THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION WAS FULL OF REPEATED IRONIES

…President Trump holds a Bible as he visits outside St. John's Church across Lafayette Square from the White House.

Trump family members think that the nation's Fact Checkers should stop checking the facts

There was a controversial comment from a man during the Republican National Convention, but it seemed to go over everyone’s head.  The comment came from a video that was shown of the president pardoning an African American man, Jon Ponder, in the White House.   It appeared as if they were releasing the video before the convention time, in trying to avert the laws about using the president’s office for political gain.  But because of its timing, it was obviously done for pure politics and political gain.

But it’s not that controversy that was the issue, it was the irony of the man's comment that I’m talking about.  The comment and the video was about an FBI agent who had originally arrested the same man that the president had pardoned, but the agent had later become a close friend with the black man.

The comment from the agent was as follows: “I’ve seen it before where people have used a Bible as a prop,  But it took me about 30 seconds to realize that this [bible] was not a prop with Jon.”

The irony practically smacked you in the face because there is one high-profile American political figure, who recently used the Bible as a prop, and his name is Donald Trump..

You may recall when the local Washington DC authorities in June controversially cleared Lafayette Square of racial-justice protesters, just outside the White House, clearing the way for Trump to stand in front of St John’s church while holding up a Bible.  Whatever one thinks of Trump’s personal faith, he was obviously using the Bible as a prop.  Yet here was Trump’s own convention suggesting that is not a thing anyone should do.

That was hardly the only time in which this week’s GOP convention has seemed confused about the man whose presidency it is supporting.  At various other points, the RNC programs have betrayed either an overwhelming lack of a self-awareness, or a desire to manipulate us all into questioning our own sanity.

Later a former Florida Republican attorney general, Pam Bondi, she stoked the dying embers of the impeachment drama.  She rehashed the long-debunked claims about the Biden's and the Ukraine, and she accused them of self-dealing, saying that “numerous press reports that have shown other close Biden family members benefited from Joe’s 47-year political career.”

As The Post’s reporter wrote, that for another bit of irony, Bondi was speaking as multiple members of the Trump family were set to speak.  And that was shortly before a video featured Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, both of whom are senior White House advisers that have benefited from their father’s political position. 

There is also irony in the fact that Bondi in 2013 accepted an illegal $25,000 donation from the Trump Foundation.  This was shortly before she declined to investigate increasing claims of fraud by the Trump University.  (Donald Trump eventually had to pay $25 million to the disgruntled Trump University students, as he was instructed to dismantle the bogus university..)   Finally, Bondi had served as a registered lobbyist for the government of the oil country of Qatar, despite having served on Trump’s White House impeachment defense team.  Plus, we all remember that Trump had in 2016, promised to prohibit any former officials from lobbying for foreign governments.  Just even more irony.

Two members of Trump’s family also offered remarks Tuesday night that were totally thick with even more irony.

The first lady, Melania Trump offered in her speech a much more detailed account of her murky immigration story.  She also praised her parents’ role in helping her realize her “American Dream”.  Left unsaid was that her parents became citizens by the same process, often referred to as “chain migration”.  This is the process that President Trump has said he was going to make illegal, but has yet to do so.  More irony?

Melania Trump also tried to pitch her husband as being, “rough-edged but genuine”, saying, “We all know Donald Trump makes no secrets about how he feels about things. Total honesty is what we as citizens deserve from our president.” Except that it's ironic that her husband has an unprecedented track record of false and misleading claims, numbering today, much more than 20,000 untruths as president.

And even more irony as the president’s daughter, Tiffany Trump, decried this kind of presidential fact-checking the president.  This, along with the media’s increasing moves toward naming such misinformation, as biased  “misinformation” in and of itself.  “Rather than allowing Americans the right to form our own beliefs, this misinformation system keeps people mentally enslaved to the ideas they [the media] deems correct,” she said. “This has fostered unnecessary fear and divisiveness among us. Why are so many in media and technology and even in our own government so invested in promoting a biased and fabricated view?”  (Are the media's comments a biased view, or just the truth?)

What is Tiffany talking about?  Is she saying Trump’s many lies and misinformation is biased and fabricated?

Again, legitimate concerns about the media aside, the Trump family would be on more solid ground here if only their leader did not have such an awful record of his own misinformation and fabrications. It would also be helpful if he did not have such a need to offer false rhetoric and his conspiracy theories.  And if he would please stop offering regular praise for those Fox cable news hosts who provide some of the most bogus coverage of Trump's presidency.

Another example came when former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley attacked Joe Biden by zeroing in on the Obama administration’s foreign policy record.

“Obama and Biden let North Korea threaten America; President Trump rejected that weakness, and we passed the toughest sanctions on North Korea in history,” Haley said. “Obama and Biden let Iran get away with murder and literally sent them a plane full of cash; President Trump did the right thing and ripped up the Iran nuclear deal.”

Inappropriate comments for the Obama administration and pure B.S. regarding president Trump, as Iran is now able to resume developing a nuclear weapon by, “Trump Ripping up the Iran Nuclear deal”.

This night of the Republican National Convention saw a parade of surrogates touting the president's vision and it had many exaggerations of his achievements.

Whatever one thinks of how the Obama administration handled these issues, to say Obama and Biden “let North Korea threaten America” is pretty rich. Trump employed very tough language about the country early in his presidency, but has since cozied up to Kim Jong Un, even joking about how they “fell in love”. When Kim threatened the United States with an unwelcome “Christmas gift" last year of a successful ballistic missile test, Trump basically laughed it off and continued to speak of Kim affectionately. When Kim later announced plans to expand his nuclear arsenal, Trump again only offered positive comments.

As for Obama and Biden letting “Iran get away with murder,” Trump has quite literally let Saudi Arabia get away with the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post global opinions columnist Jamal Khashoggi.  Trump has stupidly suggested serious retribution isn’t an option or isn’t worth it.  This is all because of the US business relationship with the Saudis.  (Saudi buys lots of military stuff from the United States because they have no other nation that will sell them military equipment.)

Both of the political conventions are intensively pre-produced. Videos and speeches are vetted and made with a fine-tooth comb in the service of their messages. The fact that many of these particular GOP messages were chosen for inclusion, despite their highlighting of questionable events in Trump’s own past.  This suggests that the goal is their serious effort to muddy the waters.

But it is as if Trump’s election convention organizers forgot who and what their candidate is…a blatant, pathological liar.

Copyright G. Ater 2020