WAS THE SPEECH BY KHIZR KHAN, THE MOST IMPORTANT SPEECH TO DATE?

… Mr. & Mrs. Khizr Khan, on MSNBC's "Hardball " w/ Chris Matthews

 

Mr. Khan asked Donald Trump whether he had ever read the US Constitution.  We still don’t have an answer to that one.

 

 

 

Humayun Khan was the 27 year old American Muslim Army Captain who died in Iraq in 2004.  He was killed by a suicide bomber while trying to protect his squad. For his heroism, he was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. 

 

At the Democratic National Convention, Humayun’s father Khizr Khan, paid tribute to his son, and he had asked Donald Trump whether he had ever read the US Constitution.  He also asked if he'd ever visited Arlington National Cemetery and seen all the different nationalities, genders, and ethnicities buried there.  It all amounted to the most direct and personal challenge given so far to the Republican presidential nominee’s rhetoric concerning Muslim immigrants in America.

 

Now, this Muslim father is no average American Muslim.  Mr. Kahn is a Harvard-trained lawyer, and up until now, had never considered voting Democratic.

 

What is so positive and amazing about the short speech that Mr. Kahn made at the DNC is the way his comments were received by those that watched his speech on national TV.

 

Two days after delivering one of the most memorable speeches of the 2016 campaign season, a speech that a TV commentator described as the “fulcrum of the election”.

 

 

On this morning, Mr. Khan was checking into a DC hotel and preparing for another television appearance on Sunday’s Meet the Press.  All this, while he was still trying to come to grips with being in the sudden national spotlight.

 

 

“I was in a line at the hotel, and a group of people gathered behind me, and one of them said, ‘Sir, can we shake your hand?’ ” Khan said.  Khan was still being overwhelmed by the continued responses to his speech at the Convention on that Thursday

 

Khan said it is the massive response to his speech, not the speech itself, that is “causing all the trouble for Trump.”

 

“They are beginning to see me, this person who can hardly speak correct English and who has an accent, and they are saying, ‘How dare he say something of that profound nature?’

 

But it’s not what was said that was profound in their eyes, “it was profound in how many people have responded,” said the Harvard-trained lawyer.

 

In this series of statements two days after the appearance, Trump finally responded to Khan’s speech.  He did it by telling the New York Times that he wondered whether Khan’s wife, who stood silently by his side as he spoke, was even “allowed to speak by the DNC”, a response that drew widespread, negative comments from both political parties. 

 

In a written statement later, Mr. Trump, the same Trump who has proposed suspending Muslim immigration to the United States, he elaborated that Khan’s son, was a “hero” who should be “honored.”

 

But as usual, Trump just couldn’t stop there.  He just had to go on to say that “the real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country to do us further harm.”  The reality is that in 2004, the ISIS “radical Islamic terrorists” did not exist as a group when the captain was killed.

 

Mr. Kahn, responding to Trump’s latest statement saying that Trump’s comments about his son being a “hero”: “This is just his faked empathy.”

 

Kahn continued: “What he said originally — that defines him . . . people are upset with him. He realizes, and his advisers feel, that [his original statement] was a stupid mistake. That proves that this person is void of empathy. He is unfit for the stewardship of this great country. You think he will empathize with this country, with the suffering of this country’s poor people? He showed his true colors when he disrespected this country’s most honorable mother [Mrs. Khan] . . . . The snake oil he is selling, and my patriotic, decent Americans are falling for that. Republicans are falling for that. And I can only appeal to them. Reconsider. Repudiate. It’s a moral obligation. A person void of empathy for the people he wishes to lead cannot be trusted with that leadership. To vote is a trust. And it cannot be placed in the wrong hands.”

 

But Mr. Khan didn’t stop there: In response to Trump’s attack on his wife, Khan said that the Republican nominee’s words were “typical of a person without a soul.”

 

Khan added that his wife did not speak at the convention because she breaks down when she sees her son’s photograph.  There was a huge photo of her son projected onto a screen behind the stage at the convention.

 

“Emotionally and physically, she just could not even stand there, and when we left, as soon as we got off camera, she just broke down. And the people inside, the staff, were holding her, consoling her. She was just totally emotionally spent. Only those parents that have lost their son or daughter could imagine the pain that such a memory causes. Especially, when a tribute is being paid. I was holding myself together, because, one of us had to be strong. Normally, she is the stronger one. But in the matter of our son, Humayun, she just breaks down any time anyone mentions it.”

 

Khan said he had asked his wife whether she wanted to address the DNC convention.  “I asked her: ‘Do you want to say something? Like, thank you? Or, we are glad?’ ” Khan said. “She said: ‘You know what will happen. I will sob.’ Would any mother be able to utter a word under those circumstances?”

 

But after the convention, Mr. Khan now wants to go after some other Republicans.  He wants some high-level Republicans to also repudiate what Trump has been proposing.

 

Khan said that he will now turn his attention to the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-WI).  He will appeal to them to repudiate what he considers to be Trump’s most divisive rhetoric. He said the matter of Trump’s candidacy has become a moral issue that goes beyond policy or political disagreement.

 

Khan said, “I will say to them that this is your moral duty, and history will judge you. . . . This will be a burden on their conscience for the rest of their lives.”

 

And as to Trump’s proposed suspension of Muslim immigration, Khan said that the candidate is simply “pandering for votes.”

 

“This is my country, too,” Khan said, adding that Trump “lacks real understanding, that most Muslims are victims of terrorism, not the perpetrators”.  And most Muslims condemn it. “He lacks awareness of these issues. He doesn’t realize there are patriotic Muslim Americans in this country willing to lay their lives for this country. We are a testament to that.”

 

Khan said that since his speech Thursday, he has received a flood of emails from judges, lawyers and others across the country, as well as flowers and good wishes from those who he thinks have become emboldened since his appearance.

 

“What has caused this stir is how those words have strengthened the hearts of people,” he said. “These comments were from scholars, very prominent judges, and prominent lawyers — one said very clearly: ‘I have never voted Democrat. I will vote Democrat this year. I want you to know that somehow you have touched my heart.”

 

I think that this short episode of truth offered up at the DNC could end up being the most important offering from the whole former two weeks of pomp and rhetoric.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016

 

As an addendum to this article, a large group the Gold Star Mothers and families that had lost loves ones serving in the US military has sent a scalding letter directed at Donald Trump for his comments against the Khan family.  It is a scathing letter that also demands an apology from Mr. Trump…….but of course, Donald J. Trump never apologizes for anything.