Fresh Dropping from the Campaign Trail: The Aftermath

Right From the Start

Following are a series of vignettes apropos to the conclusion of the recent presidential elections. Some things never change.

Leslie Stahl

Ms. Stahl, born to a wealthy Massachusetts family and a princess of privilege herself, promoted the liberal narrative – that people feared for their safety with the election of Mr. Trump. She pointed to a small group of protestors outside of Trump Tower expressing their outrage that their candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost, When Mr. Trump suggested that among the protestors were professional agitators and Clinton supporters, Ms. Stahl, without a single fact at her disposal, scoffed at the notion. With the number of plastic surgeries apparently immobilizing her lower face, Ms. Stahl carried on with a litany of accusations about Trump supporters confronting the protestors without ever mentioning the acts of intimidation and violence by anti-Trump protestors, including the recent violence and destruction in Portland.

Ms. Stahl, who has been romantically linked to Bob Woodward, Sen. Bob Dole and former Vice-president Al Gore, suffered overwhelming criticism for her conduct of the interview with Mr. Trump and appeared the following day on a CBSN show where, in an attempt to suck up from her biased interview, she expressed positive reactions to Mr. Trump, particularly with regard to his leadership abilities.

Most of the comments about Ms. Stahl, whether accurate or not, are completely irrelevant to the interview she conducted with Mr. and Mrs. Trump. However, it is an abject lesson in how the media, including Ms. Stahl, spin a story to favor or cast aspersions on the persons interviewed. It is usually an unsubstantiated criticism of the person rather than his/her policies. It is how they interject their own points of view while pretending to be seeking answers. Ms. Stahl would serve us all better if she focused on all the facts instead of selecting the few with which she agrees, and ignoring those that would differ from the narrative proffered by her in unison with the rest of the mainstream media.

Sen. John McCain

I had originally planned on creating a pool for people to bet on how long after Donald Trump’s election it would take for Sen. John McCain (RINO-AZ) to stab him in the back publicly. But before I could put pen to paper, Mr. McCain had already struck. He, along with his Mini-Me, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) rebuked Mr. Trump for expressing his desire to try to find a way to improve relations with Russia after four years of backsliding and idle threats by President Barack Obama.

According to Politico:

“Sen. John McCain on Tuesday blasted any attempt to play nice with Russian President Vladimir Putin, urging the new Trump administration to stand ‘on the side of those fighting tyranny’ and not with ‘a former KGB agent who has plunged his country into tyranny.’
“The broadside from the chairman of the Armed Services Committee that must confirm Donald Trump’s nominee for Defense secretary came after recent statements from Trump and Putin that they are looking forward to better relations.”

Normally such advice by members of the President-elect’s own party is given privately and in response to specific proposals that the President-elect has suggested. But that’s not good enough for Mr. McCain who has made his fame by being the first to rush to the microphones to criticize other members of his party. Mr. Trump was declared the winner early on Wednesday, November 9 after nearly fifteen months of campaigning. It took Mr. McCain less than a week to stab him in the back.

Look, Mr. McCain is a war-hero and that makes him . . . well, a war hero. And Mr. McCain is proof positive that you can be a war hero and a jerk at the same time.

Sen. Harry Reid

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took his parting shot at Republicans generally and Mr. Trump in particular. It contained the normal sop accusing Mr. Trump of being racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, and xenophobic and a meat eater. Okay, I made up the last line but it probably has as much credibility as Mr. Reid’s accusations.

Mr. Reid has had a long history of these outrageous comments and he usually issues them from the well of the United States Senate where he is immune from the libel and slander laws of the country. So outrageous has his conduct been that most of the members of the Senate issued a collective sigh of relieve at his departure: Don’t let the door hit you in the a** on your way out.

Politico noted a particularly hard dissent from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVa), a recently elected deputy leader for the Democrat minority:

“West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin sharply criticized his own party leader on Friday evening, calling Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s reaction to Donald Trump’s election ‘an absolute embarrassment to the Senate as an institution, our Democratic party, and the nation.’

“Manchin is one of the chamber’s most conservative Democrats and must convince hundreds of thousands of Trump voters to reelect him in 2018. The outgoing Democratic leader, however, is one of Trump’s most persistent critics and has spoken out against Trump on the Senate floor repeatedly this year. On Friday Reid called Trump a ‘sexual predator who lost the popular vote,’ perhaps the harshest reaction to Trump’s victory uttered by a congressional Democratic this week.

‘Manchin said that Reid’s remarks were ‘wrong!’ and immediately moved to distance himself from the Democratic leader. Though Manchin voted against Reid as party leader in 2014, Manchin’s criticisms of Reid were usually more mild than Friday’s remarks.

“‘I want to be very clear, he does not speak for me. As difficult as it is for anyone to lose an election, the American people have spoken and Donald Trump is our President-elect. Senator Reid’s words needlessly feed the very divisiveness that is tearing this country apart,’ Manchin said. ‘We are Americans first, not Democrats or Republicans first. Unfortunately, there are some who forget that at times like these it is wrong to put party and politics above our country.’”

Mr. Reid should be banned from swimming in Lake Tahoe for fear that he will leave a ring of scum.

Carly Fiorina

There has been a long list of Republican notables visiting Mr. Trump since his election, including those with whom he exchanged some pretty nasty comments. I may have missed it but I have not seen Carly Fiorina amongst those mentioned. If he has not reached out to Ms. Fiorina he is missing a good bet. Ms. Fiorina is smart, accomplished and up for the toughest tasks. She would make an excellent Secretary of Commerce. In the outreach he might start with a private apology for his remarks about her personal appearance. If he has reached out and Ms. Fiorina has rebuffed him, she is selling her country short because they could use her considerable talents.

Oregon Catalyst