Just when you think our Golfer-in-Chief can’t stoop any lower, he manages to surprise us. Dan Rather responds.
Excuse me, Mr. President but your tantrum tweet storm this morning attacking the mayor of San Juan, a fellow American citizen dealing with a real-time life and death struggle for hundreds of thousands of her constituents on an island of millions in crisis, is not only far below the dignity of the office you hold. It fails even the most basic test of humanity.
Tweet storm...below the dignity of the office...failing the basic test of humanity...that pretty much sums up the reign of 45 so far.
Did she have harsh words for your Administration's response to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria? Yes. It's called a reality check, and one that conforms to every firsthand account coming out of Puerto Rico no matter how much you try to deflect with your "Fake News" epithets. To take this personally is to put ego before country. And you also blame the Puerto Ricans themselves? That they want "everything done for them"? No. They just expect to be treated as any other American would.
Of course he took it personally. She called him out. Did we expect him to respond with an apology and a pledge to do better? Of course not. Still, his response was obscene.
It does not take a saintly amount of compassion or empathy to feel for those who are struggling to stay alive, who are worried for the fate of family and friends, and who have seen so much that they have known and loved blown and washed away. You swore to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States" and that means a responsibility to look out for all Americans, even if they live on an island in the ocean, or look different or even speak a different language than what you think is America.
He has no empathy. He is incapable of demonstrating either compassion or empathy, even in speeches written for him. He sees only the personal gain in everything. The only time he has tried to make anything about “all Americans” was when defending Nazis in Charlottesville. “All Americans” has always meant “all white male Americans who voted for me.”
Regardless, what Puerto Rico needs now is not rhetoric but help, not a bumbling response, but the precision and competence we expect of our government. I do not believe "blame the victim" is what Americans expect of their president.
No, that is not what I would expect of any other president of any other country. But this “president”? Sure. A bumbling, nonsensical, defensive, and divisive response is exactly what I expected.