Consoler in chief? Not this president
In her first formal press briefing after a mail bomb plot against more than a dozen prominent Democrats and a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders responded in a fashion characteristic to her boss: she went on the offense.
After delivering a prepared statement denouncing anti-Semitism, she denounced news media for coverage of the mail bombs and mass shooting, which is believed to be the deadliest attack on Jews in this country's history.
The "very first thing the media did was to condemn the president, go after him, try to place blame . . . ," she said. "That is outrageous."
No, ma'am, it is not outrageous to ask the same questions that are on the minds of countless other Americans, including those of us who are not in the Trump-Is-Always-Right crowd: How much does the upsurge in racially and religiously linked violence have to do with President Trump's past equivocations about white nationalism and his spreading of paranoid, extremist conspiracy theories?
No, he's not directly responsible for the violence, but the president can do a lot to help determine whether the social and political atmosphere contributes to violence or to peace.
He or, someday, she can also do a lot to offer some remedies and ways to prevent a reoccurrence of tragedies such as the one Saturday at Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh that left 11 people dead.
Or the killing of two African Americans at a Kentucky supermarket, where a witness reportedly heard the suspect say as he let another white man pass unharmed, "whites don't kill whites."
Unfortunately President Trump's first reaction to the first of the week's horrors, the bomb packages, was one of indignation that any other news -- or, as the president put it, "this 'bomb' stuff" -- would intrude on his final weeks of campaigning before the midterms.
"Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls," he tweeted, "and now this 'Bomb' stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows -- news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!"
At least, Trump's never-say-die allies would say, he's staying on message. He's staying focused. He's keeping his eyes on the prize that his party -- and the future of his presidency -- may win or lose in the congressional races.
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(c) 2018 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
