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Fact-Challenged Campaign Dramas Just Getting Started

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

"Facts are stubborn things," goes an old saying that President Ronald Reagan liked to quote. Unfortunately, so are cherished myths.

Remember how during his 2008 presidential bid Sen. John McCain courageously corrected a woman at a town hall meeting who said that then-candidate Barack Obama was "an Arab"?

Anyone who might have hoped for a similar display of good character from Donald Trump, the Grand Old Party's current frontrunner for Reagan's old job, would be sorely disappointed.

The opportunity opened up as Trump took questions during a rally in New Hampshire on the evening after the second Republican presidential debate.

"We have a problem in this country," growled the man whom Trump called on first. "It's called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know, he's not even an American. Birth certificate, man."

"Right," Trump said. He then added with a skeptical What-the-hey shake of his head: "We need this question? This first question?"

 

"But anyway," the man said. "We have training camps ... where they want to kill us."

"Uh-huh," Trump said.

"That's my question," the man said. "When can we get rid of them?"

If ever there was an opportunity for Trump to give something more than his usual fuzzy promises about what a Trump presidency might look like, this was it.

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(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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