Lazy Saturday Reads: Trump May Have Bitten off More than He Can Chew
Posted: January 2, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: agism, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Sexism 29 Comments
Good Morning!
In the past week or two Donald Trump has begun directing his crude and crass public attacks at Hillary Clinton rather than his Republican rivals for the presidential nomination.
Trump claimed that it was “disgusting” that Hillary went to the ladies room during a break the last Democratic debate. He said that Obama “schlonged” Hillary in the 2008 presidential primaries. He announced that it was “fair game” for him to use Bill Clinton’s infidelities in the 1990s against Hillary. Will it work?
From the NYT: Poll Show Attacks on Bill Clinton May Only Help Hillary Clinton.
Survey data from the Pew Research Center show’s [sic] Mrs. Clinton’s favorability rating jumping to 63 percent in August of 1998, four months before Mr. Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives. In December of that year, as controversy about their marriage continued to swirl, her popularity climbed higher, reaching 66 percent.
“In contrast to her husband, Hillary Clinton continues to draw high marks from the public,” Pew found at the time. “Two-thirds of Americans say they admire Hillary Clinton’s decision to stand by her husband and nearly as many have a favorable opinion of the first lady.”
Figures from Gallup also showed Mrs. Clinton’s favorability rating rising as accounts of Mr. Clinton cheating dominated headlines. That rating, which was at 39 percent in 1992, remained high through 1999 before leveling off. It hovered from 40 percent to 50 percent in the 2000s and topped 60 percent again when she joined President Obama’s cabinet.
Shawn J. Parry-Giles, a communications professor at the University of Maryland, explained in her 2014 book about the role of gender in American politics that Mrs. Clinton was seen as more sympathetic and authentic as she endured the fallout from her husband’s affair.
“As she showed a clear sense of marital fortitude by staying with her cheating husband, her poll numbers would rise,” Ms. Parry-Giles wrote. “As the scorned and sad woman attracting sympathy from others, Clinton would more closely resemble the traditional ideals of authentic womanhood.”
Paul Waldman at The Week: Bill Clinton’s sexual history is fair game for Donald Trump. But it’s bad politics.
…since Hillary Clinton often mentions her husband’s presidency as an example of the kind of successful approach she would bring, that presidency — warts and all — is certainly relevant. But if Republicans want to re-litigate the Monica Lewinsky matter, they probably shouldn’t hope that things will turn out differently this time. You may recall that they were unable to remove Clinton from the presidency, and two years after being impeached he left office with approval ratings in the high 60s. In the end, the public decided that though his private behavior was deplorable, they were happy with the job he was doing as president. They also concluded that a bunch of prurient Republicans had become positively obsessed with Clinton’s sexual life and dragged the country through a needless impeachment crisis.
It’s fair game to talk about all that again (which, I must point out, members of the media would absolutely love to do). What’s much harder to figure out is why Bill Clinton’s behavior provides a reason to vote against his wife. That’s the substance of the question, which still awaits an explanation.
One might even ask what relevance Donald Trump’s obvious sexism has for the presidency. Unlike with some of the other large groups he has alienated, it’s less clear what the connection would be between Trump’s sexism and his actual policy positions. Yes, he finds women’s bodily functions “disgusting,” in the word he repeatedly uses (see here or here), and has a history of dumping his wives when they hit their 40s so he can get himself a younger model. But his positions on issues of particular concern to women are little different from those of most Republicans, even those who are perfectly polite and respectful to everyone (you can argue that things like opposing abortion rights are inherently sexist, but that doesn’t tell us anything about Trump specifically).
But it would be “fair game” now, right? Please go read the rest of the piece at the link. It’s good.
Mary Sanchez at the Chicago Tribune: Donald Trump should think twice about taking on Bill Clinton.
Donald Trump might be picking the wrong schoolyard fight. His modus operandi is to bully. And it’s proved to be an ideal strategy for tying his Republican rivals in knots. But now he’s trying it on someone whose powers of political legerdemain are legendary: Bill Clinton.
The 69-year-old former president is wilier than Trump could ever dream of being. This is the man who hung the 1995-1996 government shutdown around the neck of his chief political adversary, House Speaker Newt Gingrich. A formidable huckster in his own right, Gingrich was the It Boy of conservatism and the leader of an ascendant “Republican Revolution,” but after losing his budget showdown with Clinton, his career went into permanent eclipse.
