I was visiting relatives in Iowa last weekend. I was happy to hear my elderly Mom’s reaction to one of the Hillary ads showing Trump’s reactions as David Letterman mentioned where Trump’s clothing was made (Bangladesh, China). “How can anyone vote for that man?”, she said. More evidence that she is still sharp as a tack.
She got me wondering why Iowa was still a swing state. The populace is well educated and certainly gets a lot of exposure to the candidates. When the Sunday paper came, I saw an opinion column by a local (Reverend Duane Lindberg) that started out with a false equivalence of both candidates needing to atone and then went way beyond equivalence.
It started out harmlessly enough,
We have again entered a time in our history when people on both sides of the aisle are feeling offended, nursing resentments and anger.
It seems to me that those on the right spend all their time nursing resentments, many times for imaginary slights (the war on Christmas, Sharia Law, the liberal media (that one is really imaginary)). However, I read further.
Many on the right are offended by Hillary Clinton’s continuing, bold-faced disrespect for the truth...
followed by the usual suspects — Whitewater, Benghazi, emails. Then he bemoaned Hillary’s “lack of a moral compass” on marriage, abortion, transgender people, and radical Islam.
Okaaay. He mentioned “both sides” in his first sentence. How about the reasons why those on the left might be feeling offended?
On the other hand, there are those who are offended by Donald Trump’s New York City vernacular, his in-your-face style and his insensitivity to those who epitomize “Minnesota Nice” as a standard of behavior.
So, Hillary is a liar with no moral compass but Donald has a vernacular, a style. and seems insensitive, but only to those with a false standard of niceness. Is that it? Well no, there is also
his seeming insensitivity to a Muslim couple whose son, a U.S. Army officer, was killed in the line of duty
and
his refusal to compromise or to offer “politically correct” solutions
So, he “seemed” insensitive and he’s not politically correct. Well, that seems like an equal indictment of both candidates by the good Reverend.
And what must each candidate do?
it is necessary for both candidates to admit their wrongs. This means Clinton must confess she has lied to the American people....For Trump, it means repenting of his insensitive remarks...
Well, Trump already said something or other about repenting insensitive remarks, right before his latest Tweet storm, so he’s good to go already! Has Hillary confessed her lies? Has she?
Assuming Clinton confesses to lies (isn’t there a law against false confessions?), what will happen then? According to the Reverend, there are three questions that should determine the election:
What are the significant issues in this election?
Where do Trump and Clinton stand on these key challenges facing our nation?
<...>
Will it be the European-style socialist state envisioned by Hillary Clinton and the liberal left, or constitutional democracy founded on a belief in ultimate truth as intended by the Founding Fathers and as advocated by Donald Trump and the conservative right?
The good Reverend has seemed to drop all pretense of equivalence at this point. He would seem to be a fair and balanced individual only to the most religious followers of Faux News. It does help explain why Hillary isn’t running away with Iowa when this nonsense gets published in one of the major newspapers in the state.