[Most readers will want to skip this post]
Don’t you hate those clever inside the Beltway reporters, like Ezra Klein? Always showing their superiority by mocking the views of GOP candidates. Look how he characterizes a recent Trump interview on 60 Minutes:
Let’s recap: Donald Trump says he opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, which he didn’t. He says one reason you can’t trust Hillary Clinton’s judgment is that she supported the war in Iraq. But his vice presidential pick also supported the war in Iraq, and his justification for that is, literally, “I don’t care.” When asked to explain the discrepancy, his answer, literally, is that Mike Pence is allowed to make mistakes and Hillary Clinton isn’t.
Now let’s start with the obvious, Trump certainly didn’t say what Klein claims he says. He didn’t say that Pence is allowed to make mistakes and Clinton isn’t. He’s not going to spout utter nonsense on national TV. He may give misleading answers, or incomplete answers, or incorrect answers. But he’s not going to provide completely idiotic remarks of the sort that Klein attributes to him. Nobody talks that way once they graduate from 8th grade. Klein must be twisting his words. So let’s go to the tape and see what Trump actually said:
Lesley Stahl: But you’ve harped on this.
Donald Trump: But I was against the war in Iraq from the beginning.
Lesley Stahl: Yeah, but you’ve used that vote of Hillary [Clinton]’s that was the same as Gov. Pence as the example of her bad judgment.
Donald Trump: Many people have, and frankly, I’m one of the few that was right on Iraq.
Lesley Stahl: Yeah, but what about he—
Donald Trump: He’s entitled to make a mistake every once in a while.
Lesley Stahl: But she’s not? Okay, come on—
Donald Trump: But she’s not—
Lesley Stahl: She’s not?
Donald Trump: No. She’s not.
Lesley Stahl: Got it.
Aha! Trump did not say that “Hillary Clinton isn’t” allowed to make mistakes, he said “No, she’s not” allowed to make mistakes. And Trump did not say “Mike Pence is allowed to make mistakes”, he said “He’s entitled to make a mistake”.
Trump also gives a thoughtful and incisive explanation of his plan to eliminate terrorism, which Klein mocks unfairly:
So here is Donald Trump’s plan to destroy ISIS: He will declare a war. He will promise, from the outset, not to include substantial numbers of American troops in that war. He is going to make NATO fight the war by threatening to withdraw American support from NATO. And he believes Turkey, which was roiled by an attempted coup as recently as Friday night, can wipe out ISIS if we just give the country the right incentives. (Presumably, the fact that ISIS has killed dozens in Turkey through a series of terrorist attacks isn’t sufficiently motivating.)
Read the original to see just how unfair Klein is. And if that’s not bad enough, he then starts to go after Pence:
At about this point in the interview, you could see Pence get concerned. What happened next deserves to be quoted in full:
Lesley Stahl: But declare war—
Donald Trump: —get neighboring states and I’m going to get — we are going to get NATO; we’re going to wipe ’em out. We’re gonna—
Lesley Stahl: But declare war?
Mike Pence: Lesley—
Lesley Stahl: What does that mean—
Mike Pence: This is — this is the kind — this is the kind of leadership that America needs, and it—
Lesley Stahl: But what—
Mike Pence: —and it begins with deciding to destroy the enemies of our freedom.
Lesley Stahl: How?
Mike Pence: And how we do that? I have every confidence. You — you remember I served on the Foreign Affairs Committee. And I’m very confident that when Donald Trump becomes president of the United States, he’ll give a directive to our military commanders, bring together other nations, and we will use the enormous resources of the United States to destroy that enemy.
Now I think I understand what Trump saw in Pence. Trump is an old man (70 years old to be precise), and we need someone capable of filling Trump’s (smallish) shoes if he should, God forbid, die.
Or be impeached.