Have We Lost Sight of an American Hero?
SAN DIEGO -- It's hard criticizing people you respect, and twice as hard if the criticism might be misinterpreted as defending someone you don't.
Since I'm "Never Trump," I'm free of the moral conflict of supporting a nominee who would stoop so low as to insult the parents of a dead soldier.
This sort of thing should disqualify someone from serving as president. But then again, so does calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists, mocking the disabled, demeaning women, suggesting that President George W. Bush knew about the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, beforehand, praising Saddam Hussein and Vladmir Putin, and threatening to ban an entire religion from the United States.
Yet because of my line of work, I'm not free to ignore the truth, even when it's uncomfortable -- especially when it's uncomfortable.
Here's the truth: There are many good ways for parents to remember and honor a child they've lost. But using their anguish as a springboard to enter the political rough and tumble by picking a fight with a party's nominee isn't one of them.
When Khizr and Ghazala Khan -- the Gold Star parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, an American soldier killed in Iraq -- attacked Trump with a stinging personal rebuke at the Democratic National Convention, they did Hillary Clinton a big favor.
Yet, with those remarks and later television appearances, the Khans did nothing to serve the memory of their fallen son.
I've interviewed Gold Star parents, and they have a special burden to watch what they say and do so as not to let politics in any way diminish their sacrifice. Some have fallen short, and both political parties have shamelessly exploited their anger.
The Khans are now in a media-fueled tit-for-tat with Trump who -- in a startling lack of social skills -- suggested that the reason that Ghazala Khan, a grieving mother, kept quiet as her husband spoke was because Islam commands it.
Even Republicans couldn't stomach such disrespect, and many of them have fired at Trump. Good for them.
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Copyright 2016 Washington Post Writers Group
