Hillary's Nomination Inspires Awe, Trump's Pronouncements Inspire Fear

Unfolding on the television screen Tuesday night—jubilation, repressed for almost a century. A major political party had just nominated a woman as its presidential candidate for the very first time, four years shy of a century since women were granted the right to vote.

Anyone with a sense of watching history in the making, regardless of their belief in Hillary Rodham Clinton, could not help but be moved. More than one lump had difficulty finding its way down my esophagus. I turned to Gilda, sitting beside me. Her face was contorted in tears.

Politics took second place to history, just as it did eight years earlier when Barack Hussein Obama captured the Democratic Party nomination by acclimation, thanks to a magnanimous gesture by his then rival, Hillary. Now it was her primary competitor, Bernie Sanders, who moved that party rules be set aside and all ballots be reflected to show support for Hillary as the party’s nominee. 

It was a moment to savor, another milestone on our nation’s sometimes halting march to total equality.

Earlier in the week Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton separately addressed a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Charlotte, NC, to different reviews. Trump was reported to have received a warmer reception, but I wonder how anyone who has served in our military could applaud a candidate who insulted a war hero (Senator John McCain) during the primary season by saying he prefers heroes who do not get captured and who has given Russia indications that he would not quickly and decisively respond through NATO to any infringements on the sovereignty of our allies, and that he would consider recognizing Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula inside Ukraine and lifting the sanctions imposed on Russia because of its actions. Plus, Wednesday he invited Russia to hack Clinton’s email server to “find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” 

Trump has been savaged by Democrats, naturally, and Republicans for suggesting that a foreign power inject itself into our election process by cyber-attacking an American citizen, presidential candidate and former secretary of state. If Trump doesn’t believe the missing emails were all personal but contained government data, he has effectively asked Russia to seek out and peer into classified U.S. documents. 

Some of his backers defend his comment by saying they were made in jest, but as the saying goes, “many a truth was said in jest.” In Trump’s case, many a truth about his true feelings have been said extemporaneously.  

Now that he’s the Republican nominee, many of his comments are scripted, vetted by staff so they are politically correct. But when Trump says it’s time to chuck political correctness, his true colors come out. His opinions on immigrants, Muslims, our prisoners of war, our allies, the use of torture, his admiration for dictators, reveal his inner thoughts, ideas that are counter to many of our nation’s cherished ideals.

Trump says we need new plans but he gives few details, arguing he doesn’t want to tip his hand. But why should the public trust Trump when he has filed several bankruptcies that have enriched him while financially hurting creditors, suppliers and their employees? It makes no sense to trust he will do what’s right for America. His history shows he does what’s right for Trump.

Pillow Talk: Let’s talk spouses—It’s no secret that the closest confidantes of presidents have been their spouses, from Abigail Adams to Edith Wilson to Eleanor Roosevelt to Nancy Reagan to Barbara Bush to Hillary Clinton to Laura Bush to Michelle Obama. 

The choice of the next first spouse to whom the next president will seek counsel is between a former model-loving mother-businesswoman and a former president of the United States. 

Hands down, I know which person the country needs at the next president’s side.

Fiorina Matters Only in the Bizarro World of GOP Politics

In the bizarro world of Republican politics, a candidate who almost destroyed an iconic American company and was forced out (albeit with a $20 million golden parachute severance package) can be considered a presidential hopeful because she has a tart tongue. Carly Fiorina left Hewlett-Packard tarred and feathered for multiple sins, yet she dazzles on the GOP hustings because she has the wit to voice critical, funny soundbites about Democrats, mostly Hillary Rodham Clinton ( http://nyti.ms/1HE0pAa). 

My guess is she’s likely to gain traction as a vice presidential standard bearer, a woman much smarter than Sarah Palin. She doesn’t need to see Russia from her house (a phrase Palin never actually said). She’s been there and has even met Vladimir Putin.

But while too many Americans have short memories or are too young to have experienced history (or didn’t learn it in school), it is incumbent upon journalists to enlighten them (sadly, the soon to be departing Jon Stewart of The Daily Show was among the only mass market political watchers who resurrected a pol’s previous utterances and actions. Who will emerge as his truth-be-told successor?).

For those who merely hear that Fiorina was the head of HP, once considered the most powerful woman in business, the first female CEO of a top 20 U.S. company, it would be instructive to also hear that, according to Wikipedia, “CBS News, USA Today and Portfolio.com have ranked Fiorina as one of the worst American (or tech) CEOs of all time. In 2008, InfoWorld grouped her with a list of products and ideas as flops, declaring her tenure as CEO of HP to be the sixth worst tech flop of all-time and characterizing her as the ‘anti-Steve Jobs’ for reversing the goodwill of American engineers and alienating existing customers.”

Sure she has her supporters, which means she is a divisive, not an inclusive, personage. It doesn’t help that she laid off 30,000 HP workers during her five and a half year tenure as CEO. 

Also according to Wikipedia, “Fiorina frequently clashed with HP’s board of directors, and she faced backlash among HP employees and the tech community for her leading role in the demise of HP’s egalitarian ‘The HP Way’ work culture and guiding philosophy, which she felt hindered innovation. Because of changes to HP’s culture, and requests for voluntary pay cuts to prevent layoffs (subsequently followed by the largest layoffs in HP’s history), employee satisfaction surveys at HP—previously among the highest in America—revealed ‘widespread unhappiness’ and distrust, and Fiorina was sometimes booed at company meetings and attacked on HP’s electronic bulletin board.” Hardly a ringing endorsement when running for an office that is supposed to bring all the people together.

Fiorina is not the only Republican who seems to be hiding something. None of the announced and soon-to-announce candidates appears able or willing to articulate what they would do differently in the Middle East. They criticize President Obama but are short on specifics they would embrace to thwart ISIS and stabilize the region.

It reminds me of 1968. Richard Nixon said he had a secret plan to end the Vietnam War, so secret that it cost the U.S. another 21,195 deaths during the next five years that American combat troops served in Vietnam. 

Obama has not been the greatest commander-in-chief. But let’s not forget that it was George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisors, led by Vp Richard Cheney, who bungled the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Let’s also remember that it was under the Republican watch that our economy tanked. Under Obama the country has enjoyed prosperity, though too disproportionally tilted toward the wealthy, which makes it rather amusing that so many of the one percenters favor Republicans. But then again, Republicans live in a bizarro world.