It is hard to guess how many hours, even days, of statements one would have to pore through before catching our president saying something that is actually true. His relationship with the truth is much like our own Cal Ripken's with the disabled list. To paraphrase,"I've heard about it, but its just not something I'm familiar with."
Recently, however, he was heard uttering an undeniable truth. "John McCain, not my kind of guy," he informed his audience (“Meghan McCain fires back at Trump tweets against her father,” Mar. 19).
What kind of guy was the late senator? A Naval Academy graduate who earned the Navy Wings of Gold to became a navy pilot. He flew in combat and was shot down during the Vietnam War. Captured and imprisoned, with two broken legs, he endured the torture that was the fate of most American captives.
That alone would be enough to put him in a different universe from our feckless leader, but he went above and beyond, exhibiting extraordinary courage and loyalty when he refused to be sent home, recognizing this as a propaganda ploy by the Vietnamese, and chose to remain with his fellow prisoners and endure further torture until they were all released.
What kind of guy is Donald Trump? Mr. Trump managed to score five military deferments, his fragile health clearly a burden. His empathy for his fellow man, on a scale of one to 10, is zero. Self aggrandizement is his only goal, anything else only matters as it relates to him.
You would think that any reasonably normal person, especially one in public office, would realize that disparaging John McCain would make you look like a mean-spirited, world class fool. Clearly, Mr. Trump is not one of those people. The late senator is obviously not his kind of guy in very many ways.
Who knows how long it will be before Mr. Trump speaks the truth again, but if this is the best he can do, it would be just as well were he not to bother.
Sig Seidenman, Owings Mills