Gingrich’s oafish understudies then mounted an ill-advised impeachment campaign against Clinton, which only burnished the president’s credentials as a victim of partisan fanaticism.
Trump, by contrast, is a cad whose vulgarity and brutishness are given cover by the fact that those very qualities are cheered by a large portion of the Republican base. He’s making the P.T. Barnum bet on the Republican electorate, and so far it’s paying off.
In recent days, Trump has pounced on Hillary Clinton’s husband, in particular his record of cheating, as a new stratagem to upend her campaign. On Twitter, he asserted: “If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women’s card on me, she’s wrong!”
But this only underscores another difference between Bill Clinton and Donald Trump: The former president’s record on so-called women’s issues is stellar. He appointed the first women to become U.S. attorney general and secretary of state, added Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the U.S. Supreme Court and signed the Violence Against Women Act, along with other measures that benefited women.
Most recently Trump has been claiming that Hillary is “weak” and “low energy” and that she “lacks .”
From the Washington Post:
For as long as Hillary Clinton has been in the public eye, she has answered questions — and sometimes volunteered information — about how much and how hard she works to get it all done.
Few, even her political enemies, have questioned her work ethic or staying power — until Donald Trump.
“She’ll do a couple of minutes in Iowa, meaning a short period of time. And then she goes home,” the GOP presidential front-runner said in Davenport, Iowa, a few weeks ago, as his attention turned to those areas. “You don’t see her for five or six days. She goes home, goes to sleep. I’m telling you. She doesn’t have the strength. She doesn’t have the stamina.”
Ever since — and increasingly in recent days — the magnate has lobbed a barrage of insults at Clinton from onstage at his campaign rallies, on television and online. The former secretary of state is “low-energy,” Trump says. She lacks stamina. She’s physically weak.
The attacks — often coded, always personal — seem to be aimed at raising questions in voters’ minds about a factor that has long been whispered in some GOP circles: how Clinton’s age could affect her ability to serve.
Trump is older than Clinton, but I guess he thinks he’s not affected by aging. Or maybe he thinks only women are?
“I think that my words represent toughness and strength. Hillary’s not strong. Hillary’s weak, frankly. She’s got no stamina; she’s got nothing,” the billionaire said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “She couldn’t even get back on the stage last night.”
Her energy level, he has said, should disqualify her from the presidency. “Hillary is a person who doesn’t have the strength or the stamina, in my opinion, to be president,” Trump told ABC’s “This Week.” “She doesn’t have strength or stamina. She’s not a strong enough person to be president.”
Trump, who often takes credit for saddling former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) with a “low-energy” label, has lately used the same line on Clinton.
“She’s even lower-energy than Jeb Bush,” he told a South Carolina crowd on Wednesday.
Trump has looked tired by the end of every GOP debate. I’d love to see him sit through 11 hours of hostile questioning at a Congressional hearing as Hillary did not too long ago. Who know what’s in Trump’s fevered brain, but I think these are all sexist attacks designed to make people believe a woman couldn’t handle the presidency. I don’t think this line of attack is going to work for Trump either.
A few more reactions to Trump’s attacks on Hillary and Bill Clinton:
Joe Conason at The National Memo: Below Par: Donald Trump’s Ardent Courtship Of Bill And Hillary Clinton.
Janelle Ross at the WaPo: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and how sexism is now partisan.
Lanny Davis at The Hill: Thank you, Mr. Trump — keep attacking the Clintons.
What do you think? What stories are you following today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Obviously Trump doesn’t remember Hillary’s schedule when she was SoS if he think she’s weak. And as you noted, BB, Trump wouldn’t have lasted even a quarter as long as Hillary did during that recent congressional inquisition — he would have exploded from apoplexy. The only thing Trump has stamina for is mouthing hot air. Well, he’s the poster boy for Al-Shabab/Al-Qaeda now.
Poor Don-Don! He has some serious he-man woman hating going on. He can’t control himself. Any woman that stands up to him gets called a “bimbo” or “weak” or “bleeding from places”. He just can’t help himself because to his mind the only thing a woman is good for is sex. He even talks about his own daughter in that way ” I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps, I would be dating her.” What a sick SOB!!!!! He’ll never be POTUS!!!
