Trump doesn't want to be "like Joe Biden," who makes promises and then breaks them.

Here are 2 examples from yesterday's "Meet the Press" — transcript here — of Trump answering a question and weaving in a criticism of Biden. 

Was he just taking advantage of a perceived opportunity to take a shot at Biden, or does he have some genuine concern about not making any absolute promises that he might not want to keep (either because he respects the truth or because he wants to keep his options open and to deprive his opponents of the ability to attack him as liar (which they always do))?

EXAMPLE #1: Asked if he'd commit to refraining using executive action — without Congress — to restrict access to "medication abortions," Trump said:

Well, I commit. I mean, are -- things do -- things change. I think they change. I hate to go on shows like Joe Biden, “I’m not going to give my son a pardon. I will not under any circumstances give him a pardon.” I watched this and I always knew he was going to give him a pardon. And so, I don’t like putting myself in a position like that. So things do change. But I don’t think it’s going to change at all....

EXAMPLE #2: Asked if he's going to fire FBI director, Christopher Wray, he said:

Well, I can’t say I’m thrilled with him. He invaded my home. I’m suing the country over it. He invaded Mar-a-Lago. I’m very unhappy with the things he — he’s done, and crime is at an all time high. Migrants are pouring into the country that are from prisons and from mental institutions, as we’ve discussed. I can’t say I’m thrilled. I don’t want to say -- I don’t want to, again, I don’t want to be Joe Biden and give you an answer and then do the exact opposite... so I’m not going to do that. What I’m going to say is I certainly cannot be happy with him....

"There is a long and honorable history of civil disobedience in the United States, but true civil disobedience ultimately honors and respects the rule of law."

"In a 1965 appearance on 'Meet the Press,' the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described the principle perfectly: 'When one breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust, he must do it openly, he must do it cheerfully, he must do it lovingly, he must do it civilly — not uncivilly — and he must do it with a willingness to accept the penalty.' But what we’re seeing on a number of campuses isn’t free expression, nor is it civil disobedience. It’s outright lawlessness. No matter the frustration of campus activists or their desire to be heard, true civil disobedience shouldn’t violate the rights of others. Indefinitely occupying a quad violates the rights of other speakers to use the same space. Relentless, loud protest violates the rights of students to sleep or study in peace. And when protests become truly threatening or intimidating, they can violate the civil rights of other students, especially if those students are targeted on the basis of their race, sex, color or national origin."

Writes David French, in "Colleges Have Gone off the Deep End. There Is a Way Out" (NYT).

"And I will continue, of course, to be a big part of NBC's political coverage, because, as Tom Brokaw said to me, he says, 'Look, some networks do some things well, but nobody does politics like NBC.'"

"And he was referring back all the way to David Brinkley. And that is sort of the tradition I've always sent from Brinkley to Russert. And that's the stuff I want to carry on. That's the stuff Kristen's going to carry on.... So that's all for today. Thanks for watching, and for so many years of loyalty to me and to this show. I'm happy to say my colleague, Kristen Welker, is going to be here next week. Because it doesn't matter who sits in this chair. If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press."

Said Chuck Todd, yesterday, on his last episode of "Meet the Press."

"The Cubans also have two medicines, one for diabetes, of which my mother died for, lung cancer, which my father died for, and I would like to have those drugs tested in the United States."

Said Karen Bass — a congresswoman on Biden's VP shortlist — on "Meet the Press" today when she was prompted by Chuck Todd to talk about what seems to have been her "celebrating" of the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba.

My bullshit detector went off at "diabetes, of which my mother died for, lung cancer, which my father died for." I don't doubt that her mother died of diabetes and her father died of lung cancer, but obviously they did not die for their disease. I don't think that's an error that arises out of ignorance of proper English. I think that's the kind of thing that gets out when you're thinking something different from what you are saying.

And what are the drugs that they have in Cuba that aren't even tested here? I'd like to know. Bass was oddly enthusiastic about Cuban medicine and purported to have expertise:

[F]or the last 20 years, I've actually been working on health care related issues in Cuba. You know, the Cubans train U.S. doctors. And I've been recruiting those doctors to work in the inner city because they come in tuition free....

Chuck Todd's emotional journalism.

