June 6^th

Charles Krauthammer has today provided us with some comic relief…but then most days we can count on comic relief from some politician, usually a Republican. Krauthammer has announced the results of an unusual poll. The question was, “Who are you least likely to vote for?” and the options were a batch of current Republican announced and unannounced candidates. Leading the list with 59% of respondents claiming they would never vote for him was Donald Trump. Other candidates did not look good in this poll either: Christy and Bush had high negatives but “The Donald” was the clear winner and he was most unhappy about it.

Trump’s reply came very quickly in a series of tweets; tweets allow very few words and Donald always needs a lot of words so he needed four tweets to properly vent his fury. Trump called Krauthammer “stupid” which was one of his more favorable and certainly least accurate comments. Charles Krauthammer has various failings but stupidity is not one of them.

George Will also entered the “dump on Donald” contest and claimed that he hoped Trump would run so that he would be beaten so badly that he would never be heard from again. Frankly, I doubt that he can be beaten that badly. Is it possible that the GOP has a new scapegoat; someone, a member of the tribe, on whom the party dumps its wrath and drives into the wilderness. OK, so the metaphor is a tad mixed, but you get my point. I thought Republicans had settled on ousting naughty little Rand Paul for his unorthodox views. It would be interesting to see both of these bozos in a Fox News debate. I wonder if Krauthammer could do a poll selecting the most arrogant candidate; surely either Paul or Trump would win that one

Krauthammer had another curious observation: he accused Hillary of “playing the race card.” Now I know this man is bright but the phrase “playing the race card” has become a splendid example of a political cliché and its use should be beneath him. (I’ll bet George Will wouldn’t say that.) Krauthammer’s evidence for this charge was that Clinton had pointed out the effects of many red state’s new voter ID requirements restricting minority voting. So if you suggest a national voter registration law to keep minorities eligible to vote you are focusing on race? Of course you are because that’s what these restrictive laws are designed to stop. Next Krauthammer will suggest that supporting anti-lynching laws is “playing the race card.” Sheesh!