He Said What!?!

Oh, the horrors ...

Or not.

Definitely "not".

So, 11 years ago (or there abouts - there seems to be a good deal of guessing about the actual timeline here), Donald Trump was on his way to be interviewed about some TV gig or other he had managed to get himself onto, and the "journalist" doing the interview sandbagged him about the microphones being on apparently. Or maybe The Donald was just that ate up with the hubristic stupid as to not care whether or not they were on.  Either way, he got recorded saying something pretty crass about the types of behavior "stars" can get away with. Not ever having been a "star" myself, I couldn't really say from direct experience, but having seen some pretty outrageous examples of public behavior by actual film and television stars over my lifetime (Dean Martin sloppy drunk and apparently trying out material for a late-night Vegas stage appearance on The Tonight Show when that was a live broadcast anyone?), I'm kinda surprised actual people found this particular example to be all that offensive (Sean Connery slapping some random American babe on her ass as she walks by on the street ring any bells anyone?).

Let's also be clear, I first became a US Navy sailor 45 years ago. Quite frankly, I can remember ... well, not conversations really ... call them verbal displays of one-up-manship that involved reputed incidents of inter-gender relationship behavior and much more crass and crude language than Donald Trump probably has ever heard uttered in his presence. Ever. Basically, Trump asserted a commonly held belief about celebrities as being true and, at the urging of the "journalist" you understand, proceeded to illustrate his point by mangling the Bowling Ball Joke. If you've been on Facebook recently, you can't have missed the rabid assertions of how this equals rape, or worse.

[See that search engine box in the corner of your screen? Type in the words "how are women like a bowling ball" for yourself. I mangle jokes when I try to tell them too.]

Fairly de riguer fare for The Friars Club, or so I understand. I've never been there either, sadly, so I couldn't say personally.

Don't get me wrong, a president, or even a presidential candidate, saying something this crudely in public is unacceptable behavior. The President doing so in private shows questionable judgement at the very least. That being said, some real estate guy playing up his reputation for outlandishness so as to invent a TV personality for himself to play in-between RE moguling (or more plainly stated, political rent seeking and tax farming)? Considering the moral level he was starting out from, we should all be grateful Donald Trump is this verbally lazy, if you ask me.

The American republic has survived alcoholics (Grant), flagrant racists (Wilson), and crass and crude boors (LBJ, Nixon) occupying the Oval Office before now; the country will likely survive Trump or another Clinton sullying the place again too.

Frankly, I'm more concerned about Barack Obama successfully getting us into a nuclear shooting war with Russia before the 45th President even has a chance to muff the Oath of Office. But let's all focus our attention on something said a decade ago, and get all outraged about what wasn't actually said while we're at it. The fact that I live over a hundred miles from any of the likely nuclear targets and their fallout patterns isn't as reassuring as you probably think it ought to be, given the Traitor-in-Chief's track record in office so far.