Today Ron Fournier bids farewell to Washington with a column declaring Donald Trump unfit for the Oval Office:
There’s Simply No Equivalence
Hillary Clinton has her problems, but Donald Trump is unfit for the presidency.….On one hand, Clinton. On the other hand, Trump. That’s the unfortunate choice facing voters in a system rigged heavily in favor of
the two major parties. But there’s no equivalence.
On one hand, Benghazi and email and lies.
On the other hand, mendacity, bigotry, bullyism, narcissism, sexism, selfishness, sociopathology, and a lack of understanding or interest in public policy—all to extremes unseen in modern presidential politics.
I don’t mean to criticize Fournier for anything here, but he uses a formulation that I’ve seen all too often and it puzzles me. Critics of Hillary Clinton always mention that she “lies.” But Trump? It’s all bigotry, ignorance, and narcissism. Why? Trump lies practically every time he opens his mouth. Without getting into the question of how often or how seriously Hillary lies, there’s really no question that Trump outclasses her about a thousand to one on this score.
Fournier actually does better than some, since he at least mentions “mendacity” in his list. But why not just say Trump is a liar? And not just any liar. By a wide margin Trump is the most consistent, brazen, serial liar in presidential campaign history. He’s so far off the charts it’s hard to even describe what he does. This really deserves to be called out more often.
