Dec 27^th

The big news today is that Trey Gowdy has endorsed Marco Rubio for President. While you might have heard of Marco Rubio, the semi-controversial Senator who is a Republican candidate for the Presidency, Congressman Gowdy is less famous. So let’s begin with an explanation of Rubio’s being semi-controversial. You would suppose that a Cuban-American whose father fled Cuba would have considerable appeal to the Latin American community. Indeed he would and this appeal would be enhanced by his inclusion in the “gang of eight,” a bi-partisan group of Senators (four Republicans and four Democrats) who planned to offer a road to legitimacy to undocumented immigrants. As you might expect the very idea of any bi-partisan group working on anything was anathema to the far right of the Republican Party and when bi-partisan is coupled with immigration reform, particularly a path to citizenship, the far right near fainted dead away at awfulness of it. So Marco Rubio, who was a member of this group, as was former Republican standard bearer John McCain, had to cleanse himself by claiming that he no longer agreed with the group.

As you might imagine all was by no means forgiven and Rubio has been dealing with the shame of his association with the “gang of eight” ever since. Now comes the stern faced Trey Gowdy who chaired the Congressional Committee charged with browbeating Hillary Clinton into guilty submission on the Benghazi issue. It didn’t quite work out that way. After grilling Clinton for eleven hours Gowdy had discovered nothing he didn’t already know. Clinton however had shown great stamina and considerable restraint coupled with some amusement at Gowdy’s antics. Her performance at this inquisition certainly gutted Trump’s suggestion that she hadn’t the stamina to be president. Can anyone imagine Trump surviving such a grilling? The upshot was that instead of diminishing Clinton’s appeal Gowdy gave her an eleven-hour advertisement. Rubio now has Gowdy’s endorsement but why would he want it?

And now we have George Will providing some interesting commentary about Donald Trump. Will is very unhappy about the Trump phenomena and Trump is almost equally unhappy about George Will.  George Will even goes so far as to claim that denying Trump the Republican nomination is more important than beating Hillary Clinton in November. Will claims that Trump as the Republican nominee will destroy the Republican Party. Of course denying Trump the nomination would almost certainly mean that Trump would run as an independent which would assure Hillary Clinton’s election victory. As far as Will is concerned that outcome is preferable to having Trump as his party’s nominee.

According to Will, Trump is a “fundamentally sad figure who has every disagreeable human trait.” He compares Trump’s comments about Russia’s Putin to “a puppy’s insatiable need to be petted.” But then Trump claims that Will should be banned from Fox news because he is “boring and biased.” But biased is surely no reason to be banned from Fox News.