From the Left

/

Politics

What Promise Will Trump Reverse Himself On Next?

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

For every complex problem, H.L. Mencken wrote, there is an answer that is neat, plausible -- and wrong. Donald Trump should write that quote on his forehead -- backwards, so it's the first thing he reads in the mirror every morning.

The billionaire Republican presidential frontrunner bedazzles his fans with easy-sounding solutions that you probably have heard before, if you hang out in enough saloons.

But he's been backpedalling so much lately that my biggest question is: What he is going to reverse himself on next?

Take, for example, his recent thoughts on the supremely important topic of nuclear weapons. Please.

As if it were not unsettling enough to imagine President Trump in charge of the nation's nuclear defense codes, he said in a late March interview with The New York Times that he was OK with letting Japan and South Korea have nukes, too. Simple, right?

But during a later CNN town hall, Trump told host Anderson Cooper that he did not necessarily want the two countries to obtain nuclear weapons; he only felt that "at some point it could happen anyway" for both countries and maybe Saudi Arabia, too.

 

With his plan, Trump said, "They have to protect themselves or they have to pay us."

Right. Never mind 70 years of efforts to prevent nuclear weapons from spreading to more countries. Trump's idea wouldn't sound quite as troubling if he didn't sound like he is making up his campaign as he goes along.

Earlier in March, he declared himself in favor of torture -- including waterboarding and "tougher than waterboarding" -- and even the killing of terrorists' families, if it would extract valuable information from terrorists. Never mind that people will say anything to stop being tortured, which is why much of the information gathered through torture turns out to be false. That's pretty simple, too.

Oh, and torture also is illegal. Although Trump treated that like a minor technicality, former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden said in an interview on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" that U.S. armed forces would refuse to act on such an order. "You are required not to follow an unlawful order," Hayden said. "That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict."

...continued

swipe to next page

(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

Comics

Marshall Ramsey Christopher Weyant Gary Markstein A.F. Branco Bill Bramhall Chip Bok