On "Meet the Press" today, Chuck Todd — interviewing the NYT executive editor Dean Baquet — showed a disturbing inability to do his job, to be a professional journalist. I don't see what's so hard about understanding professionalism. You're a journalist, you cover the people in the news, and you don't let the subjects of the news shake you up by telling you you're doing it wrong. As long as you are following principles of professionalism — maybe you aren't and that's your problem — you should be able to stand your ground firmly. Yet somehow, Donald Trump's criticism of journalists is dogging him:

CHUCK TODD: This presents a very difficult situation. I face it myself personally from him sometimes, we face it as a network, where he personalizes coverage and disagreements about coverage with the organization and sometimes with individual reporters. You're a human being, I'm a human being. It's not easy sometimes doing that. 

Is Todd play-acting, trying to drum up sympathy? It makes no sense. Consumers of journalism don't worry about how the reporters feel. But Todd could be mistaken and think acting wounded will cause viewers to want to defend him against mean old Trump. I doubt it. So maybe Todd really is hurting. But that seems ridiculous. Cover the news! If someone in the news is a gigantic bastard, so much the better for the news provider. Tell the story. What's this "I'm a human being" business?

Todd asks Baquet: "How are you instructing your journalists to handle the personal attacks that may come his way in a very public setting?" This is an odd question, and not just because of the awkward, ungrammatical "his." It assumes instruction must be given to reporters, like they're snowflakes in need of a safe room.

Baquet doesn't buy into the drama. He takes what I think is the obvious professional position: "[W]e have a huge obligation to cover this guy aggressively and fairly. And that means not letting personalities get in the way." He concedes that Trump's antagonism is "annoying" and takes note of a possible threat to First Amendment values, but he completely avoids the emotionalism of taking it personally. He puts any "personal stuff" "off to the side." Well, of course.

Next Todd brought on the editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal, Gerard Baker. Todd played a clip of Trump calling the WSJ "a piece of garbage" and then asked Baker "How did you handle the direct attacks?"

Baker, like Baquet, took the professional approach. You just "get used to it." Trump has his style. The WSJ reporters know what it is. They deal with it. Baker observes that at least he can tell that Trump is reading his newspaper.

Bringing up a "leaked memo" from Baker that said "Everybody's got to be fair to him," Todd says:

Were you concerned that the personal attacks were going to make some of your reporters react? They're human. We're all human beings. And when you personally get attacked, it's hard to sort of set that aside. 

There's that human business again.



Baker concedes he was "concerned," but immediately changes the subject from how reporters feel to what Trump is like. He's "different." And some reporters feel that they're in a "contest" with Trump, which sounds a tad emotional, but Baker doesn't pursue the feelings. He just says "it's reporters' jobs to take everybody on, you know, to test everything that a politician says against the truth." In other words: professionalism.

Michael Moore and Glenn Beck try, each in his way, to explain America's alienation from from the elite.

"Meet the Press" had a very interesting segment today with Chuck Todd talking to Michael Moore and then to Glenn Beck about the rebellion against the elite going on in America. The left-wing Moore and the right-wing Beck were saying very similar things about the way people are feeling now.

Moore said people are seeing Trump as "maybe their messenger": "Even though they don't necessarily like him or agree with him so much, I think that... they love the idea of blowing up the system.... [F]or some strange reason, see Donald Trump as their, as their means to get back at, at, at this system."

Beck — who said Moore had correctly "diagnosed the problem in the country" — drifted into a more spiritual realm:

Everybody feels like there's a play going on, and we're just watching it and looking at each other and shaking our heads in disbelief. And nobody's listening to the hardworking American who doesn't feel like they belong to anything anymore. In fact, it's almost as if we're being, we're standing outside and we're not being invited to this party at all....

I couldn't decide if Beck sounded more like a bland minister or a stoned college roommate. He turned to history, which, he said, he's been "looking through":

And the only thing I can come back to is Gandhi and Martin Luther King. What we're going through right now is more of a Malcolm X attitude, where we don't understand reconciliation, we just want to win. We have to stop winning.

We have to stop winning. Donald Trump, of course, is always saying "We don't win anymore." Beck, oddly, is saying it's wrong to want to win. We ought to stop winning! What this has to do with the American people turning against the elite, I don't really know.

And we have to start reconciling with each other. And, and realize, we're not going to lose our houses or our jobs or our country. We're losing something much more important. 

Now, I'm hearing echoes of the words of Jesus: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Beck continues up to and beyond the edge of coherence:

We're losing ourselves. We're losing our civility. We're losing our decency. We're, we're losing our neighbors and our family. How high of a price are we willing to pay before we say the idea that Martin-- that, that Malcolm X had, which was, "Get 'em" is not the path that we should go on? We have to start reconciling with each other. And unfortunately, right now, there's no leader to do that nationally. It's going to require each of us, in our own communities to stand and, and, and be shamed, and be, and be pilloried for it but actually stand and do it.

