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George Will Says Trump Cannot ‘Think and Speak Clearly’ and Is ‘Uniquely Unfit to Take the Nation Into a Military Conflict’

May 5, 2017  •  Post A Comment

Conservative political commentator George Will writes in a piece running under the headline “Trump has a dangerous disability” in The Washington Post that Donald Trump has the inability to think and speak clearly.

“This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability,” Will writes in the opinion piece. “It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence.”

Will cites a number of examples of Trump’s apparent lack of understanding of the nuances of historical and current events, including the Civil War (see the video below), the one-China policy and the nuclear triad.

On that last subject, Will writes: “As a candidate, Trump did not know what the nuclear triad is. Asked about it, he said: ‘We have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ballgame.’ Invited to elaborate, he said: ‘I think — I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.'”

Will concludes: “Americans have placed vast military power at the discretion of this mind, a presidential discretion that is largely immune to restraint by the Madisonian system of institutional checks and balances. So, it is up to the public to quarantine this presidency by insistently communicating to its elected representatives a steady, rational fear of this man whose combination of impulsivity and credulity render him uniquely unfit to take the nation into a military conflict.”

Here’s a clip put together by The Washington Post featuring Trump’s thoughts on the Civil War …

8 Comments

  1. Well DUH.

  2. Of course George would never have said that about our last CIC, who arrived at the White House with a VAST knowledge of “community organizing” having spent less than 2 years in the Senate representing the great state of Illinois. Certainly not! He would have been branded a racist! Mr. Will is sounding more and more like the intellectual snobbery of the leftist elite. It’s probably time for George to take the rest of the spring and summer off and watch as many baseball games of his beloved Washington Nationals as he can. Maybe baseball can make George happy again.

    • George Will never had much good to say about Obama, and frequently had harsh words for him — so you speak from a position of great ignorance when you proclaim what George Will had to say about the previous CIC.

      So the reality is that George Will harshly criticized Obama — but feels (as do many, many people) that Trump is even worse.

  3. Maybe George should watch his stock portfolio. Mine is making me very happy.

  4. “This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability,” Will writes in the opinion piece. “It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence.”

    “disinclination” – Reluctance, unwillingness, hesitancy.
    “sloth” – Again, this means “laziness” and “reluctance”
    “bereft” – Lacking, in need of, without.
    “stratospheric” – in this case I think he means “the very highest levels of a profession.

    With that key, hopefully it’s easier to understand the overly-intelligent musings…er, reflections of a guy who possesses stratospheric literary skill…and gladly puts it on display to marvel over. As a writer, but more importantly, a communicator, Mr. Will doesn’t realize that saying things simply is more effective and more easily understood EG: “communicative” than “employing” high-brow lexicon (words/vocabulary) to make one’s point and to point out just how smart they really are.

    When I was working on my journalism degree many, many years ago I tried to write like Mr. Will…to impress and show off my “knowledge.” My writings were always viewed as “pedantic” (that’s a word Mr. Will will understand) and I was graded down for my overly-brainiac efforts to impress. It was a good lesson for me to learn. Clearly it’s a lesson Mr. Will didn’t… Craft me some more stratospheric dialogue Messier Will!!!

  5. I often disagree with George Will but his Trump evaluation is clear, concise, and accurate. Will has been a close observer of Presidents and Congress for almost a generation and his knowledge of history is solid.
    This time, Americans would be wise to heed his warning. As for those poor, mislead Trump supporters..like Trump, it is time for you to get over Obama, move on, and start dealing with the present and FUTURE. The Obama Presidency and the campaign are over. yet Trump and his gaggle can’t seem to stop talking about the past. They really need to start dealing with the present and future. That is, if Trump has any real vision at all.

  6. If we want to nit-pick any person, even Gorgeous George Will, we can always find some aspect of history about which they are uninformed. I just hope Trump can become knowledgeable about those things that will help him lead our country. i doubt knowledge of the Civil War is a prerequisite for being President? If so, Ken Burns would be our President. And it should take Trumpbut a short amount of time to learn about our one-China policy. As for the nuclear triad, as a retired Colonel, I could teach Trump about the concept of the nuclear triad in less than an hour. I pity George Will. He is grasping at straws to remain relevant. The more popular Trump became, the less relevant George Will became. This is his way of gaining attention. It’s sad he has to resort to irrelevant topics, that can be either ignored or learned in minutes, to try to prove his point. We are watching a man that has lost his influence and power and doesn’t really know how to get it back. Tearing down another person doesn’t make you a better person. I hate to break the news to George Will but he’s stuck with Trump for at least 4 years.

  7. The Civil War was a direct result of the framers and writers of the US Constitution and the treatment of the issue of free states and slave states and how new states would be construed. In addition the industrial revolution and the cotton gin that resulted created an insatiable need for cotton IN THE NORTH that made slavery profitable again. Trump’s words are actually more on target than the uninformed newspaper staff realized. History is very clear on the real reasons for the Civil War. Trying to make “edits” to serve a modern political agenda is laughable. Mr. Will has been laughable throughout the campaign and election of President Trump because it did not contribute to the establishment Mr. Will was well regarded in, Rather it has ‘magnified the smallness’ of the man and he continues to prove he is now irrelevant.

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