old rule of politics:  It's not the crime, it's the cover-up.

The stonewalling worked to a degree.   Commentators pretty much stopped talking about the incident during the afternoon, but I'm afraid Melania's image has been damaged, at least in the press. 

Donald Trump was formally nominated for president late in the day.  So he's now the official nominee of the Republican Party.  The nomination has thus far produced no move toward party unity.  There is clearly bitterness in some factions of the GOP toward Trump's nomination, and his often heavy-handed tactics toward opponents.   There is also considerable doubt that he's a true conservative.

The evening was devoted to speeches, none of which will be remembered through Saturday.   Trump delivered a live/remote brief speech to the delegates thanking them for his nomination, but no news was made.  The main events were two speeches by his children, Tiffany Trump and Donald Trump Jr.  Tiffany, who is in her early 20s, was poised, dignified and affecting.  Everyone loved her.  Donald Jr. gave a more political speech, and proved remarkably skillful and powerful.  He's a natural political speaker who can go far, even if his father doesn't win.

Tomorrow night (Wednesday) we get Ivanka Trump, the true star of the family. 

Trump's family is his not-so-secret weapon.  Every member is more likable than he is.

It's very hard to read how the convention might affect viewers.  It's an unusual year, and voters have done odd things...like nominate Donald Trump.  The strong unpopularity ratings for both major-party candidates are extraordinary, and make normal political analyses suspect.  As I like to put it, we have a choice between Bonnie and Clyde.  I don't recall any presidential contest in which both candidates were so disliked. 

There is only one event at this convention that might create some kind of serious change in the thinking of the electorate, and that is Trump's acceptance speech.  There are reports that the speech is in chaos, but those reports may not be accurate.  Trump has to nail it.  He has to dispel the notion that he's some kind of shoot-from-the-hip, unsophisticated blowhard from New York.  He must lay out what he would do as president, without losing the sense of citizen indignation that many voters find attractive.  If he blows this speech, and he can, I don't see much chance for recovery.  It is not enough for him to wait for Hillary to defeat herself.  She may not follow her ususual self-destructive script.

July 19,  2016     Permalink 

NOTE TO READERS:  In my comments this morning about the Melania Trump plagiarism story, I clearly contradicted observations I made on the same subject late last night.  Absolutely intentional.  In studying the matter further, and listening to observers I respect, I came to a different conclusion.  It is plagiarism, and it is significant.  The comments by Professor Sabato were particularly persuasive.

ANOTHER TERROR ATTACK – AT 10:58 A.M. ET:  While we had our eyes firmly focused on politics, Germany was experiencing a new attack by an Islamic terrorist.  Fortunately, in this case no one was killed.  From BBC:

The so-called Islamic State has released a video purporting to show an Afghan asylum seeker making threats before attacking a German train.

The 17-year-old injured four people with an axe and knife, one critically, in the attack in Wuerzburg on Monday evening. He was shot dead by police.

In the video, a young man brandishing a knife says he is an "IS soldier" preparing for a suicide mission.

German officials say they later found a hand-painted IS flag in his room.

The teenager reportedly shouted the Islamic phrase "Allahu akbar" ("God is great") during the attack.
The self-styled news agency of IS said he had launched the attack "in answer to the calls to target the countries of the coalition fighting the Islamic State".

The attack comes days after a lorry ploughed into a crowd in Nice in France, killing 84 people. The self-styled Islamic State group said one of its followers had carried out that attack.

COMMENT:  What is remarkable is the sheer number of attacks in recent months, including one in Orlando, Florida.  Expect more.  They have the potential to impact our presidential campaign and possibly determine the winner.

July 19, 2016        Permalink

NEW POLL, NEW GRIMNESS FOR HILLARY –  The Democrats have a YUGE problem with Hillary.  The more people see her, the less they like her.  From NBC News: 

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are virtually tied in the polls as the Republican National Convention convenes in Cleveland this week. Clinton now just barely edges out Trump in a direct head-to-head match-up, 46 percent to 45 percent. This is slightly down from the 3-point lead she held in last week's tracking poll numbers.

The contest is also competitive in a four-way general election scenario between Clinton (39 percent), Trump (40 percent), Libertarian Gary Johnson (10 percent) and Green Party candidate Jill Stein (5 percent). These results are according to the latest from the NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll conducted online from July 11 through July 17, 2016 among 9,353 adults who say they are registered to vote.

COMMENT:  The Trump campaign has made a number of unforced errors, but Trump is still doing very well...in comparison to Hillary.  If the Dems had a better-liked candidate, I'd imagine that candidate would have a clear lead. 

It's very early.  If Trump can pull off the rest of the convention without mistakes, he might pick up a bounce.  The Dems meet next week.  Of course, they, too, can pick up a bounce, and they generally run better conventions.

July 19, 2016       Permalink

"ANOTHER NICE MESS" – AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  The phrase from Laurel and Hardy applies this morning.  We should have been talking about how wonderful Melania Trump was in her speech in Cleveland – gracious, elegant, warm, lovely.  Instead, journalists are talking about two passages from the speech last night that were lifted from Michelle Obama's address to the 2008 Democratic convention.

Make no mistake about it.  This is plagiarism.  As Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia said this morning, it is serious plagiarism.  We noted the similarities in our post last night about the Republican convention.  CNN ran a side-by-side videotape comparison of Michelle and Melania.  It is devastating.  No doubt about it.

As usual, the Trump campaign has committed an unforced error.  It has, thus far, handled it horribly – sending people out to say that Melania was using common language.  Come on, own up to it.  In all probability this was the work – accidentally or intentionally – of a staff member who helped Melania with her speech.  She's a highly intelligent woman who speaks several languages.  It's inconceivable that she'd approve of plagiarism.

What must be done:  Melania Trump must herself hold a news briefing and take responsibility for the error.  She should explain how it happened.  She must apologize.  If it was the work of a staff member, that staffer should be encouraged to offer his or her resignation.  This must be an example of how the Trump campaign handles a crisis.  If the campaign is open and forthcoming, it will blow over, especially if the truth turns out to be a simple transcription error, which can happen.

Joe Biden plagiarized in his 1988 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Barack Obama blatantly plagiarized from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in 2008, and admitted it.

Let's put this to bed properly.  The Trump people know that the press is largely against them and will milk this for everything it's worth.

July 19,  2016     Permalink