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Ruth: Only one candidate sounds presidential

 
“I can do presidential,” Donald Trump said. So far, he hasn’t.
“I can do presidential,” Donald Trump said. So far, he hasn’t.
Published July 29, 2016

Back in April, fearing their candidate was quickly turning into the boorish loudmouth at the end of the bar who won't shut up about how the United Nations is plotting to take over the Camp Fire Girls, Donald Trump's family and political advisers urged him to be more "presidential."

In response Trump scoffed, "I can do presidential, folks, believe me."

He has been true to his word, if he were seeking the presidency of the Alfred E. Neuman Fan Club.

Now the Republican and Democratic party conventions are over. Let the sighs begin.

Be as critical of Hillary Clinton as you want, but at least the Democratic nominee grasps that the presidency of the United States is not the same thing as being a declasse game show host. Who says there are no standards anymore? But Trump has managed to trip over even that low bar. This chap isn't really a candidate to lead the free world. He's the Dueling Banjo boy of the ballot box.

Legal experts will weigh in as to whether the Republican presidential candidate violated the federal Logan Act, barring private citizens from interfering with the federal government's relations with a foreign power, when he challenged Russia to release Clinton's hacked emails from her days as secretary of state. How presidential.

Might this be a craven political ploy to win the endorsement of that Jeffersonian disciple Vladimir Putin?

Presidential candidates often say or do stupid stuff. President Gerald Ford insisted there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe at the height of the Cold War in 1976. Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis did himself no favors in 1988 when he bloodlessly responded to a question of how he would react if his wife had been raped and murdered as if she would have suffered a paper cut.

There's a case to made that a presidential candidate egging on Russia to hack U.S. government emails flirts with treason. It most certainly qualifies as dense. And Ted Cruz was supposed to be the disloyal one?

It ought to give Republicans pause that they have just nominated a reality challenged, used chewing gum salesman to be their presidential candidate who is so intellectually wanting he probably couldn't be accepted for admission into Trump University.

But wait! There's even more of less.

Trump argued if Moscow could hack into Clinton's emails, "perhaps they should share them with the FBI," as if Russian intelligence officials would be overcome by an altruistic sense of civic duty. Baghdad Bob wasn't this cluelessly naive.

As Trump was deftly positioning himself to win over the coveted Kim Jong Un seal of approval along with Pyongyang's game-changing Electoral College votes, Clinton was wrapping up the week's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Politics in general and presidential politics in particular offer moments to rise to the occasion. In Cleveland a week ago, Trump used the Republican convention to preach from an End Times pulp fiction novel. Doom. Gloom. Torture is good. Brigands behind every shrubbery. And only Trump and Trump alone can save the country from itself.

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Ahem. Narcissus wasn't this narcissistic.

Presidential. If the object of the exercise during a nominating convention is to present the candidate in the most positive of "presidential" lights, Clinton met that seriousness of purpose standard. In her acceptance speech, Clinton came off as poised, disciplined and articulate in offering her vision for the country. It was a vivid contrast to Trump's preening, fear-mongering "Grate Man Theory of History" diatribe a week earlier.

It is always worth remembering that this is a battle for the presidency of the United States. It is not "Survivor: The Potomac."

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay wrote The Federalist Papers. Trump tweets, including one 140-character gem Thursday night attacking retired Marine four-star Gen. John Allen as "bad." The general's crime? Supporting the Democratic presidential nominee.

Trump, the Republican nominee for president, got around to insisting he was merely kidding when he invited Russia to spy on the United States.

It was all one big joke, Trump claimed.

Yes. Yes it is.