Say What?

Hate to end the year with a rant, but this made me see red:

It was posted to Facebook by a man I used to fly with. It takes a certain level of brain power to fly a jet fighter. It takes adherence to a shared set of values to be a military officer. I wonder what happened to my former colleague.

Let’s revisit the debate in question. Megyn Kelly, during the first GOP debate, mentioned Trump’s long record of denigrating women and asked him why women voters should trust him now. He tried to shut her down but she stood up to him, reciting a list of things he’s publicly said about various women. Trump attacked Kelly on social media afterward, and then went behind her back to Roger Ailes of Fox News, crying about Kelly’s “unfair” treatment of him. Ailes, while publicly supporting Kelly, apparently put behind-the-scenes pressure on her to take an unscheduled 11-day vacation.

That’s how I remember it. What Megyn Kelly had the balls to do fits my definition of “professional journalism,” and we need more of it. Trump’s underhanded, no-balls response to Kelly basically proved her point.

There has to be something drastically wrong, intellectually and morally, with anyone who could think Trump won a victory in that first debate and “crushed” Kelly. Whatever that wrong thing is, it’s beyond my understanding. Are right-wingers really so far gone and lacking in American ideals that they think being a bully and a coward is something to admire?

What I do understand is that anyone who would proudly post stuff like this has inverted values and is unfit to sit at the table with decent people. Woe be it unto us if we stay home on election day and let this rabble take over.

Or, as my former colleague and I used to say back in our Air Force days: “Fuck you. Strong message to follow.”