Donald Trump, Potential Presidential Candidate, Takes on the Conservative Media

Donald Trump is just maybe running for president and don't you forget it. He's also weighing in on big issues involving the conservative intellectual movement, because he's a man of many parts. National Review's Jonah Goldberg wrote of his public dust-up with Trump over whether the flagship conservative intellectual fortnightly has lost its former greatness, thanks to Goldberg.

Gage Skidmore / Foter / CC BY-SA

Goldberg finds a collection of Trump taking Twitter aim at taking down right-wing pundits and reporters for no obvious reason stated, except that they are failures and losers and, coincidentally, all seem to have a record of not taking Trump the politico very seriously.

Goldberg, Stephen Hayes of Weekly Standard and even the venerable George Will ("exhausted, boring and not even a little relevant!") are yesterday's news in the Age of Trump.

As Goldberg concludes:

I guess Trump's Olympian self-regard can lead him to never forget a slight, harbor grudges against critics for a very long time, and drive him to engage in childish name-calling late into the night, which are obviously some of the attributes we all look for in a presidential candidate. A huge ego and a penchant for spite is totally the kind of guy we should entrust the nuclear football to.

Comments

[John]

The fact that Trump choose to go after Goldberg instead of any number of other really lousy writers at NRO, shows he has never read the publication beyond being told Goldberg once said something mean about him. I really think he is a trolling operation to embarrass Republicans.

[VG Zaytsev]

Yep, he's the ultimate Moby.

[gaoxiaen]

I was getting tired of making fun of fat-ass Christie anyways, so...

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"A huge ego and a penchant for spite is totally the kind of guy we should entrust the nuclear football to."

I'll say this much: This use of "totally" would not have made it into Buckley's National Review. I'm not sure if "guy" would have been allowed, either.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

And the subject/verb agreement isn't so hot, either.

Totally.

[Anomalous]

And, he ended a sentence with a preposition.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

This is the sort of thing up with which the old National Review would not have put.

[Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns]

When T. Coddington Van Vorhees VI helmed the National Topsider, such subliterate dross certainly would have been swept from that grand magazine's noble pages, what what!

[Notorious G.K.C.]

When I saw that sentence, my eyes popped so far out of my skull that my monocle fell to the floor.

The only thing to do with that sentence is take it behind the barn and shoot it.

[oobins]

Look! It's astounding!

Vizier Jewish, Layer of Buns made an actual funny that didn't involve The Viz spewing his superiority all over the map.

[Kure'i]

If Buckley had wanted to end the sentence with a preposition, it would have been performed with grace and style. And we would have known that he meant to write it that way.

[Acosmist]

The firing of Derbyshire, now that merited criticism.

[American Letter Mail Company]

Didn't they fire Steyn too?

Williamson and Cooke better watch out!

[Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns]

Well, Steyn kind of forced their hand.

I am sorry my editor at NR does not grasp the stakes. Indeed, he seems inclined to "normalize" what GLAAD is doing. But, if he truly finds my "derogatory language" offensive, I'd rather he just indefinitely suspend me than twist himself into a soggy pretzel of ambivalent inertia trying to avoid the central point ? that a society where lives are ruined over an aside because some identity-group don decides it must be so is ugly and profoundly illiberal. As to his kind but belated and conditional pledge to join me on the barricades, I had enough of that level of passionate support up in Canada to know that, when the call to arms comes, there will always be some "derogatory" or "puerile" expression that it will be more important to tut over. So thanks for the offer, but I don't think you'd be much use, would you?

Awesome, yes. Good way to keep your job, no.

[LynchPin1477]

Donald Trump is using the media coverage that a presidential run will bring him to market himself and stay relevant so that he can make more money off of shows like Celebrity Apprentice. A presidential campaign is just an easy way to do that.

[Jerryskids]

A man who insists upon wearing a diseased (possibly deceased) muskrat on his head in public is a man desperately crying for attention.

[HeteroPatriarch]

I guess Trump's Olympian self-regard can lead him to never forget a slight, harbor grudges against critics for a very long time, and drive him to engage in childish name-calling late into the night, which are obviously some of the attributes we all look for in a presidential candidate. A huge ego and a penchant for spite is totally the kind of guy we should entrust the nuclear football to.

Yeah, we've never had anybody like that in the White House.

[bassjoe]

A huge ego and a penchant for spite is totally the kind of guy we should entrust the nuclear football to.

Um, why would anybody who does NOT have a huge ego run for president? To take that constant abuse -- oftentimes directed at not just you but your loved ones -- on the hope that history will remember you when you're dead?

[oobins]

Looks kind of like you have respect for the office of President. I might wonder, on what factual basis do you hold such esteem?

Big ego isn't same as self-confidence or thick skin. It's almost the opposite. Might even be a perfect opposite.

I grant 0.5 of 5.0 total points if that was satirical. To earn the other 4.5, make it funny, make it subtle, make it clever, and don't just emulate the average doorknob pontificating on the honor of the office of POTUS.

[jdgalt]

And that's exactly why Hillary should be our next president. ...NOT!!

[trshmnster the terrible]

OT: Law Schools are Losing Relevance

The article itself is fluff, but the point is true. Law schools are dying because they won't adapt to the times. They're based off the same diseased "liberal arts" model, and make a habit of providing shit service for exorbitant prices.

Really, though, it's an ABA problem. Get rid of bar licensure requirements, and many law school problems will go away.

[Acosmist]

Nah. There are no jobs. There is no need for about 75% of law schools in existence currently.

[Akira]

"Get rid of bar licensure requirements"

I've considered myself a libertarian for quite a while now, but it was only the other day that I had that same thought. Why the fuck is it that you have to pass an exam before you can represent someone in court? People are free to represent themselves, knowing nothing about law and making an ass of themselves in court, so what's wrong with paying someone else to make an ass out of both of you?

[oobins]

I'm quite sure the average soi-dissant libertarian would be a holy terror in litigation.

"Mr Liberty, please give us your argument in summary. We've been listening to you for 25 minutes and our patience is wearing thin."

"Certainly, you black robed statist tool. You're an idiot, I don't respect you, I hate lawyers, law school teaches collectivist Marxist dogma, and the American system of so-called justice offers no respect toward economics or the entrepreneurial spirit that made me the man I am today, or at least was before you hauled me up before your pitiful bench, which, I must reiterate, deserves no respect from any right-thinking fan and lover of true liberty. Moreover, the Constitution is a clear set of rules that you and ever other black-robed socialist wants to pervert with Frankfurt School sophistry. Case closed."

[Sevo]

What a wonderful country! Any whacko can run for president!

[Jerryskids]

The problem is that, every four years, one of the whackos winds up getting elected.

[Sevo]

You're right. It seems like every whacko runs for president!

[dsquaredoutlet]

If you ask most people their political views, you'll get answers like the Donald's. Not the same answers, but resembling them in the way you'd analyze them. Ask such a person what all those answers had in common, they'd say they're all good ideas & they're all mine.
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