Earlier this month ABC's 20/20 aired a TV episode entitled "Meet the Trumps," in which there was the following exchange between Barbara Walters and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump:
Walters: On what occasions do you lie?
Trump: [Apparently not fully hearing the question] Do I...?"
Walters: Lie-- Not tell the truth?
Trump: Well I think if I will oftentimes, and I don't call it a lie, I call it a fib, if somebody is not looking good, I never would say that. I'll say 'you're looking good or are you feeling good, how are you doing,' and somebody could say that's a lie or it's a fib, if they don't look good, but, you know, I do it. I don't want to hurt people's feelings. Believe it or not, I have a lot of feeling towards that. I don't want to hurt people's' feelings.
In the immortal words of the late Jackie Gleason, "Har har hardy har har!"
It seems to me that Donald Trump has hurt a lot of people's feelings-- Hispanics, Muslims, Seventh Day Adventists, Democrats, Republicans, POWs, Asians, blacks, women, reporters, broadcasters, protesters, and even the disabled. I recall that infamous debate question Fox News' Megyn Kelly asked Trump about his views of women and noted "You've called women you don't like "fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals." Those words seem a bit hurtful.
There is an old joke:
Q: How can you tell when a politician is lying?
A: His lips are moving.
Donald Trump's lips are nearly always moving. Now so are his arms and head, as he appears to ridicule a disabled New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski, in a speech Trump made Tuesday in South Carolina.
Kovaleski reportedly suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that restricts joint movement. In mocking Mr. Kovaleski, Trump contorts and jerks around his arms and head and references an article ". . . written by a nice reporter, now the poor guy, you ought to see this guy -- ahh, I don't know what I said, ahh, I don't remember. He's going like, I don't remember. . . "
In response to the fall out from this incident, Trump reportedly claimed he didn't know Kovaleski. The New York Times quotes Trump as saying "I have no idea who this reporter, Serge Kovalski [sic], is, what he looks like or his level of intelligence." Trump is further quoted as stating, "Despite having one of the all-time great memories, I certainly do not remember him."
I would normally tend to believe Trump when he pleads ignorance.
However, the NYT further reports that " . . . Kovaleski said that he met with Mr. Trump repeatedly when he was a reporter for The Daily News covering the developer's business career in the late 1980s, before joining The Post. 'Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years,' Mr. Kovaleski said. 'I've interviewed him in his office,' he added. 'I've talked to him at press conferences. All in all, I would say around a dozen times, I've interacted with him as a reporter while I was at The Daily News.'"
Trump oftentimes raises many questions for me, this matter being no exception:
1. Before mocking him Trump referred to an article by Kovaleski as "written by a nice reporter." How would he know Kovaleski was nice if he didn't know who he was?
2. Before ridiculing him Trump said " . . . now the poor guy, you ought to see this guy . . ." Why do we need to SEE him and why does Trump call him a "poor guy?" That seems to me to be a reference to his appearance and disabilities.
3. Was it just a mere coincidence that immediately upon saying these things, Trump's arms became contorted and moved erratically as he mockingly faux-quoted Kovaleski?
But it gets worse. Trump reportedly has accused Kovaleski of "grandstanding." Trump is quoted as saying "Serge Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago- if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did." Trump is further quoted as saying, "He should stop using his disability to grandstand and get back to reporting for a paper that is rapidly going down the tubes."
A man with Kovaleski's disabilities "grandstanding" and having the audacity to "think a lot of himself." Imagine that-- a disabled man with self-esteem. Perhaps it is Trump himself who is "going down the tubes." In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, Trump's numbers have dropped by 12 percentage points.
Finally, Trump reportedly says it is he who is owed an apology from the New York Times, for accusing him of ridiculing the appearance of one of their reporters. Talk about chutzpah.
In 1954 Army lawyer Joseph N. Welch asked disgraced Senator Joe McCarthy this piercing question "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"