Trumped Up Nonsense

When even Karl Rove has decided the GOP should drop something as a method of attacking President Obama, that seems a pretty good barometer that something has run its course. The latest case in point is the infamous (and ridiculous) "birther" accusations implying that Barack Obama's presidency is illegitimate based on him allegedly having been born in Kenya (or heaven knows where else). Of course, potential 2012 candidate Donald Trump won't be told anything by anyone and so he continues to pander to the extreme right by demanding that the President produce his birth certificate.

What's so striking about Trump's approach is not that he's chosen an issue that is so clearly played out politically, it's that he actually seems to think it will endear him to the far right and by extension help him with primary voters. Those voters have seen this movie before, when it was called Rudolph Giuliani, and decided they didn't care for it enough to want to see it for four years. Like Trump, Giuliani offered a combination of strong name recognition and mixed record on conservative social issues. He couldn't even manage a second-place finish in any of the GOP primaries, let alone win one of them.

To that stew, Trump adds the special ingredient of having donated to numerous Democratic candidates over the years (http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/02/donald-trumps-donations-to-democrats.html). Were this limited to New York politicians, like Senator Charles Rangel and Charles Schumer, that might be somewhat excusable. When that list includes current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, then-Senator Joe Biden and the late Senator Edward Kennedy, it's hard to imagine the same kind of partisan voters who traditionally vote in primaries forgiving that sort of aisle-crossing and embracing "The Donald".

Some writers have suggested that Trump's behavior may be some sort of publicity stunt related to the current season of Celebrity Apprentice. Even if that's true, though, it really doesn't make it any better. He's still poisoning the political dialogue with a non-issue that's beyond irrelevant. He should be ashamed, but if there's one thing his public life has demonstrated Trump has none.