Be shamed? What is Beck asking people to do?

"Melania Trump joined us on the patio; Trump doted on her throughout the meal, often touching her shoulder or leg and calling her 'baby.'"

"His eldest son, Donald Jr., sat with his wife at a nearby table, as did Trump’s grandchildren and his youngest son, 10-year-old Barron. Melania’s soft-spokenness and Lewandowski and Hicks’s deferentiality — both referred to Trump as 'sir' and 'Mr. Trump' — lent the whole tableau an Old World texture, like a Habsburg patriarch in repose. 'This is fun, right?' Trump exclaimed. 'Really! We’re having a good time!'"

From "Mr. Trump’s Wild Ride/Down the homestretch with the impossible nominee" published in the NYT. I'm noticing it today because the author, Robert Draper, was a panelist on "Meet the Press" today.

I tried to find an image that would help us with that description "like a Habsburg patriarch in repose." Maybe:



On "Meet the Press," Chuck Todd said that the "Wild Ride" piece was "epic" and would "take days to finish reading," and Draper self-effacingly called his own piece "Unreadably long." Maybe the affectation of modesty works somehow as a criticism of Trump's braggadocio. And then poor meek Draper got scarcely any speaking time. And yet this enormous sentence did at one point emerge from his lips:

But I think instead what they'd like to do is imagine this sort of boastful CEO of a company that bears his own name becoming or assuming the moral mantle of responsibility of being a public servant, which obligates you to, among other things, learn about the world and learn about your own issues with more granularity than he has currently demonstrated.

By the way, the NYT readers are livid about Draper's piece, if I may judge from the comments. Highest-rated:

Note to NYT: Stop, stop STOP!! plastering the front page with three or four articles about Donald Trump every single day. The media made him, and that includes you. Write about his rivals, and the issues, not about yourselves (the media). This is shameful non-journalism. Your readers expect and deserve better.

Second-highest-rated:

It's increasingly disturbing to me that we can't even rely on the NYT to take a racist, sexist, ignorant bigot to task for his abhorrent views and statements. This piece glosses over it and continually normalizes and romanticizes him; a yuuge disservice to the American public.

I'm fascinated by the concept of "normal" in relation to Trump. Have you noticed how hard many people — including Hillary — are working to frame Trump as non-normal?

Ah, yes, here's Hillary on that same "Meet the Press" episode. She was asked whether she was going to accept the invitation to debate Bernie Sanders before the California primary. She answered — infuriatingly — "You know, I haven't thought about it." How is that possible? That's an unforced lie.

And then she immediately — figure out this train of thought — segued to "But I think what's important is we're not going to let-- at least, my campaign is not going to let Donald Trump try to normalize himself in this period."

Todd pushed her a bit — "So you think a competitive Democratic primary is doing nothing but helping Donald Trump right now?" — and she went into a tirade about staying "focused on Donald Trump" in which she repeated this Trump-must-not-be-seen-as-normal meme:  

"I do not want Americans... to start to believe that this is a normal candidacy."

I feel like I can hear the behind-the-scenes brainstorming: Americas must not be allowed to begin to think that Trump is normal.

But how is that going to work? Is she not going to respond on the merits as he serves up various issues in a thoughtful-seeming way? If she treats the GOP candidate as if his various policy statements are beneath response, won't she seem abnormal? And isn't this sneering at him going to generate empathy for him? It does in me. If you treat someone like an outsider, it triggers my inclusiveness instinct.

I know a big old self-satisfied billionaire is hardly an outcast in need of love, but the whole business of loving and hating politicians is crazy and surreal, and psychically it is about love and hate.

Hillary's new slogan: We Are Stronger Together.

In an interview on "Meet the Press" this morning, Chuck Todd seemed to needle Hillary Clinton about her lack of a big campaign theme:

Bernie Sanders has been talking about a political revolution. A future you can believe in. Obviously, Donald Trump with the Make America Great Again, is one of these slogans that has taken off, for better or for worse. If you could sum up, what is the big idea of your candidacy?

She was so ready with a new slogan that I can't believe there wasn't an understanding between Todd and the campaign that he'd give her an opportunity to unveil a new slogan. She said:

Look, we are stronger together. We are stronger together, in facing our internal challenges and our external ones. We are stronger together if we work to improve the economy. And that's going to mean trying to get the Republicans to do what will actually help produce more jobs, like we saw in the 1990s. We are stronger together when we have a bipartisan, even nonpartisan foreign policy that protects our country. And that provides a kind of steady, strong, smart leadership that the rest of the world expects from us. And I know that, you know, slogans come and go, and all the rest of it. But when I look at where we are in our country together, we need to unify the country. We are stronger together, when we act on a set of plans and priorities that will redound to the benefit of the American people.

