Tag Archives: Salute to America

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How does POTUS keep that grip on his followers?

The question keeps recurring whenever I hear Donald J. Trump blather something nonsensical, such as what he said during his Fourth of July speech intended to offer a “Salute to America.”

How in the world do the millions of Trumpkins out there continue to support this guy?

I am left to sigh in disbelief.

The president muttered something about the revolutionary soldiers “ramming the ramparts” and “taking the airports” in, um, 1775 … or about 128 years before the first airplane took flight in North Carolina. Then the president who said while campaigning for office in 2016 that he doesn’t use Teleprompters blamed the ignorant ranting on a malfunctioning Teleprompter. Go … figure, man!

That kind of idiocy doesn’t matter to the president’s allies. They stand behind him. They cheer him when he lashes out at “fake news” media outlets.

Of course, that latest example is actually timid and tame compared to the myriad other examples of utterly disgraceful comments and behavior that this man has exhibited since becoming president and in the years immediately preceding his entry into the political world.

It utterly astounds me at every level I can imagine.

His lying is incessant. His utter lack of understanding of constitutional principles is confounding beyond measure. Trump promises to make the best deals imaginable and then backs down. He has vowed to appoint the “best people” to populate his administration, but then cannot — or will not — fill key vacancies.

He demonstrates repeatedly an unwillingness to refrain from making policy via Twitter.

Trump insults his foes. He denigrates his intelligence agencies. Trump cozies up to tyrants, killers and despots. He castigates allies.

Through it all, he maintains that chokehold on his political base.

What in the name of a once-noble political craft has happened to this country? I still am baffled at how this guy got elected in the first place and how in the world his base continues to stand with him.

Ugh!

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Teleprompter went ‘kaput,’ Mr. President? Really?

Donald Trump isn’t prone to saying he’s sorry for anything, so no one should have expected him to apologize for the ridiculous assertion he made about 18th-century airports during his “Salute to America” speech Thursday night.

His blaming the mistake on a rained-on Teleprompter does require a certain suspension of disbelief. The mistake went viral, with Twitter hounds around the world poking fun at the president.

Why? Because he made some goofball reference to revolutionary soldiers “taking the airports” while they fought for their independence in 1775. You know the rest of it: The first airplane didn’t take flight until Dec. 17, 1903.

Blame it on the rain, Mr. POTUS

He said the gadget from which he was reading his text “went kaput” in the heavy rain that soaked the event. Does that also explain why he referenced “Fort McHendry,” when he should have said “McHenry,” and that that battle to which he was referring occurred during the War of 1812?

OK. I’m not going to belabor this point. Suffice to say, though, that the president of the United States is hardly a student of the very history of this great country. He made a mistake while seeking to extol the nation’s greatness.

If only, though, this individual — Donald Trump — could just say it loudly and clearly: I messed up. My bad.

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Baffled over ‘airport’ gaffe by POTUS

I need to visit briefly one of the goofy moments that developed during Donald Trump’s “Salute to America” speech Thursday in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

He referred to the revolutionary soldiers taking the “airports” while they fought for the nation’s independence — more than 125 years before the invention of the airplane.

I have questioned whether the presidential speechwriter penned that passage into Trump’s prepared text. If that was the case, was there no one on the staff who read it prior to the president delivering it? Did they not recognize the obvious error that the text contained? If they didn’t notice, were they asleep at the wheel? If they did notice, did they  ignore it to, um, embarrass the commander in chief?

Or did the president, pardon the pun, wing it at that moment, thinking it was a clever addition to the text that had been prepared for him by the “best people” who comprise his speechwriting team.

I just find it weird in the extreme that the president of the United States would make such an egregious error in that particular event.

No need to remind me that presidents are human, that they are entitled to make verbal mistakes on occasion. I get it. However, this president had weeks — indeed, months — to prepare for an event he pledged would be the greatest tribute to America the nation has ever seen.

Oh, wait! He was making a joke! Isn’t that what happened?

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POTUS doesn’t blow it … completely!

I had been concerned about whether Donald J. Trump would deliver a too-political speech while offering a “salute to America” at the Lincoln Memorial, that he would hijack a traditionally non-partisan celebration and turn it into a re-election campaign event.

To my admitted surprise, he didn’t fall into that trap. He gave what I guess you could call a workmanlike speech that sought to pay tribute to the revolutionaries who (a) created a new nation and (b) fought for it on battlefields along the Atlantic coastal region.

Yes, I know about the reference to our men taking control of the “airports” in, um 1775, which occurred 128 years before Orville and Wilbur Wright launched the first airplane in Kitty Hawk, N.C. Bad speech-writing, bad editing there.

But the president managed to stick mostly to script.

I have promised to offer a good word when Donald Trump earns it. I am doing so here and now.