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Blog No. 88. Teflon Don: Did He Really Say That?

Through some magical power, Donald Trump has managed to enter a fact-free zone that can only be the envy of his competitors. Unlike the statements of the other candidates, Trump’s are not scrutinized for accuracy, and indeed they are generally assumed to be unprovable or flatly wrong. No, Trump’s pronouncements are assessed primarily on the degree unpleasantness with which they are delivered. (We imagine a campaign logo: “The Surly Bird Gets the Worm.”) He appears to have succeeded John Gotti to the title of the Teflon Don.

Other candidates have attempted to pick him up on this or that fact, and Glenn Kessler has depleted his inventory of Pinocchios in making multiple awards to the Donald. But no one, so far as we know, has made a comprehensive review of Trump’s claims and observations, even within the limits of a single debate. We though it might be a useful experiment applied to the Fifth Debate. Confined to that debate the experiment is obviously limited and will omit any number of his more noxious expostulations. Nevertheless, one has to start somewhere. What follows is the entirety of what Trump had to say at the Fifth Republican Debate, omitting only various personal comments directed at other candidates or the moderators. We have supplied headings and questions and comments in bold.Read More »Blog No. 88. Teflon Don: Did He Really Say That?

Blog No. 5 Whither the War on Terror? Part I: The President’s Vision

On May 23, President Obama gave a major speech on what has commonly been referred to as the War on Terror. The New York Times hailed it as “the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post-9/11 America.”  The Wall Street Journal took a symmetrically negative view, but described it as “one of the more memorable speeches of [the Obama] Presidency… or for that matter any recent President.”  Yet only a few weeks later, the speech has been swept from not only the front pages, but the editorial and op-ed pages and, no doubt, from most of the public consciousness.Read More »Blog No. 5 Whither the War on Terror? Part I: The President’s Vision