What do you think? Bland and generic? Or: a heartfelt reaching out to the Americans who feel that the other candidates are tearing us apart?

Later, a panel discussion addressed the slogan. Alex Castellanos — the "veteran Republican strategist" — said it "sounds a little defensive" and makes us think about the "tremendous amount of political weakness" she's shown — "dragged" around by a "near-octogenarian socialist who honeymooned in Russia" and looking to "her husband... to bail her out on the economy."

MSNBC commentator Joy-Ann Reid was next, and she said she didn't really know what "We Are Stronger Together" means or "how it unites voters." She paused to sneer at Trump's slogan: it evokes "nostalgia that a certain kind of white, particularly white voter, has for a bygone era." And then she revealed her disappointment:

I think that it's good that the Clinton campaign are strategizing. But it's interesting that, in your interview, she seemed so much like a strategist. And so many of her answers felt like this is Hillary, the smart political strategist telling you what she intends to do, and it's still not giving her campaign sort of a driving dream, I think.

Chuck swooped in with a slogan of his own: "Change versus steadiness."

But I want to go back to Reid's disappointment: Hillary is "not giving her campaign sort of a driving dream."

Driving dream... To me, that calls up the spirit of Richard Nixon. From his 1970 State of the Union:

But let us, above all, recognize a fundamental truth. We can be the best clothed, best fed, best housed people in the world, enjoying clean air, clean water, beautiful parks, but we could still be the unhappiest people in the world without an indefinable spirit — the lift of a driving dream which has made America, from its beginning, the hope of the world.

"I hope it doesn't involve violence. I hope it doesn’t. I'm not suggesting that. I hope it doesn’t involve violence..."

"... and I don’t think it will. But I will say this, it’s a rigged system, it’s a crooked system. It’s 100 percent corrupt."

Said Donald Trump today. Does he sound like he's encouraging violence even when he's saying he hopes there won't be violence? If so, it's because he doesn't say "I don't want violence" or "I urge my supporters to refrain from violence." There's something oddly passive about "I hope it doesn't involve violence" — as if he holds no sway with his supporters, as if he's suggesting it's up to the other side to resist doing the things that will necessitate violence from my people. So I hear a vague, deniable threat. And this too contains a vague, deniable threat:

The process of courting delegates, Trump said, is "rigged" because "you're basically buying people." He said he is not interested in "playing the rules game."

"Nobody has better toys than I do. I can put them on the best planes and bring them to the best resorts anywhere in the world," Trump said. “You’re basically saying, ‘Delegate, listen, we’re going to send you to Mar-a-Lago on a Boeing 757, you’re going to use the spa, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do that, we want your vote. That’s a corrupt system."

It's implied: I could do this — and I'd beat you at it — if you say this is the system and this is what we are doing.

NBC just did a poll that showed that 62% of Republican voters believe that the candidate who gets the most votes in the primaries should be the party's nominee. Chuck Todd confronted Reince Priebus with that number on "Meet the Press" today and Priebus gave the sort of answer that I think a lot of people will find irritating:

"If he was winning the majority of votes, he'd likely have the majority of delegates."

Only likely, not for sure, because of the delegate selection process.

"But that's not actually what's happening. He's winning a plurality of votes, and he has a plurality of delegates."

But he doesn't have a plurality of delegates that's proportional to his plurality of votes.

"And under the rules and under the concept of this country, a majority rules on everything."

Which doesn't mean the one with the most votes wins, only that if you get a majority you win, but not even a majority of votes, because you could get a majority of votes but not a majority of delegates, and in the end — after the funny business — a majority of delegates will decide. Does he really think the people will see that as the good old majority-wins concept?

Just 38 percent of Republicans say it's acceptable if Trump goes into the Republican convention with the most delegates but does not become the nominee, versus 54 percent who say that outcome is unacceptable.

And only 20 percent say it's acceptable if Republican delegates choose a nominee who has not run in the primaries, versus 71 percent who think that's unacceptable.

To be fair, the poll was taken before Priebus went on all the Sunday shows and put his spin on the business that Trump is calling "rigged" and "100% corrupt."

Will the Sunday shows be watchable today?

