JULY 7, 2016
Photo: Getty
Tuesday should have been a gift from the gods to the Republican Party.
That morning, FBI Director James Comey released his long-awaited report on the Bureau’s investigation of the facts around Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while she served as Secretary of State. Comey did announce that there was not enough evidence to prosecute Clinton on criminal charges, thus dashing the fantasies of right-wing radio hosts who dreamed of seeing Hillary in an orange pant-suit being hauled away to The Big House.
But the Comey report did contain a silver lining for the GOP, as the director offered scathing criticism of Clinton’s careless handling of classified materials on her private server, and he flatly contradicted several of Clinton’s public statements, saying that she did place classified material on that home server.
Republican operatives were ecstatic, just picturing the contrasts to be made between Clinton’s public statements and the testimony of the upright FBI director contradicting those same assertions. All they would need is a presumptive nominee who could really hit that message home.
Enter the Wile E. Coyote of Presidential candidates, Donald J. Trump.
Many in the GOP establishment have been openly frustrated at how Trump has conducted his campaign, feeling that he has frittered away the last two months attacking “Mexican” judges from Indiana and promoting his golf courses on the campaign’s dime. This weekend was close to the last straw when Trump retweeted an image from a white supremacist group of Clinton, with a background of $100 bills and the phrase “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever,” placed in a 6-pointed Star of David. When accusations of anti-Semitic imagery began to hit home, Trump argued that it was actually a sheriff’s star (which only has 5 points), but his campaign soon replaced the image with a circle.
Trump was still frothing about it when the Comey report hit, and the candidate was strongly urged to knock it off and get back on message at Tuesday night’s rally in Raleigh, NC, which also served as an audition for Vice-Presidential prospect Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). (After spending all day Tuesday with Trump, Corker quickly withdrew his name from consideration the next day.)
Trump indeed briefly got back on message at the rally, with attacks on “Crooked Hillary” and her e-mail servers, but, as is his habit, Trump soon veered wildly off course, with remarks about, of all people, Saddam Hussein. While acknowledging that Saddam was “a bad guy,” Trump praised the dictator’s handling of terrorists, adding “He did that so good.” Huh? Wha????
GOP leaders, who expected to wake up to headlines about Comey’s blistering criticism of Clinton, were met instead with variations on “Clinton Cleared of All Criminal Charges” and “Trump Praises Saddam Hussein.”
And the Democratic Road-Runner escapes Wile E. Coyote again.
In public statements, party leaders appeared to be ready to drop an ACME anvil on Trump’s head and spent the day pleading with him to stick to the script, hoping for the best but probably expecting the worst, which is what they got Wednesday night in Cincinnati. Though the rally was designed as a VP audition for Newt Gingrich, Newtie was dismissed rather quickly and stewed on the sidelines for the duration of Trump’s speech.
To Trump’s credit, he did follow the script for a while, but added a bizarre accusation that Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch, who closed the criminal case against Clinton earlier that day, must have done so because Clinton bribed her. (????) Then he was back to a review of the lowlights of his campaign so far.
There was a rehash of his Brexit remarks, when Trump, speaking from his golf course in Scotland, praised the devaluation of the British pound because it meant more foreigners would come to Scotland to enjoy his wonderful golf course, which is run by his son Eric, whom for some reason Trump brought onstage to take a bow. (The sound you heard in Washington was probably Republican Chairman Reince Priebus tearing his hair out.)
Then it was back to Saddam and media criticism that Trump had whiffed a chance to hit Clinton hard the previous night. Trump took a special swipe at “Sleepy Eyes” Chuck Todd, moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” who isn’t even one of Trump’s fiercest critics but who apparently got under the billionaire’s skin and earned a nickname in the process.
The big finale was the return of the Star of David, which,because it’s clearly a innocent “sheriff’s star,” he never should have allowed his campaign to take it down. Not willing to leave well enough alone, Trump later tweeted the cover image of a children’s book of stickers promoting the Disney film “Frozen” that also featured a six-pointed star, believing that the drawing of Queen Elsa and the star exonerates him from anti-Semitism completely. (You can’t make this stuff up.) Yes, Donald, there’s a star, but Elsa is not being called “corrupt” against the background of $100 bills. But keep looking. (And you know he will.)
What surprises does Trump have planned for us over the next few days? We can only hold our breath. And no one will be holding their breath harder than the members of the Republican National Committee.
