OPINION:
President Obama tries to project a sunny outlook on the world, mostly by denying that anything bad is happening anywhere. But he’s having a hard time of it staying ahead of the radical Islamic terrorists who, he says, don’t really exist.
No sooner had the Republicans wrapped up their convention in Cleveland than the president, who conceded that he hadn’t watched Donald Trump’s acceptance speech (“I’ve got a lot of stuff to do”), decried the “dark” and “dismal” tone of the Republican week on the shore of Lake Erie.
“I think it is important to be absolutely clear here. Some of the fears that were expressed throughout the week just don’t jibe with the facts. America is much less violent than it was 20 or 30 years ago. We’re not going to make good decisions based on fears that don’t have a basis in fact. And that, I hope, is something that I hope all Americans pay attention to.”
Right on cue, radical Islamic terrorists struck again, proving that the fears spoken of by Mr. Trump do, in fact, have a basis in fact. Gunmen, shouting their evil war cry — “Allahu Akbar” — struck in Munich, spraying gunfire across a shopping mall, leaving the usual blood, carnage and broken hearts in their wake. Three hours later the president had to return to recite the dismal ritual of response to another attack, to reassure — fill in the blank — another city, another country, other families of other victims, that he’s remembering them in his thoughts if not his prayers. He promises Germany, “one of our closest allies,” his good wishes, happy thoughts and “all the support they may need.”
The president was picking up on theme of Mr. Trump’s acceptance speech, “the importance of being absolutely clear.” When politicians, including presidents, talk of being “absolutely clear” it usually means that evasion, distraction and blustery bomfoggery is on the way. Mr. Obama never varies and never disappoints.
The talking heads in Cleveland decried Mr. Trump’s “dark portrait of crime run amok, a lagging economy and constant threats of terrorism,” and the president joined the message of the talking heads at his two press appearances on Friday. He, like the talking heads in Cleveland, does not understand that plain Americans — and Frenchmen, Germans and Belgians, too — can see and hear for themselves, and the dark portrait of reality in the Donald’s telling is a portrait we all recognize. If the president really does not understand that, perhaps he ought to buy other newspapers and change to different channels.
Mr. Obama invited the visiting president of Mexico, Pena Nieto, to share his first press conference on Friday. He wanted to show off their shared contempt for Donald Trump. President Nieto had earlier likened Mr. Trump to Hitler and Mussolini, odd for a president of Mexico, whose country never did quite get it about der Feuhrer. (As Casey Stengel might say, “You could look it up.”)
The president and the talking heads will be in more congenial surroundings this week in Philadelphia. Hysteria at the sight and sound of Republicans will fade to cooing and excuse-making for Hillary, whose trail of crime and misfeasance stands out like the slime trail of a slug across a sidewalk after a summer’s rain.
The portrait painted by Donald Trump was indeed dark and dismal, done in the spirit of Harry S. Truman, who was accused by a prim talking head of his day of “giving the opposition hell.” Replied the man from Independence: “I don’t give anybody hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” Just so.
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