I DVR them all — or 5 of them, anyway — and usually sit down with a plan to — more or less — watch them all. But this morning, I'm dreading the drawn out post-mortem on Jeb Bush and the predictable predictions of Hillary and Trump's path to the nomination and fussing over whether there's any way Rubio can make it and how whether it's connected to anything that really could happen it's still so meaningful that Bernie's doing so well.

UPDATE 1: Chuck Todd ended "Meet the Press" with the exclamation that all primaries should happen on Saturdays. He loved the close proximity of the Sunday show to the primary. But the word I jotted in my notes to search for in the transcript was "jail." It was a snippet of Hillary Clinton's victory speech last night: "Wall Street can never be allowed to threaten main street again. No bank can be too big to fail, no executive too powerful to jail." I wondered: So, then, is no politician too powerful to jail? I'm thinking about her legal troubles. On the show, the snippet was put before Bernie Sanders.

TODD: It's pretty clear she has ratcheted up her rhetoric on Wall Street because of your candidacy. Do you see that as a victory of sorts? That you've got her trying to parrot your message?

Bernie joked about "copyright issues," and Meade and I got to talking about how Bernie Sanders doesn't even want to win. He just needs to inject his ideas into her head.

UPDATE 2: The word I jotted down for "Face the Nation" was "scary." Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief for USA Today, said they'd done a poll asking for people's "dominant reaction" to various candidates:

And the dominant reaction of Americans to Hillary Clinton's nomination was, "scary," and... the dominant reaction to Donald Trump's nomination was "scary." So just imagine a general election....

Meade and I got to talking about how America likes scary shows — horror movies and such. We get want we want.

UPDATE 3: The first show I watched was "Fox News Sunday," so I wrote down the most things here. A lot of the same people were on all the shows and I got a little tired of them saying the same things. I thought it was interesting how — even as the questions changed — I kept getting the same talking points. Anyway, Donald Trump was on first, and Chris Wallace asked him if, as he becomes the frontrunner, he needs to "tone it down" and "act more presidential." Trump began with a softer tone: "Well, probably I do." But then he added a boast with what we here at Meadhouse experienced as a hilarious qualification. He said: "I mean, I can act as presidential as anybody that's ever been president other than the great Abraham Lincoln.  I thought he was hard to beat."

And then there was this excellent exchange:

WALLACE:  To use a business term, are you involved in a hostile takeover of the Republican Party? 

TRUMP:  No.  I’m not at all.  I get along with the Republicans.  There's nothing hostile about it.  I was a Republican establishment figure.   And then the day I decided to run, I became an outsider -- and more so than I even thought.  People that were totally establishment that loved me, you know, I was a big contributor.  I gave $350,000 just before to the Republican Governors Association.  That was a major --

WALLACE:  But what's your view of the GOP establishment now, sir? 

TRUMP:  I think it's a mess.  I think it's a mess.  I think they'd better get their act together because they're going to keep losing elections.  With the kind of thinking that we have, with the Karl Roves and Steven Hayes and these characters that can't get themselves arrested, if you want to keep people like that, if you want to keep listening to people like that, you're never going to win.  You're never going win.  They're from a different age.  They're from a different world. 

That was great. Later, there was a panel, and Karl Rove was on it. Chris Wallace opened the discussion with: "Karl, I just want to make sure you know that Donald Trump sends his best this morning." Now, that's funny. Rove, for the record, responded: "I give him my best back."

Marco Rubio was also on the show. He was trying (I think) to give us an idea of how, if he gets the nomination, the image of diversity might work in the general election. He called attention to the picture on the stage last night, with him alongside Nikki Haley and Tim Scott:

I was endorsed by the daughter of Indian-American immigrants who’s the governor of South Carolina, along standing, alongside an African-American Republican U.S. senator, both of whom were there to support a Cuban-American U.S. senator.  It's pretty amazing that the Republican Party is indeed the party of diversity.  It is the only party where you have so many people, so many different backgrounds on a national stage.  I’m very proud of that.  We're going to continue to showcase it.  That's who we are. 

UPDATE 4: I didn't get to my recording of "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," so there's just one more, "State of the Nation" with Jake Tapper. First, I noticed this silent sideswipe at John Kasich. Tapper asked Trump if, after the South Carolina win, he's "unstoppable." Trump went with the softer, conciliatory, presidential tone (which I'm reading as meaning that he does think he won't be stopped):

TRUMP: Well, certainly, you can be stopped. I mean, I'm dealing with very talented people. They're politicians. They're senators. And I guess -- do we have any governors left? I don't know. Let's see. I don't think so. But we have a lot of talented people. And we will see what happens. But, certainly, nobody is unstoppable. 

