Democrats celebrate and Trump digs himself deeper

The Democrats in Philadelphia held a brilliant convention last week. It stands in sharp contrast to the previous week’s Republican disaster. On many levels:

• A message of hope and solidarity versus one of fear and loathing.
• The outstanding caliber of the speeches compared to the lackluster or angry ones in Cleveland.
• The presence on the stage of the party’s stars, from Obama to Bill Clinton, in contrast to the absence of the last two Republican presidents at the GOP gathering.
• The warmth and enthusiasm of the crowd.
• The sheer sense of competence versus last week’s bumbling, the difference between a nearly flawless performance and one in which the actors misspeak their lines or speak lines spoken by other actors in other plays.
• The amazing speech by the current First Lady versus the plagiarism evident in that of the would-be First Lady.

One of the highlights of the Dems convention has to be former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s take on how Trump plans to run the nation. Bloomberg, a business magnate whose net worth dwarfs Trump’s, said: “He says he wants to run the country the way he runs his businesses. God help us.”

The culmination of the Democratic convention was Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech, which focused on two themes: what she would do as president to bring jobs for the struggling middle class and the many reasons Donald Trump is unqualified to be president. She did well on both counts. And, although her speech was not the most brilliant—it’s hard to measure up to Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Michelle Obama—it was far superior to Trump’s bombastic, interminable acceptance speech.

The media could not miss how much more enthusiastic the crowd in Philadelphia was compared with the one in Cleveland. People were keenly aware that they were witnessing history being made before their eyes as for the first time ever one of the two major parties chose a woman as their presidential candidate. Many of the women were ecstatic, and plenty of tears were shed, including by older women who told reporters that they knew the day would come but they were not sure they would live to see it.

While Democrats were celebrating a very successful convention, Donald Trump was coming out with perhaps his most astonishing statement of the whole campaign. Seasoned observers like CBS senior political analyst Bob Schieffer, who has covered every convention since 1968, couldn’t believe that Trump would blunder so badly as to appeal to Russia to release Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails if that country had them in their possession.

Suffice it to say that, in pursuit of their sovereignty, all countries try hard to prevent other governments from interfering in their internal political processes, even friendly countries, but especially adversaries. In the United States, for instance, it is illegal for foreigners to donate money to political campaigns. To give another example, the biggest issue in the long-bedeviled U.S.-Cuba relationship was—and to a lesser extent still is—efforts on the part of the United States to influence the nature of Cuba’s political system. Since the revolution, Cuba has resisted such intrusions vigorously and by all means necessary.

That is what self-respecting governments do. Even a close U.S. ally, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is known to have friendly relations with President Obama, was livid when she found out U.S. intelligence was listening in on communications between top German officials. She promptly called the president and, according to press accounts, read Obama the Riot Act.

Trump’s actions look like a sign of desperation. And making things worse, The New York Times reported: “Computer systems used by the campaign of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, were hacked, a federal law enforcement, official said. The official said the attack appears to have come from Russia’s intelligence services.” To put an exclamation point on the controversy, it also has been reported that the leak of Clinton’s emails was intended to hurt her campaign.

The Russians have denied the whole thing. But the point is not Russia’s culpability—the United States is notorious for clandestinely interfering in other country’s politics. The point is Donald Trump’s complicity and encouragement of foreign cyberespionage.

The Republicans did get some good news of sorts the day after the end of the Democratic convention, although it was bad news for the country. For the third quarter in a row, the economy grew at an anemic rate. That plays into Donald Trump’s message that under Democratic administrations—Obama’s and his potential successor Hillary Clinton—the United States is going to hell in a hand-basket.

But this story lost any impact it might have had on the campaign because Trump again stepped in it—big time. He has been systematically and viciously attacking those who spoke against him at the convention, including a retired general and Michael Bloomberg. That’s par for the course for the thin-skinned Trump, but generals have faced much worse than a verbal attack by the likes of Trump and Bloomberg likely laughed all the way to the bank.

A much more grievous Trump attack was that aimed at the parents of an American Muslim soldier who was killed in Iraq. The Washington Post Times account reads:

“Republican Donald Trump lashed out Saturday at two Muslim American parents [Khzir and Ghazala Khan] who lost their son while he served in the U.S. military in Iraq and who appeared at the Democratic National Convention last week, stirring outrage among critics who said the episode proves that Trump lacks the compassion and temperament to be president.”

Trump suggested Mr. Khan’s highly personal and moving speech was written by Hillary Clinton and suggested Mrs. Khan was probably not allowed to speak, presumably by her husband. The next day, Mrs. Khan went on television and said she didn’t speak at the convention because she was too nervous and still too devastated by her son’s death.

The reaction to Trump’s broadside was fast and furious. “Trump’s slur against Captain Khan’s mother is, even for him, beyond the pale,” tweeted one Republican strategist. Another said: “There is only one response for Trump to the criticism: ‘As an American, I deeply appreciate the patriotic sacrifice of the Khan family.’”

In the convention speech Khan said Mr. Trump, who avoided serving in Vietnam through student and medical deferments, had “sacrificed nothing and no one.”

Digging himself deeper in the muck, Trump defended himself saying that as a businessman he had sacrificed a lot.

Paul Rieckoff, the founder and chief executive of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, shot back on ABC:

“For anyone to compare their ‘sacrifice’ to a Gold Star family member is insulting, foolish and ignorant. Especially someone who has never served himself and has no children serving.”

In sum, instead of attempting to avoid more pratfalls and begin to salve internal party injuries, Trump has started the final sprint to the election by spending his time fighting with the parents of an American soldier killed in combat. That’s the ultimate no-win situation.

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.