In private conversations this week, Trump’s high command has sought to reassure party figures, including Senate and House leaders, that there is no reason to be alarmed by the debate or by Trump’s ensuing theatrics, explaining them away as part of his appeal to the masses.
When the sun is high in the afternoon sky
You can always find rallies to lead
But from dusk till dawn as the clock ticks on
Your poor heart starts to bleed
In the wee small hours of the morning
While the whole wide world has gone to bed
You lie awake and think about the girl
And how the latest polls show she’s ahead
When your bitter heart has learned its lesson
You’ll be Prez! … But she might have you beat…
In the wee small hours of the morning
That’s the time you have to Tweet Tweet Tweet Tweet Tweet
Plunging the future of the 2016 Presidential debates into doubt, Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday morning that he would not participate in the remaining two debates if Hillary Clinton is there.
Trump blasted the format of Monday night’s debate by claiming that the presence of Clinton was “specifically designed” to distract him from delivering his message to the American people.
“Every time I said something, she would say something back,” he said. “It was rigged.”
Well, let me tell you ’bout the way she looked
The way she acts and the color of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
But she’s not there
Well, no one told me about her
What could I do?
Well, no one told me about her
Though they all knew
[Trump supporters] are accusing Hillary of carrying a concealed ‘communications’ device connected to an earpiece, which they suggest could have been used by the candidate to cheat during the debate. Their rationale? [A] photograph of a bulge that ran down the back of her pantsuit on the night of the debate.
[Trump] can show up before an audience of 100 million without preparation …and talk about serious issues with no more sophistication than your crazy uncle.
“The deeply conservative Arizona Republic endorsed the Democratic nominee for president for the first time in its 126-year history on Tuesday,” [describing Donald Trump as a man] “with a stunning lack of human decency.”
Nicely tripping iambic pentameter in that phrase: A stunning lack of human decency. Pretty.
Perhaps this will be, for some, a moment of illumination:
But SOFT! what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS?
Trump, by the end of the night, was left complaining to reporters about alleged problems with his microphone, which he suggested may have been sabotaged. Top surrogate Rudy Giuliani told a reporter Trump should pull out of future debates if moderators didn’t agree to be more deferential.
Colin Jost ✔@ColinJost
Trump is sniffling because he’s allergic to the Constitution
Trump surrogate Mark Burns offers a long list of excuses to cover his long list of lies about himself.
TACOnic State Parkway.
The founder of Latinos for Trump on Thursday warned that if his candidate loses, America faces an uncertain future in which Mexican food is far too easily available.
“My culture is a dominant culture, and it’s imposing and it’s causing problems,” Marco Gutierrez said in an interview on MSNBC. “If you don’t do something about it, you’re gonna have taco trucks [on] every corner.”
******************
With several predominantly Latino neighborhoods, Phoenix is a city used to seeing taco trucks on the corner. In the wake of Gutierrez’s comments, Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego decided to patronize one of them.
The Democrat posted a photo to his personal Twitter account of him ordering three carne asada tacos from his favorite taco truck for lunch Friday. The picture was accompanied by the tweet “about to assert my cultural dominance.” It has garnered hundreds of likes.
[George] Shultz [has signaled] that he [is] discussing issuing a joint endorsement of Hillary Clinton with Henry Kissinger.
***************************
Trump’s campaign staff should get to work on their tweets asap, since there’s speculation the men might make the announcement on Labor Day.
One source for some great Kissinger tweets would be Christopher Hitchens’ book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Example:
[Americans] can either persist in averting their gaze from the egregious impunity enjoyed by a notorious war criminal and lawbreaker, or they can become seized by the exalted standards to which they continually hold everyone else.
Don’t say it’s from Hitchens, of course; I don’t think Hitchens would, uh, be supporting Trump.
***************************
One danger of not citing the author, however, is that no one’s going to believe Trump knows the words egregious and impunity…
Actually, now that I look at the thing, the rather lengthy sentence, and the well-deployed either/or formulation, are also deal breakers… Let’s see…
Kissinger: War criminal! Lawbreaker! Sad!
***************************
A second set of tweets could feature the advanced age of both men.
Kissinger! Shultz! Sharing a condo in Seizure World! Sad!
George and Henry sittin’ in a tree… IN SEIZURE WORLD. Sad!
There are many variants of these. You might mention Ronald Reagan. I leave it to the imagination of the Trump campaign.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday that his party’s nominee knows that he must inject a little “humanity” into his rhetoric if he hopes to win the presidency…
“…Donald Trump understands that with every position that is taken and as you get closer to the White House, a degree of humanity and decency is part of every decision that needs to be made… [He] wants to do the right thing and wants to take every position that he’s talking about and pepper it with decency, dignity and humanity.”
In every race that must be run
There is an element of fun
You find the fun and snap!
The job’s a game
And every task you undertake
Becomes a piece of cake
A lark! A spree! It’s very clear to see that
A pinch of humanity helps the messaging go down
The messaging go down-wown
The messaging go down
A spoonful of decency helps the messaging go down
In a most delightful way!
********************
A cypher running to be prez
Cannot be bothered what he sez
While hurting people cuz he doesn’t care
But now his polls have got so bad
He’s had to add a tad, a crumb, a grain
To flavor his campaign — for…
A speck of humanity helps the messaging go down
The messaging do down-wown
The messaging go down
Just a hint of humanity helps the messaging down
In a most delightful way!
On a long and lonesome highway
East of Orono
You can listen to the gov’nor
Moanin’ out his tortured soul:
Don’t you say that I’m a racist
You cocksucking SOB.
No one’s done more for the black man
Than Donald Trump and me.
Don’t need no snot-nosed little runt sayin’ I’m a fool
Gonna blow your fuckin’ head off in a nice old-fashioned duel
****************
Here I am
On the phone again
There they are
Commie fags
Here I go
Fighting foes again
There I go
Paul Le Page
Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times
George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil
It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo
There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub
You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann
Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog
University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog
[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal
Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education
[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University
Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University
The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog
Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages
Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway
From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law
University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association
The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog
I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes
As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls
Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical
University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life
[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada
If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte