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Liberal Opinion Week
March 2, 2016
Froma Harrop
Trump Shows His Inner Rabbit I am sorry to note that Donald Trump no longer seems to be at war with the pope. “No, I like him,” Trump said during a town hall on CNN. He added that he had “a lot of respect for the pope. I think he’s got a lot of personality.” There are several troubling matters here. One is that there is nothing more dangerous than having Donald Trump express a sudden fondness for you. “I like China.” “I love Mexican people.” “I love the Muslims.” Trump, you’ll remember, got ticked off because Francis said that anybody who obsesses about building walls to keep people out “is not Christian.” Trump retorted that anybody who doubted the moral stupendousness of wallbuilders was “disgraceful.” But on CNN, Trump was reformulating. The pope’s comment was not so disgraceful after all. “I think it was probably a little bit nicer statement than it was reported by you folks in the media,” Trump said. Now, you could see how he might have jumped to the wrong conclusion if somebody had yelled, “Hey, the pope thinks you’re not acting like a Christian!” while he was walking into McDonald’s for lunch. (He really likes McDonald’s. Thinks they’re clean. I refuse to follow that thought any further.)
same decision. 2) Challenge Cruz to a duel for talking trash about his sister. 3) Change the subject entirely by describing Michael Jackson’s plastic surgery.
But Trump pummeled the papacy with a prepared statement at a rally in a golf course clubhouse. Cynical minds might have thought that the candidate jumped on the pope’s comments because it looked like a good way to remind South Carolina voters about his plan for a border wall. The same minds might also suspect that as criticism mounted, the idea of a war with the Vatican looked less enticing. Perhaps you didn’t see Trump’s town hall on CNN. It was very interesting, but there’s a limit to how many of these things you need to watch. You could learn a foreign language in the time it takes. The great theme of the night was things that Trump said he doesn’t remember or didn’t necessarily mean. This happens all the time. Either our great business genius is incapable of mental fact-checking or he has about as much political courage as a rabbit. A while ago, Trump joked that his sister Maryanne Trump Barry, a senior judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, would make a great Supreme Court justice. Ted Cruz pretended to take the idea seriously and laced into Barry as a “radical pro-abortion extremist.” (She once wrote the majority opinion in a ruling that found a New Jersey law outlawing partial-birth abortion unconstitutional.) Trump had three possible responses: 1) Point out that Samuel Alito, who is now one of the Supreme Court’s most right-wing members, heard the case, too, and came to the
Hear me out. Our present pope, popular as he is, can surely not expect to be pope forever. Whereas Donald Trump is immortal, and knows it. Why else would he behave as he does? It is not such a far-fetched idea to suggest that he should be gunning for the Chair of St. Peter instead of the puny, tiny, not-at-all classy chair in the Oval Office. Which is more Trump to you, a small chair where losers like Jimmy Carter have sat in their time, or a huge, beautiful chair where you are always right? Please. This man was born to be pope. Now the papacy doesn’t win any more. Masses in English, giving to the poor -- just giving things away to them, not even trying to make deals of any kind. Handouts, charity. Pssh! Just throwing away blessings and absolutions when you could be making billions from the sale of indulgences. Letting the little children come unto you - children of all faiths! -- before those children have been properly vetted. Give me a break. Not only would Trump fix it, but also he’d fit right in. They nominate the next pope by blowing smoke of a particular color out through the chimney of the college of cardinals. Trump is accustomed to blowing smoke. St. Peter’s Basilica is Huge and Great and Classy -- a bit of a downgrade from the Trump Taj Mahal, but still respectable, in its way, considering how few surfaces are brass.
Stern asked Trump if he thought U.S. troops should go in, and Trump said, “Yeah, I guess so.” Didn’t count! “When you’re in the private sector, you know, you get asked things and, you know, you’re not a politician, and probably the first time I was asked,” Trump protested. “By the time the war started I was against it. And shortly thereafter, I was really against it.” In a dramatic highlight of the most recent Republican debate, Trump accused the Bush administration of deliberately deceiving the U.S. public about the invasion. (“They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none.”) It was a potentially historic moment: a top Republican candidate for president attempts to lead his party into a frank reappraisal of the Bush-Cheney administration’s inherent honesty. Here we are, one week later: “I’m not talking about lying. ... Nobody really knows why we went into Iraq.” Meanwhile, reporters continue to ask Trump supporters what the attraction is. And his fans say that he tells it like it is.
The answer is: None of the above! Although Trump did veer off into a disquisition on the plastic surgery issue later. Here’s the answer: “I don’t even know what her views are on abortion. I really don’t. ... She may have made a decision one way or the other. I never asked her.” People, how many of you have siblings? Do you know how they feel about abortion? If your sister was one of the most influential jurists in the nation, would you keep up with her major decisions? At least have a minion leave newspaper clips on your desk? The biggest part of the cornucopia of retractions, evasions and garbled babbling involved Iraq. Trump constantly brags that he was opposed to the Bush administration’s invasion. From the very, very beginning. But while the town hall was underway, BuzzFeed News posted a radio c.2016 New York Times News Service interview from Sept. 11, 2002, in which Howard 2-19-16
Alexandra Petri
Donald Trump For Pope
Trump is what is needed to Make the Papacy Great Again, the way it was in the days when popes were popes, like the Borgias. This is either our Vatican or it isn’t. Where’s the temporal power that used to make things tick? The Vatican should be run like a business. And speak Latin, if you’re going to set foot here, within the huge, beautiful wall. Look, Trump has the qualities of a spiritual leader. Trump is better at not judging than anyone. At least, he is this week: “No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith.” He was not last week: “How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is dishonest?” But hey, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Besides, he is on the record, as my colleague Catherine Rampell points out, as being the Most Humble of anyone out there. “I do have actually much more humility than a lot of people would think,” he told John Dickerson on “Face the Nation.” The pope only has as much humility as you would expect. Trump has made the case already, in his retort to the pope, that the pope is doing a bad job. Why not take the next step and claim the Holy See for himself? Trump could do this so much better. And we should encourage him to do so. The pope, like Aladdin’s genie, possesses Phenomenal Cosmic Power coupled with itty-
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