Trump right about one thing
Donald Trump is right.
At least about one thing.
It’s been a long journey, getting to a point where I could actually agree with something he says.
I thought I had a better chance of winning the Power Ball; buying a horse with the winnings, and having it win the Triple Crown, before I’d ever agree with anything that flopped out of Trump’s mouth.
But he’s right.
When Jeb Bush claimed his brother “kept us safe,” but in the very next sentence he asked, “do you remember the rubble,” Trump is on solid ground by taking to task Jeb’s inartful defense of George W.
I’d written on Sept. 21, that during the last Republican presidential debate, Trump blamed George Bush and his administration for being such a “disaster,” that it “gave us Barack Obama.”
Jeb thought those were fightin’ words.
“As it relates to my brother, there’s one thing I know for sure; He kept us safe,” Jeb shot back.
But even before the resounding applause throughout the Ronald Reagan Library died down, he added, “I don’t know if you remember, Donald – you remember the rubble?”
That was an unforced error.
We all remember George W. with his bullhorn, standing atop the smoldering remains of the Twin Towers, promising us that the people who knocked down those buildings “will hear us soon.”
But that took place days after he hadn’t “kept us safe.”
Trump, who is the master of bombast, is also quite good at using it to push the buttons of his fellow Republican candidates.
He knew that the word “safe” in one sentence, and “rubble” in the next, gave him an opening.
Even if that opening was merely the result of Jeb’s imprecise rhetoric, Trump attacked.
“When you talk about George Bush – I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time,” Trump announced.
That ignited something that has, before 2015, never happened – a Twitter war between presidential candidates.
We now have serious disagreements between two men, either of whom could become the most powerful person on earth, hurling 140 character insults at each other.
With every new Twitter communique, each of the 24-hour news networks served as willing conduits.
Jeb took the bait, and he fired back, “Does anybody really blame my brother for the attacks on 9/11?”
The battle had been joined.
But Trump is smart enough to avoid blaming George W. for the events that took place on 9/11.
Instead, at least for the moment, he continued to make light of Jeb’s ironic “safe” versus “rubble” statement.
“The World Trade center came down, so when he said we were safe, we were not safe,” Trump maintained.
Soon, entire CNN, MSNBC and Fox News panels comprised of national security experts or former CIA operatives appeared.
There were vigorous re-litigations of George W. Bush’s ability to “keep us safe,” before and after 9/11.
Surely Trump must’ve been amused by it all.
None of the “expert” gabbers figured out that Trump was merely having a good old time getting Jeb’s BVD’s in a knot over his own inconsistent assertions.
Jeb was so caught up in the defense of his brother, that it became clear that Trump’s other motive was to join Jeb and George W. at their political hips.
But still, nobody told Jeb to quit while he was behind.
Here’s the proof.
“How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump (Donald Trump) to criticize the president for 9/11,” Jeb wrote on his Twitter feed on Oct. 16.
But he could have stopped there, and the whole thing may have gone away.
Instead, like he had done during that debate at the Ronald Reagan Library, he added another sentence that proved Trump had him flustered.
“We were attacked & my brother kept us safe,” he concluded.
“Attacked and “safe?” This time he included the obvious incongruity in the very same sentence.
He’s just said. I won the Power Ball, but I didn’t play. I won the Triple Crown, but I’m not a horse.
No wonder I agree with Trump, this time.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net