I keep my voodoo doll hidden away and only bring it out, along with the poison pin (not pen, mind you), when a really bad actor crosses the most sacrosanct of boundaries.
I can put up with political incorrectness, lies and shameless displays of arrogance. But mocking a person with a physical disability is the ultimate boundary breach.
Now, who on our political scene these days might be most likely to stoop to such depths?
That’s right, the liar, charlatan and ultimate loser Donald Trump.
Serge Kovaleski
At a rally last Tuesday, Trump appeared to ridicule the physical disability of a New York Times reporter named Serge Kovaleski, with whom Trump has a beef. (More about that in a minute.) Kovaleski has a chronic condition called arthrogryposis, which limits the movement of his arms and hands.
Flailing his arms as if imitating Kovaleski’s disability, Trump said, “You oughta see this guy” and then went on to mimic Koveleski backing away from a story he wrote after the 9/11 terror attacks, when Kovaleski was a reporter for The Washington Post.
Trump has denied he was mocking Kovaleski, but take a look at the video that accompanies this CNN Money story and see what you think.
The backdrop is Trump and Kovaleski have been skirmishing for almost a week over Trump’s recent assertion that he watched thousands of people in New Jersey cheering the collapse of the World Trade Centers. Numerous fact-checkers have debunked that claim, and Trump, fighting back, pointed to a story co-written by Kovaleski on Sept. 18, 2001. The story said authorities had detained “a number of people” in Jersey City who had allegedly been seen celebrating the attacks. But no proof has emerged that any such celebrations actually occurred, and Kovaleski, when asked about the controversy, said, “I certainly do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating.”
Two days ago, Trump tweeted that he didn’t know Kovaleski and didn’t know what he looked like — even though Kovaleski had covered Trump when he was with the New York Daily News back in the 1980s and 1990s.
The capper to all this was Katrina Pierson, a Trump campaign spokesperson, asserting that Trump would never knowingly mock a person’s disability. For good measure, she added this laughable contortion of reality: “He has so much respect and care and compassion.”
…Yep, it’s time to dig out the voodoo doll and sharpen that poison pin. Don’t be surprised when Donald starts complaining in a few days about a disabling pain in his ass. We reporters have been making those happen for a long time.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Fitz, do you allow the word “scumbag” to be used on your blog? If so, let me be the first to say that Donald Trump is a complete, total scumbag. The Des Moines Register described him as a “feckless blowhard”, which is good too. He has appealed to the lowest common denominator and, much to this country’s shame, is being rewarded for it by maintaining his lead in the polls.In a primary filled with an assortment of losers, clowns, sociopaths and megalomaniacs, he is the worst of the lot. And that is quite an accomplishment. Never in my lifetime have I been more disgusted over the state of American politics like I am now. And I blame this on one party/political ideology.
I remember a time when our former managing editor, Steve Shirk, had a discussion with either a reporter or a line editor about use of the word scumbag. He said the literal meaning was condom and I believe he ruled against using it in the paper. I never knew that meaning — just thought it meant a despicable person (like Trump). In any event, the bar isn’t as high here, so it not only passes the test, it’s right on target.
Actually Fitz, if this was the height of your angst with Trump you simply haven’t been paying attention.
Donald Trump has two kinds of proposals, brazenly unconstitutional, or legislatively impossible. For instance, Trump claims he will end the use of so called anchor babies. Hogwash, anchor babies are settled Constitutional law already heard and embraced by SCOTUS. Or, take his claim that he’d deport all illegals in this country in two years. That’s beyond hogwash. There’s this thing called due process and most immigration cases ever handled in one year was 250,000. 12 million illegals (minimum), you do the math, that’s 48 years by when all of their kids, born in this country, will be citizens and beyond the reach of the courts.
But it matters not because Trump is lying about all of that. As an entrepreneur in the building trades and hospitality industry Trump knows damn well that illicit international migration isn’t a problem, it’s a solution to a ludicrous entitlement system that allows citizens to avoid the pleasantries of installing roofs in 100 degree heat, maintaining the lawns and fairways and greens of Trump’s golf courses and commercial buildings, or preparing the food served in his hotels and restaurants. And so the only way he could possibly send these folks packing is to legislatively destroy the entitlement system that allows so many of our countrymen and women to lay around and do nothing and hence coerce them on pain of starvation back into the labor force . Yeah, that’ll happen.
And so, for those who have recoiled in horror at Trump’s policy “positions” his litany of distasteful ad hominems thrown out with all the grace of a drunk falling off a bar stool at 3 AM, sort of pale by comparison.
And Mike is myopically correct in that the Republican primary is a pathetic hodge podge populated mainly by has beens and never weres that should have been winnowed down long ago. Where he fails is that he, as usual, refuses to examine the collection of crooks, criminals and whack jobs populating the Democrat side of the equation hence nullifying his assumption that the fault is (wrongly) blamed on ” one party/political ideology.”
Instead let me suggest that the collection of weasels on both sides of the equation can more accurately be laid at the feet of an establishment press corps that has done such a pathetic job of being honest brokers that they have driven both sides to idiotic sites like the Daily Kos, or any number of whacked out “conservative” sites that are so pathetically biased that they are often indistinguishable from the satirical sites that lampoon them. The resulting polarization has led both sides to such a lather that governing has come to a halt. Dysfunction reigns supreme and benign neglect rules the day.
Lot of truth there, but I don’t put the blame on the press corps…I don’t know where to put the blame.
After the first Democratic debate, I decided to write a check for $250 to Bernie Sanders. Did so and put it in the mail. A few days later I read a column by Charles Krauthammer (a conservative), who explained point by point why Bernie didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. I called the bank and stopped payment. The fee was $30 but I saved $220.
Smart move. there are probably a lot of factors involved, but people are definitely polarized and pissed off and both sides are looking for a strong personality to get things moving in their direction, the Constitution and the rule of law be damned.
I’ve spent most of the last two years fighting Milton Wolf, our local version of Trump/Carson simply because I will not let him be the legacy of a movement we tried so hard to build into something that was decent and honest. Why The Star and Kraske have blatantly pandered to such a deceitful fraud is beyond me unless they find him to be a useful idiot to tear down other Republicans,
Thank you. I was beginning to think I had it wrong and everyone else had it right. Was that despicable mockery of his profession not enough for people to see what kind of person he is? Or, as evidenced by Trump’s numbers, is this where we’re headed? I’m getting frightened.
So glad you came to your senses. Krauthammer is a good person to pay attention to.
Jim:
Mike Rice states my thoughts exactly, especially about Donald Trump.
Laura
Gayle — The most disturbing thing to me is that Trump’s popularity reflects how many dummies we have in our country. I fear that number — and that’s the biggie, looking down the road — is growing all the time.
John makes insightful comments here. As to his remarks about my comments, I will modify my last remark to blaming MOST of the problems on the Republican Party. Not all. I realize that there are bad characters in the Democratic Party. Hillary is unlikable. Sanders says the right things but would never be able to govern from the center like most presidents eventually do. With that said, I don’t see Hillary or Bernie making the kind of outlandish and stupid comments that we see on a daily basis from the likes of Trump, Cruz, Carson, Fiorina, Christie etc. And we don’t see the NY Times, Washington Post or ABC giving them free and irresponsible use of the microphone like Fox News does.