And what do you want to bet that Trump will blame Hillary for recruitment video?
He doesn’t even say they are good for sex, he says young ones are the best piece of ass.
The Media doesn’t cover her events (they’re too busy being schlonged by Donald J. Trump), but we can be sure that Hillary is out there- every day- campaigning her heart out.
Yes.
And doing a hell of job too.
Excellent post, BB. Thank you.
I don’t know if this subject has been discussed here before but Roy Cohn was Donald Trump’s close friend and early mentor. To me, that explains a lot. Nothing like learning to play dirty on the big stage from a master of the game, right? Trump and Cohn met at NYC’s Le Club shortly after Trump graduated from Wharton. Cohn became the Trump family lawyer.
“Donald described Cohn as ‘a total genius’ who ‘would kill for somebody that he liked’ and he liked Trump.
Cohn was gay but opposed gay rights and helped persecute other gays. He was Jewish but was anti-Semitic. He often used the words s**c, n****r and f*g.
He dressed impeccably in fine suits, silk ties, matching handkerchiefs – ‘and was so vain that he never appeared in public with a hair out of place’.
He drove a rattletrap Rolls Royce with his initials RMC on the vanity license plate and often entertained friends in the back seat of his car over drinks.
Trump followed the lead of his mentor, always wearing a flashy suit, a fine shirt, and was chauffeured in a limousine with his initials, DJT on the vanity plate. He wore patent-leather shoes.”
“When not working the nightclub circuit, Trump and Cohn were focused on the outcome of a housing discrimination case brought by the federal government in 1973 against the Trump organization.
Trump Management Corporation, the family’s real estate company, was being sued by the Department of Justice, ‘alleging that the company had refused to rent to prospective tenants ‘because of race and color’.
Instead of settling the case, the ‘Trumps had hired Cohn and signaled their willingness to wage a long fight’.
Cohn filed a $100 million counter suit and accused the Justice Department of using ‘Gestapo-like tactics’.
But when current and former Trump workers testified that they were required to report the race of anyone seeking apartments and had been told to discourage black applicants, Cohn negotiated in earnest and Trump had to make a ‘public pledge of nondiscrimination’.
A first in New York City, the Trumps had to provide weekly lists of vacancies to the Urban League’s Open Housing Center and they had three days to submit applications from minorities who had first preference.
Cohn was eventually disbarred in 1986 shortly before he died at age fifty-nine from AIDS.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3246349/I-watch-supermodels-getting-sc-ed-bench-Donald-Trump-prowled-posh-NYC-clubs-racist-gay-hating-super-lawyer-Roy-Cohn-asked-conquests-like-Carla-Bruni-AIDS-test.html
Thanks, Beata. I knew about the lawsuit against Trump’s father–I posted about it recently. I didn’t know about the Roy Cohn connection. Very telling, as you noted.
I may have posted this here already, or maybe y’all have already posted it, but Trumps dad was arrested in a KKK riot with cops
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3229542/Donald-Trump-hits-faces-claims-father-arrested-anti-Catholic-Ku-Klux-Klansmen-attacked-police-New-York-1927-says-never-happened.html
Yes, I wrote about it in a post about Trump’s family history awhile back. But it never hurts to post these things. I’m sure plenty of people didn’t read my post.
At about 1:19 Roy Cohn is mentioned in Billy Joel’s song, We didn’t start the fire.
That was great bomb drop on Roy Cohn, and Drumpf. Damn he was connected to big heavy weights, including the Gambino, Genovese Crime Families, including John Gotti. Also the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in NY, as well as Onassis. I had forgotten about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg trail in his role in it. Cohn was a member of the John Birch Society, and advisor to both Reagan and Nixon.
He helped Donald Trump’s sister, Maryaine Trump Barry obtain a judgeship (NJ) under Reagan. Interesting too, that on 20 Nov 1992, she said “women should lighten up a bit on the subject of sexual harassment, that women in the work place was poisoning relations between the sexes, calling them professional hypochondriacs.” It was Helen Gurley Brown who said the Maryaine Trump Barry suffered because of her privileged background. I think her and her brother, and the whole damn clan suffer from affluenza.