So... he just couldn't even think of Governor Kasich!

Trump used the "outsider" theme we also saw in the "Fox News" interview. (I put it in boldface, above.) Tapper had asked him if he thinks some Republicans still don't take him seriously. His answer:

TRUMP: Well, I'm an outsider, and -- which I'm proud to be. But don't forget, I was a member of the establishment totally. I was a big campaign contributor. I gave lots of money to everybody. I mean, I would give money to everybody. And I was a very big donor to the Republicans. I used to be a donor to everybody, frankly, because, as a businessman, that was a good thing to do. But, yes, the day I decided to run, which was June 16, I became an outsider. And all of the establishment sort of said, well, wait a minute, what happened to him? He's not supposed to be doing that. That's not in the cards. And I don't want money. I'm self-funding my campaign, so I don't need donor money and lobbyist money and special interest money. And that bothers them, because the special interests want to control their candidates, and I can't be controlled. 

I also liked the interview with Bernie Sanders, when Tapper asked him about something his brother, Larry Sanders, said: that Bill Clinton was a "dreadful president, in general, for poor people." Sanders distanced himself:

Look, I read that interview. My brother lives in England. He is not part of our campaign. I disagree with what he said. He speaks for himself, not for me or my campaign.

He sounded — as he usually does — angry, so Tapper seemed to feel the call to help him out with a prompt: "Fair enough. I disagree with my brother on a lot of things, too, although I love him dearly as I'm sure you do yours." Sanders got the clue and said: "Me, too. I love my brother." Then he started another sentence with "He's" and then seemed to think better of it and just said "yes" and stopped. We were laughing at Meadhouse.

Me, reading Twitter: "Will be on 'Meet the Press' today. Will be on 'Fox News Sunday.'"

Meade: "Who?"

Me: "Who? The only 'who' who would cause me to read out loud 'Will be on "Meet the Press" today. Will be on "Fox News Sunday."!"

Chuck Todd interrupted Marco Rubio to a ludicrous degree, but he gave him the room to hurt himself on same-sex marriage.

1. The interrupting. Just look at the transcript. This is just one example of the pattern:

MARCO RUBIO: I feel very confident in our plan. To be honest, I'm--

CHUCK TODD: Are you trying to win Iowa?

MARCO RUBIO: I'm trying to do well and win everywhere we campaign. I'm not running for second, third place in any state in this country. Obviously, these races are very different--

CHUCK TODD: So you, you're trying to [win] Iowa?

MARCO RUBIO: I'm trying to win--

CHUCK TODD: You're investing--

MARCO RUBIO: --everywhere that we campaign--

CHUCK TODD: --in Iowa.

The transcript is full of Todd stepping on Rubio's lines like that. I have never seen Todd treat anyone else that disrespectfully, and Rubio just acted as though it wasn't happening. Did Todd hope he could rattle Rubio? Well, he didn't. Rubio just put up with it. He never resorted to the approach I think Trump (for example) would have used: keep talking, forcibly, and don't allow a place for the interruption.

2. Same-sex marriage. Here, Todd minimized the interruptions and let Rubio jabber, which Rubio seemed fully willing to do. Same-sex marriage is a resolved issue that a candidate doesn't need to make much of, but Rubio obviously wanted to bear down on it:

Rich Lowry on Donald Trump: "Well, it's clear that he's not going to disappear in a cloud of pixie dust, as many people thought."

"And I don't think there's any clever way for the establishment to take him down. It's very simple. Another candidate is going to have to find a way either to out-maneuver him, or to just frankly beat him in the argument. And if no one can do that, yeah, he better man the lifeboats, because there's some significant chance he'll win the nomination."

That was on "Meet the Press" yesterday. I never got around to watching my recording of it — only got to "Face the Nation" and "Fox News Sunday" before maxing out and letting the television do what it wanted to do: display football games. So I'm just reading the transcript this morning, which is easier to scroll through and easier to blog.

I'm cherry-picking that Rich Lowry quote because it exemplifies the tedium. We've had months of this almost perfectly empty staring at the blunt fact of Trump's existence. It's progressed from he's not really there to he won't go away to he'll have to go away soon to we need to recognize that he's not going away like we thought he would to — newly emerging — he's (probably) going to get the nomination and then what will we do?

