Two Gettysburg Addresses

Today is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Gettysburg Address, but we shouldn't let that overshadow our current White House resident's Gettysburg Address on October 22, 2016. Only a candidate at the time, Donald Trump promised a major address about his first hundred days as president at the site of Lincoln's immortal speech. The speech quickly devolved into a typical airing of grievances about the media, lies about the Clinton campaign, and gloating about his crowd sizes, but included one key specific threat that he never followed up on (and never will). With news of his history of sexual assaults and the Access Hollywood tape (below) dominating the news, candidate Trump made this promise:

"Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign. Total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over."

Even Donald Trump must remember what happened when Bill Clinton was forced to lie under oath about his sexual past; Donald Trump will never want to face any of his many accusers in a court room.

Today's Fine White Whine comes from whiny (and gropey) Roger Ailes

All of these privileged rich old white guys who would never apologize to anyone about anything on principle, are always the first to demand apologies from others. This time we're not talking about Donald Trump's precious little hurt feelings, but those of the sexual predator who was forced from his job as the head of Fox News earlier this year when the weight of evidence finally became overwhelming.

Roger Ailes personally called New York Daily News columnist Don Kaplan and said "I was hoping you would be a gentleman and apologize" for the gropey old man characterization used in a headline. 

A personal phone call? Hasn't Roger learned that the modern way for rich gropey old men to whine for an apology is in a tweet?

Does the Spitzer Sex Scandal Hurt Hillary or Help Hillary?

When this news about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's rendezvous with an expensive prostitute in DC broke this afternoon, my first thought was that this was bad for Hillary Clinton, and not just because Eliot was a vocal supporter of Hillary's presidential candidacy. I simply figured that the last thing any Clinton wants is for the words "sex scandal" to appear in any headline during this campaign, especially regarding a scandal involving another Democratic Chief Executive.

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong. I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better.
“I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”

--Eliot "Client 9" Spitzer, 10 March 2008

But when I saw Eliot Spitzer's obligatory and stereotypically-weaselly public statement in print, I couldn't help thinking of similar appearances by another recent Democratic Chief Executive (no, not Jim McGreevey) and that Hillary Clinton will be seen sympathetically once again as the strong wronged spouse. I wouldn't be surprised to see her national numbers take a small quick uptick in the next few days.

If she does pull off the impossible and win the nomination and the election, maybe she should think about making Eliot Spitzer the US Attorney General. Not only was he a great Attorney General in New York for many years, often taking on national issues that Bush and Ashcroft ignored, but he and the first spouse could hit the town together -- keeping Bill out of the White House and out of Hillary's hair, leaving her undistracted when those important phone calls come flooding in at 3AM.