Trump fails leadership test with tepid response to violence

We hear it all … the … time.

Someone takes the heat for a political error or for acting badly and they seek to deflect the harsh negative light by saying, “Yes, but both sides are guilty of it, too.”

Both sides do it. All sides do it. Don’t blame me. Or the people on my side. Look at the other guys, too.

It’s a dodge. A ruse. A rhetorical escape hatch.

So it was just like that when the president of the United States spoke about the violence in Charlottesville, Va. Three people are known to have died in the violence. The president’s remarks came before the death toll had risen to that level.

But he did that equivocation thing. He condemned the violence that was provoked by the presence of white nationalists/supremacists in Charlottesville; they were there to protest the taking down of Confederate monuments. All hell broke loose.

Did the president condemn the hate mongers? Oh, not precisely. He watered it down by saying “many sides” are to be condemned.

Many sides? Are you bleeping kidding me?

Compare that with what Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said. He told the white supremacists to “go home.” They have no place in Virginia. He belittled their claim to be “patriots,” saying they are “anything but” patriots.

An equally strong and unequivocal statement should have come also from Donald J. Trump. It didn’t. The president has failed yet another leadership test.