https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLJLGJ8m5dE

I wish I could say I am surprised and shocked at what Donald John Trump said today in a White House ceremony.

I’m not. It’s almost becoming an expected event.

Some distinguished Americans gather for a ceremony honoring them for their service to the nation and the president of the United States — who had zero public service experience before being elected to his high office — cheapens it beyond all recognition.

Trump welcomed some Native Americans today. These were 90-something men who when they were much younger were called to duty to defend the nation against tyranny during World War II. They are the legendary Code Talkers, who communicated in their native tongue, which the enemy could not decipher.

Then the president makes the “Pocahontas” crack, disparaging U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has contended Native American ancestry is in her background. Trump has been savaging Warren for years over her assertion that she has Cherokee ancestry in her family background.

Warren called it a “racial slur.” Navajo leaders have issued a statement that said the president’s remarks demonstrated “racial insensitivity.”

Are you surprised? Neither am I.

All the president had to do was offer a nation’s thanks to these brave men — all of whom are former U.S. Marines — for the gallantry they exhibited during our nation’s desperate struggle. All he had to do was honor these men and praise them to the hilt for the bravery they demonstrated while defending this nation against forces that sought to destroy it.

He couldn’t do that. No, all the president did — with his careless and idiotic quip — was destroy a moment that by all rights should have belonged exclusively to a group of American heroes.

Disgraceful.