Wednesday, April 03, 2019

Letter to the editor

Herewith is a letter to the editor of the SB News-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: The letter was published in the News-Press on Sunday, April 7, 2019.


Pundits wonder why Donald Trump lies so frequently. Perhaps, they suggest, he can't help himself – it's in his nature, a genetic trait or something. Mysterious to pundits too is how forgiving his base is about his repetitive falsehoods. They marvel at the sustained loyalty of his followers despite his constant prevarications. To quote Rogers and Hammerstein, "is a puzzlement."



Pundits are even more befuddled about why Trump lies about facts that are both meaningless and readily refutable. For example, his claims about his golfing prowess turn out to be a tissue (that is, a scorecard) of lies, the result of grandscale cheating. Who cares – except, presumably, Donald Trump – about his handicap?  Dwight Eisenhower, an avid golfer, commanded us to victory over Germany and governed us for eight solid years and yet never found it necessary to fib about his skill at striking a sphere along a lawn. 



Trump's latest odd and silly lie  – that his father, Fred, was born in Germany – is a "fact" he's repeated many times, including a few days ago to the NATO  Secretary General. In fact (emphasis intended) Fred Trump was born in New York, well within the gestation period after his mother's arrival in the United States.



You'd think, after all the attention Trump spent investigating the birthplace of his presidential predecessor, he'd take care to speak accurately of his father's. But no. Apparently, to Trump, it's more important that he not admit to being the offspring of an anchor baby.