Trump pulls huge flip-flop
“Again, to our very foolish leader, do not attack Syria — If you do many very bad things will happen and from that fight the U.S. gets nothing.”
-Donald J. Trump, Reality TV host, 9:20 a.m., Sept. 5, 2013
Life is easy for some reality show hosts.
They can spout off easy answers to complex world problems.
Things change, though, when you’re the person charged with providing those answers as the leader of the free world.
In August of 2013, President Obama tried, but failed, to gain congressional approval for some type of military action in Syria.
The blood-thirsty despot there, Bashar al-Assad, had launched chemical attacks against his own citizens.
First, Obama stood before the American public and pleaded his case for military intervention.
It was Donald Trump, between tapings of Celebrity Apprentice, I suppose, who repeatedly tweeted the loudest opposition.
“President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your “powder” for another (and more important) day,” Trump wrote on Sept. 7.
That was just one of more than a dozen Trump tweets that chastised Obama for contemplating an attack against the Syrian leader.
Oh, how things have changed.
Trump, now, has decided that he’s not a “FOOLISH LEADER” for doing exactly what he’d cautioned Obama not to do.
He’s dropped bombs on Syria; drawn the U.S. into an escalating conflict with Syria, Russia and Iran, while he’s ignored his own advice.
“Don’t attack Syria — an attack that will bring nothing but trouble for the U.S. Focus on making our country strong and great again,” he tweeted in 2013.
Well there is trouble brewing.
The tension between the United States and Russia hasn’t been this serious since the Cold War.
Thanks, Donald!
This is vintage Trump hypocrisy.
And while Trump, the reality show host, had called Obama a “FOOLISH LEADER” for supporting military action in Syria, he’s now blaming him because he didn’t take action.
It gets worse.
During the presidential campaign, Trump attacked Hillary Clinton for her tough stance on Syria. (She’d advocated instituting a no-fly zone over parts of Syria)
Days before the election, Trump gave a fiery speech in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in which he blasted Clinton by saying, “Now Hillary wants to start a shooting war in Syria, in conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia, which could very well lead to World War III.”
Well, Russia is no less a nuclear power than it was before the presidential election.
And the friction between Washington and Moscow is much greater.
Too bad Mr. Trump can’t return to “Celebrity Apprentice” so he can tweet an easy solution to the problems he’s causing.
In the meantime, his fellow Republicans, the ones in Congress, have become as hypocritical as Trump.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was one of the Republicans who balked at Obama’s request to gain congressional approval for an attack on Syria in 2013.
“A vital national security risk is clearly not at play,” McConnell said during a floor speech.
After Trump’s attack, though, McConnell claimed the president had sent a “clear message from America that Bashar al-Assad can no longer use chemical weapons.”
Marco Rubio, who now beams that Trump’s attack was, “The right move,” claimed “I have never supported the use of U.S. military force in the conflict,” when Obama mentioned it in 2013.
Utah Sen. Orin Hatch saw no need to intervene on behalf of those people who’d been the victims of chemical attacks in 2013.
“What is clear is that launching a few missiles will do nothing to end Syria’s civil war,” Hatch opined.
He’s opining differently now.
“No child of God should ever suffer such horror. Amen,” he tweeted after Trump’s bombs fell on Syria.
It’s not hard finding hypocrisy in Washington, these days.
Just go to Trump’s Twitter account online, and look at some of his old tweets.
The one tweet I’ve found in his archives that I do like was the one he wrote on June 4, 2014.
“Are you allowed to impeach a president for gross incompetence?”
Hum.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net