When Roy Cohn was disbarred, none other than Donald Trump testified on his behalf. In 1940 he is living with his father Albert Cohn who is a judge, and mother, and he is only son, 18 years, with couple cooks, servants from Germany living in the household.
Here’s Angels in America:
Good column by Krugman today.
Privilege, Pathology, and Power
Good read, thank you!
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/us/politics/for-donald-trump-lessons-from-a-brothers-suffering.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=
On the topic of trump.
From the link…..after the death of Donald oldest brother Freddy:
In 1999, the family patriarch died, and 650 people, including many real estate executives and politicians, crowded his funeral at Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue.
But the drama was hardly put to rest. Freddy’s son, Fred III, spoke at the funeral, and that night, his wife went into labor with their son, who developed seizures that led to cerebral palsy. The Trump family promised that it would take care of the medical bills.
Then came the unveiling of Fred Sr.’s will, which Donald had helped draft. It divided the bulk of the inheritance, at least $20 million, among his children and their descendants, “other than my son Fred C. Trump Jr.”
Freddy’s children sued, claiming that an earlier version of the will had entitled them to their father’s share of the estate, but that Donald and his siblings had used “undue influence” over their grandfather, who had dementia, to cut them out.
A week later, Mr. Trump retaliated by withdrawing the medical benefits critical to his nephew’s infant child.
“I was angry because they sued,” he explained during last week’s interview. At the time, he attributed their exclusion from the will to his father’s “tremendous dislike” for Freddy’s ex-wife, Linda. She and Fred III declined to comment on the dispute.
Mr. Trump said that the litigation had been settled “very amicably”
You read the whole thing at the link.
Donald Trump is a monster. He’s subhuman.
That’s pretty much what Judge Phyllis Gangel-Jacobs said when she granted him a divorce. She cited the multimillionaire as being cruel and inhuman treatment of his wife Ivana.
I think that Ivana had journals, and letters, every little thing he ever wrote to her, including notes. I just wonder where are does documents?
“I just wonder where are does documents?”
If there are documents detailing the abuse of Ivana by Donald, I promise you Hillary’s team has them neatly tucked away in their Op Research, ready to use at the drop of a hat. Hillary has had every trick in the book used against her and it’s all old news. Nobody but the Trumpeteers give a damn about Monica Lewinsky or Bill’s indiscretions as Governor. Donald Trump threatening Hillary with that crap is a mistake that could be fatal to his chances. Trump is getting ready to bite off a chunk he can’t chew!!!
Did y’all see this?
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/republican-millionaire-behind-trump-is-disgusting-skywriting-i-would-vote-for-secretary-clinton/
I don’t think Trump’s attacks against Clinton can possibly hurt him in any way during the Republican primary – especially considering that he attacked his fellow candidates and other Republicans and got away with it.
They won’t hurt him for now, but they’ll make Hillary stronger. That’s the point.
Yup.
Former Arkansas senator and Governor Dale Bumpers has passed at 90.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/02/politics/dale-bumpers-arkansas-governor-senator/index.html
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/new-years-eve-new-orleans-gang-violence-gun-crime
Great read.
Seems everyone forgets a few things about Bill Clinton. During the scandal he and Hillary had daily therapy sessions in the White House to repair their marriage. Hardly ever talked about. He was proud as punch when Hillary was elected Senator. He glowed with pride in her. Also they forget the while Ken Starr talked to the press in his driveway nearly every day, he said loud and clear in the committee hearing on impeachment that he did not question her or listen to her being questioned. So he never heard it from the horse’s mouth and wasn’t interested in doing so. Go back and listen to his answers in the testimony on the impeachment when he was being questioned by Clinton lawyers. Impeachment was ridiculous if you heard what he had to say.
I meant when Monica Lewinsky was questioned Ken Starr was not present. Apparently not interested in anything she had to say.
I recall Jessie Jackson being called to the White House, and I recall Bill being in some sort of “sex addict type of counseling”. Wasn’t too long after that, that Jessie Jackson got called out for fathering a child outside his marriage.
But was really bothers me is that during all this friggin’ crap by Monica and the republicans, we were attacked by a bomb USS Cole, and nobody wanted to address that issue, because the bombshell was Monica. If we would have paid more attention, we would have seen terrorist coming right at our front door. But no, it was all about a blow job.