Trump Ugly

With President Obama politely asking the State of Hawaii to waive its policy on publicizing long-form birth certificates so everyone could see his, one might think that a potential presidential candidate who has been riding that horse for awhile to be somewhat abashed.

But one would then never have heard the name "Donald Trump" before. Starting with a March appearance on The View, Trump began needling the president about the fact that his so-called "official birth certificate" remained unviewed. Because the president's father was not a U.S. citizen and because he spent early years in Indonesia and because not every firing neuron creates an actual thought, a significant number of folks wondered if he was in fact a natural-born U.S. citizen. If he was not, then he was not qualified to be the president, under Article 2 of the Constitution.

Despite the terror that should have been stirred up by these words -- "President Biden" -- many of these folks asserted that all of the "secrecy" meant President Obama had something to hide. He had, of course, produced a certificate of live birth, which Hawaii has used as proof of birth in many situations. The issue had ebbed until Trump began hammering at it again in his usual blunt fashion.

At the same time, Trump began making noise about running for President again. He did this about 10 years ago and tested the waters with the book The America We Deserve before he decided to bow out. He is no more of a serious candidate now than then. I don't mean he is or isn't serious about running -- only the man himself can know his own mind on the matter. I mean that he's not someone who should be seriously considered as a candidate for President of the United States.

He's been saying four main things about his potential candidacy: 1) President Obama is doing a very poor job, 2) President Obama's hiding something about his birth, 3) China's planning on taking us out not with missiles but with mortgage notes, 4) He's really serious about running.

To answer these, I say: 1) I agree, but the list of people who'd do better includes neither me nor Mr. Trump, 2) President Biden, 3) Probably shouldn't have your signature clothing line made there, then and 4) He was really serious about Marla Maples, too.

The interesting thing to me is that a Trump candidacy would be, in one sense, a logical extension of the kind of candidacy that Obama ran. It would focus on celebrity, name recognition and some kind of indefinable aura of destiny rather than any great level of demonstrated ability, commitment or practical vision. And while Trump probably has some positives that Obama does not, I believe a Trump presidency would be just as awful as the Obama presidency has been.

His commitment over the years has been to one person: Donald Trump. News stories show he's been happy to donate money to political candidates across the board, and he's made political statements on issues that sometimes contradict his own earlier statements and positions, earning him no love from the conservative constituency he seems to be courting.

It's an oversimplification, but what I want from a president is someone who, when I think about them, I emphasize the word "President" rather than the name. For Obama -- and certainly for the lion's share of his supporters -- the emphasis in the phrase "President Obama" is on the word "Obama" rather than the office of the presidency and the leadership of our nation. And when Trump says the sentence "I want to be president" in his mind, I believe the mental italics are on the word "I" instead of "president." (As an aside, I think this same mindset exists among way, way too many Sarah Palin supporters as well, even if I'm less convinced it's the way the woman herself sees things, and that would present us with a number of the same problems)

During initial seasons of his unscripted show The Apprentice, Trump National Golf Club manager and executive vice president Carolyn Kepcher was one of the associates Trump used to monitor the progress of those vying to win a job with a Trump organization. Over the course of the first seasons of the show, Kepcher's no-nonsense demeanor, business savvy and camera-friendly looks earned her some celebrity status of her own, which the Donald apparently felt was getting in the way of her doing her job of running his golf courses. So he booted her, even though it was highly unlikely Kepcher was going to eclipse his fame or name on the door.

I have a really hard time believing that an ego like that would be able to stand coexisting with the 500-plus similar egos fulminating under the Capitol Dome, not to mention whatever cabinet secretaries he might appoint, and even more not to mention the self-importance of the Washington, D.C.-based media. If by some miracle Trump should win the GOP nomination and then by an even bigger one win the presidency itself, I imagine he would become the second president ever to resign from office as he grew ever more frustrated with how much the job wasn't about him and figured that resigning was the only way he could make it be that way.