2016 June 7^th

Donald Trump continues to get enormous criticism for his comments about Judge Curiel. He is advised that his criticisms of this truly distinguished jurist could cost him the election. (Judge Curiel defied death threats from Mexican drug cartels to preside over their prosecution. No matter; he can’t be fair to Donald J. Trump.) There are now calls for the high level Republicans who have endorsed Trump, albeit tentatively, to reconsider their endorsement. They won’t do that because Donald J. Trump is all that stands between them and disaster for them in the form of a President Hillary Clinton.

Typical were the remarks of the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Corker, on the Scarborough program this morning. Corker kept insisting that Trump could still turn things around. Of course, and a zebra can lose its stripes and become a horse if it really, really tries. Corker admitted that he did not agree with Trump’s position on Judge Curiel but he refused to say that this position disqualified him for the presidency because, he kept insisting, Trump might change.

Scarborough went on to ask Corker how the war against ISIS was going. His answer was remarkable for its attempts at evasion. Corker admitted that ISIS was being pushed back but only very slowly and this was surely because we had wasted so many chances when we pulled out most of our troops in 2011. Corker never mentioned that the troops were pulled out in compliance with an agreement negotiated by President Bush. Naturally, Scarborough did not remind him of that agreement.

Corker went on to vilify Secretary Clinton over the breakdown of order following the removal of the Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadhafi. I presume that Corker would prefer Gadhafi had been left in place to continue killing his citizens, blowing up airliners and planting bombs in nightclubs visited by American GIs. Once again, Scarborough never mentioned what had preceded Gadhafi’s removal in Libya.

This tendency to distort evidence is endemic to the right wing; yesterday on “Fox and Friends,” a commentator reminded her audience that there were over 94 million unemployed Americans. A two-minute search would have shown this commentator that fully half of those people were over 65 years old and probably retired. Many Americans retire well before 65; I retired at 57, my brother-in-law retired from the military at 39 after 22 years of service. There is no intent to provide information; Fox is simply an avenue for not very subtle right wing propaganda.