Lowry's rhetoric — which perhaps he said with the simulacrum of a pleasant smile on his face — has an edge of violence. Trump should just "disappear." (We'd use sorcery to disappear him if we could.) We needed to "take him down." And if we can't, "he better man the lifeboats." Did he say "he"? Why should Trump man the lifeboats if Trump wins the nomination? Ah, do I have to check the transcriptions? Dammit. But the violence is there, you see? A shipwreck. Oh, I get it, I think. The whole big Republican Party is the sinking ship, and Trump will have to proceed by lifeboat, because he will have lost the party, the establishment. But was Trump even ever on that ship? And if you look at the polls, is the ship even big? I don't know, but perhaps Mr. Lowry has some ideas about whether the deck chairs would look better rearranged.

ADDED: Meade IMs an image with the caption "Trump’s lifeboat will be HUGE"...



AND: I checked the recording, and on first listen, it did sound like: "And if no one can do that, yeah, he better man the lifeboats...." But by the 4th listen, it was absolutely clear that he said: "And if no one can do that, yeah, you better man the lifeboats...." Does this ship still sink?

Chuck Todd was heavily pushing the politicization of the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting.

It permeated "Meet the Press" today. The worst part was in this segment of the interview with Ben Carson:

CHUCK TODD: There was this shooting in Colorado Springs. And overnight, there's now been reports that the shooter was yelling about baby parts. 

Yelling? I thought "no more baby parts" only appeared somewhere in the shooter's rambling, unfocused interview with the police. Todd is making it seem like an Allahu-Akbar-type battle cry.

CHUCK TODD: Planned Parenthood put out this statement, "We've seen an alarming increase in hateful rhetoric and smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients over the last few months. That environment breeds acts of violence. Americans reject the hatred and vitriol that fueled this tragedy." That was, again, from a Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountain spokesperson. Do you believe that the rhetoric got too heated on Planned Parenthood? And are you concerned that it may have motivated a mentally disturbed individual?

Carson handled the question by going utterly generic —  rejecting "any hateful rhetoric directed at anyone from any source" and recommending that we "stop trying to destroy each other" and "work constructively."

Earlier, Todd asked a similar question of Donald Trump, albeit without the inappropriate reference to "yelling."

CHUCK TODD: Now, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood is concerned that the heated rhetoric around the Planned Parenthood debate could've had an adverse effect, basically, on this mentally disturbed individual. Do you think the rhetoric got out of hand on Planned Parenthood?

Trump stuck to his idea that the man (Robert Lewis Dear) is mentally ill. And that's when Todd brought up that "he was talking about baby parts and things like that... during his interview." Todd seemed to be trying to get Trump to back off on the political headway that anti-abortion forces have made with the undercover Planned Parenthood videos. Trump did not give him that (though he took a sideswipe at Republicans):

Trump has pundits talking about politics as physics.

Yesterday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos":

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: [Donald Trump is] just about everywhere right now. And it certainly seems to be working so far, leading, you know, the lead, which a lot of people thought would dissipate, solidifying across the summer.

NANCY GIBBS: When you talk about politics like physics, with immutable laws, with him, everything that was supposed to sink him has lifted him instead.

 Yesterday on "Meet the Press":

SUSAN PAGE: I think that we've been wrong from the start about Trump and the nature of his appeal and the ceiling that he's got....

AMY WALTER: ... I think Susan's right, that all of our assumptions have been sort of blown up in our face. But some of this, still, we still have to go back to political physics. There are laws of gravity that still kick in at some point....

CHUCK TODD: Apparently we're Mars, not Earth anymore. The atmosphere is just different.

AMY WALTER: We're just floating--

CHUCK TODD: Gravity is not quite as strong on this planet we're on....

And while we're up there with the planets, Joe Biden is bringing out the astronomy metaphor. This morning at Politico: "Potential Biden run divides Obama orbit."


(NASA pics.)

"Who do you talk to for your military advice?" "Well, I watch the shows..."

Donald Trump, answering a question from Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press" just now.

This was after he laid out his plan for dealing with ISIS, which is to go in and take their money, take over the oil fields and use that money to take care of the wounded veterans and their families.

This is a real, in-person interview, not a phone-in.

In the wake of the same sex marriage case, 2 questions for the presidential candidates.

Here's what Lindsey Graham said on "Meet the Press" this morning when he was asked what he thought about the same-sex marriage case:

I think it's a transformational moment. There are a lot of upset people who believe in traditional marriage. They're disappointed, they're down right now. But, the court has ruled, so here's where I stand. If I'm president of the United States, here's what would happen. If you have a church, a mosque, or a synagogue, and you're following your faith, and you refuse to perform a same-sex marriage, because it's outside the tenets of your faith. In my presidency you will not lose your tax-exempt status. If you're a gay person or a gay couple, if I'm president of the United States, you will be able to participate in commerce and be a full member of society, consistent with the religious beliefs of others who have rights also.

