Trump's campaign seems to be non-stop evasiveness.
Tribune Content Agency — July 19, 2016
CLEVELAND — Donald Trump made a grand entrance on the first night of the Republican National Convention back-lit in a thick blue fog. I expected to hear the theme song from his “The Celebrity Apprentice” program, “For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays. But, no.
Too bad. It would have been no less appropriate for The Donald than the thick blue fog, which pretty well symbolizes the vagueness of his answers whenever he is asked for specifics about his grand campaign promises.
Only a day earlier, CBS aired a “60 Minutes” interview in which Lesley Stahl asked whether his promise to “declare war against ISIS” meant that he would send American troops into combat. Trump’s long response came nowhere close to delivering a simple yes or no.
“Look, we have people that hate us,” he said. “We have people that want to wipe us out. We’re gonna declare war against ISIS. We have to wipe out ISIS. These are people that….”
“With troops on the ground?” Stahl interrupted, sticking to her line of questions like a pit bull to a lamb chop.
“I am going to have very few troops on the ground,” he continued. “We’re going to have unbelievable intelligence, which we need; which, right now, we don’t have. We don’t have the people over there. We are going to use…..”
How was Trump going to build this “unbelievable intelligence?” asked Stahl. More important: Would he send American troops into combat?
“Very little,” he conceded at last, without saying how many “very little” is. Instead he rambled on about how he was going to enlist NATO and neighboring Arab states, as if our NATO allies would be delighted to send troops while ours stay at home. Good luck with that.
When Stahl again asked Trump to explain what he means by “declare war,” his newly announced running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, came to The Donald’s rescue. This may signal a new role for him in the campaign as Trump’s anger translator.
“I have every confidence,” said Pence. “… that when Donald Trump becomes president of the United States, he’ll give a directive to our military commanders, bring together other nations, and we will use the enormous resources of the United States to destroy that enemy.”
Bold words. But as a former member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Pence should know how often we have heard promises of very quick wars with “very little” troops before — only to be bogged down in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, to name a few.
“Now look, we are going to get rid of ISIS, big league,” said Trump, jumping back into the fray. “And we’re going to get rid of ’em fast.”
But we did go to war in Iraq, Stahl reminded him, which didn’t turn out well. That’s because, said Trump, that war “was handled so badly” and “that was a war that we shouldn’t have entered,” and “I was against the war in Iraq from the beginning.”
Actually not from the beginning, according to a Sept. 11, 2002, radio interview with shock jock Howard Stern that Buzzfeed dug up. Trump expressed his support for the Iraq invasion in that interview more than six months before the war began.
I offer this information as a service to people who care about facts, a group that apparently does not include Trump’s supporters — or Trump.
For example, when Stahl pointed out that Trump’s running mate voted for the war in Iraq, Trump’s answer was quick, direct and resolute: “I don’t care.” It was “a long time ago,” he said.
But would he be as uncaring about Hillary Clinton, who voted the same way as Pence when she was in the Senate? No way, he told Stahl.
“He’s entitled to make a mistake every once in a while,” Trump said of Pence.
“But she’s not?” Stahl asked.
“But she’s not,” Trump repeated.
Maybe Trump already is rehearsing the answers he plans to give after he makes his first mistakes as president, should we, the voters, be foolish enough to elect him.
“Everyone is entitled to make a mistake every once in a while,” he might say, “as long as they’re on my side.”
That’s the Donald. When he steps out of the fog, the fog stays with him.
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