Well, Donald Trump is back out there doing what he can't be doing again. This is his race to lose, and the only way he can lose it is to keep making un-forced errors. After going almost the entire month of July without falling into that now-familiar pattern of saying stupid stuff that allows the fake national news media to focus attention away from Hillary Clinton's serial deceit and mendacity, he fell off the wagon again, going after a Gold Star father who spoke at the Democrat National Convention.
All he had to do when asked about the man's speech was to say "you know, he lost a son in Iraq, in a war that I would not have gotten the country entangled in, and I feel for him. I'm not going to comment further than that", and the subject would have died away. Instead, by saying all sorts of stupid stuff about the man and his wife, Trump has succeeded in turning the man into this election cycle's version of Cindy Sheehan.
It will ultimately cost him five points or so in the national polls, and those points will be hard to earn back. Stupid.
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Meanwhile, Trump's opponent just can't stop lying. Her Sunday interview with Fox's Chris Wallace was just a masterpiece in prevarication, and nobody noticed because Trump had given the fake media all it needed to completely ignore Clinton's latest disgrace.
One of my favorite lines from any movie is Ralphie's line in "A Christmas Story" in which he talks about his father's use of profanity: "My father worked in profanity the way other artists worked in oils or clay - a true master."
While that line could easily be applied to Bill Clinton by substituting "lying" for "profanity", it doesn't really work for Hillary. Bill Clinton is a true psychotic - a pathological liar who no doubt actually believes his own BS. He is without any doubt at all the most skilled liar ever elected to the presidency.
Hillary, on the other hand, is a completely obvious, fully transparent liar. Her face and body are so chock-full of physical tells that it's difficult to catalogue them all. If she nods her head, she's lying. If she shakes her head, she's lying. If her eyes look down and to the right, she's lying. If they look up and to the left, she's lying. If her eyes go wide, she's lying. If she blinks rapidly, she's lying. If she leans forward, she's lying. If she leans back, she's lying. If she smiles, she's lying. If she frowns, she's lying. If she cackles, she's lying.
Basically, if her lips are moving, she's pretty much lying.
Her interview with Chris Wallace included each and every one of these tells, and more, and got no attention at all because Trump was out there talking about some guy who doesn't matter.
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A big part of what has gotten Trump to this point is that he is completely different from any politician we've ever seen before. That quality has a great attraction to the tens of millions of Americans who believe our political system is irredeemable in its current state, and needs to be essentially blown up and recreated out of whole cloth.
But that quality is also what keeps getting him into trouble. That quality is what essentially doubled what was going to be a negligible polling boost for Hillary coming out of her convention.
This has been from he beginning an election in which the majority of voters want real, significant change from the current political system. That remains unchanged. But Trump just spent the last week allowing the ultimate status quo candidate, Hillary Clinton, to pretend unchallenged to be running as a change agent.
That must stop, and it must stop now. All it will take is for Trump to quit saying stupid stuff that doesn't matter.
Exactly!
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