I thought that was very well put. It suggests one very specific question that ought to be asked of all presidential candidates, from both parties:  Will you pledge that religious organizations that refuse to perform same-sex marriages will not lose their tax-exempt status?

And it suggests a second question could be put a few different ways. I'll put it like this: Who do you think should prevail if there is a conflict between the interests of gay people — as they engage in commerce and seek full membership in society — and the interests of religious people — as they try to frame their conduct to accord with the tenets of their religion?

"First of all, I would like to thank the city of Charleston, how they have come together and shown unity and love."

"He would be so overwhelmed with how everyone has been unified to act on one accord," said Daniel Simmons Jr., the son of Daniel Simmons Sr., one of the victims in the massacre, when he was asked on "Meet the Press," by Chuck Todd:

"What would [your father] say how the community should respond to this horrific attack? What would he be telling you? What do you think he would say to you if he were here to sort of bring the community together?"

That is, Simmons resisted the question. He didn't criticize the city or implore it to change. He thanked the city. He praised the city for what it instinctively did.

The granddaughter, Alana Simmons, broke in without waiting for a question to be directed at her, and she continued with this love for Charleston:

My grandfather really loved Charleston. And one of our best memories of him was coming down two summers ago. And he took us on this grand tour of Charleston. And he just kept talking about how great the people of Charleston were. And we saw that. We saw that this week.

So it wasn't just that Charleston behaved well after the massacre. The family, including the dead patriarch, already loved Charleston. Chuck Todd — the outsider from the domain of media — seems to have planned to set this family up as a contrast to bad old Charleston. They were supposed to be the the woeful victims whose profound moral weight would force this ignominious city to confront its terrible racism. But the family had a different idea.

Todd tried to end the interview with stress on the grandeur of the Simmons family: "Well, your family is quite an example for all of us in this country. Reconciliation, forgiveness, love, faith. Unbelievable. My condolences..." But Alana Simmons felt moved to share the praise with the whole city of Charleston:

And Charleston has been a great example to the rest of the country as well. We just really, really appreciate how everyone has come together. And, like, people of all races, all religions, genders, orientations. At the prayer vigil we went to Friday night, everyone was there. And it was just so overwhelming and just so wonderful to see everyone coming together not to bash or to talk about the suspect but to celebrate the lives and to heal together.

Apparently, that wasn't the story line Todd wanted to end with. He just had to say:

Well, it's too bad that it took a tragedy like this to make that happen. But perhaps if this is what comes out of it, maybe we're a better society for it. Thank you, Simmons family.

What? Did he forget what Daniel and Alana said in the beginning? Charleston was already great. Daniel Simmons Sr. "just kept talking about how great the people of Charleston were," and he had no experience of what happened after the tragedy.

Todd — and mainstream media in general — seem to want to use the massacre as a device for arguing that changes must be made. But we could also do what the Simmons family seems to want us to do: Witness the goodness of truly good people. And see the power of religion at its finest:

ALANA SIMMONS: And although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of the hatred from this man, the love of the community, and the love of Christ, and just the love of all of the families for the victims was so overwhelming that it outweighed the hate that he had for them.

2 quite divergent things on today's "Meet the Press" spoke to the value of concision.

1. The moderator Chuck Todd was interviewing the family of Daniel Simmons Sr., one of the victims of the Charleston massacre. He turned to Daniel Simmons Jr. and said: "And Daniel, the importance of his faith, the importance of faith to everybody in that room that is mourning your father. Explain it." Here's the entire answer: "It's easily explained. It's love."

2.  In a segment called "Meet the Next," Todd presented the new idea of the week, which came from the Annenberg Working Group on Presidential Campaign Debate Reform. The idea was to use a chess clock:

Instead of allowing a set time for each answer for candidates to give, instead they would get a total amount of time that they can use for the entire debate....

Let's say you're Ted Cruz and your position on health care reform is crystal clear: Repeal every word of Obamacare. Done. You hit the clock. And then you have more time for other answers where you might want more nuance.

"I heard an earful last night [at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner] from various Democrats, some who work in the Clinton campaign that said, 'Why is she still taking foreign donations?'"

"Why is the Foundation — they narrowed it down, now they are going to take them from European countries and Canada. They got rid of some of the despot states."

Chuck Todd, today, on "Meet the Press."