We've kept quiet and waited patiently, and now what we expected to hear is announced.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports:

Madison police announced Friday morning that they were not able to corroborate allegations made by a Madison woman that she was burned by four white men in Downtown Madison in June in what was initially reported as a hate crime.

Althea Bernstein, 18, of Monona, told police she had a lighter fluid sprayed on her and was set on fire on June 24 by four white men after one of them yelled a racial epithet.

But in a statement Friday morning, Madison police said it is "closing the investigation into this case. After an exhaustive probe, detectives were unable to corroborate or locate evidence consistent with what was reported."

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division came to the same conclusion, according to the statement....

In mid-August, I asked:

I watched the Sunday morning shows — 4 of them! — after shunning them for years, and I can boil them down for you.

The most interesting thing was this bizarre malfunction from Nancy Pelosi:



The boil-down is easy: Replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a completely political event, where there are constitutionally defined powers that will be exercised to their utmost. Nothing more is needed, and nothing can be done about it, and each party will do what the other party would do if the roles were reversed. And that's the same thing they did in 2016 after Justice Scalia died.

Good morning! Sunday morning! See ya!

I love the sigh at 0:11...

Does anybody believe this man? Caught! https://t.co/WfnIqs6BsE

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2020

ADDED: Remember how sighing got Al Gore in trouble debating George W. Bush in 2000? Paul Begala remembers (quoted in the NYT in September 2016):

Right away I picked up a problem about Gore during debate prep: a raw, unbridled contempt he had for Bush. It wasn’t the usual “my worthy adversary and I have different ideas.” He would sometimes sigh when I was talking, or frown, or roll his eyes. And his tone and language too — it all communicated that Gore thought Bush was an idiot. “You don’t deserve to be on stage with me” was Gore’s basic attitude.

So what we saw was after they did what they could at the prep stage. I am so eager to see how Biden — if he really is the Democratic nominee — deports himself at the debates with Trump. It would be quite something if he makes the Gore mistake and relies on sighing to let us know what he thinks of Trump.

AND: I created a "sighing" tag, and going back to add it to old posts, I discovered that I'd already remarked on Biden's sighing — and in the debate context. Of course, Biden was horrible in the debate he did in 2012 with Paul Ryan. The laughing, I remember well. But there was also sighing. From my simulblog of the event:

8:36: While Ryan is talking about Medicare helping his mother and grandmother, Biden sighs long and loud. Sighing! Remember when Gore got in no end of trouble for sighing? How can Biden not know that?!

Bernie Sanders said: "Does anybody think it's a good idea to put a kid on a bus, travel an hour to another school and to another neighborhood that he or she doesn't know?"

If nobody thinks it — which is what his question implies — why did Kamala Harris castigate Joe Biden for not supporting it and why did Joe Biden defend himself by saying he only didn't support it when it was imposed by the federal government?

A look at the full context — from yesterday's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" — might help you answer my question:

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to pick up on an issue that came up in Thursday night's debate. It was between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, who are raising his opposition to busing back in the 1970s. I want to bring the debate forward. You've mentioned -- you're concerned about the idea of resegregation of our schools. Does that mean that busing should be on the table today?

SANDERS: Well, I think what we -- resegregation is a very, very serious problem. And the federal government has failed in fighting for fair housing legislation. We need basically in this country well funded public schools, we need to honor our teachers, respect teachers, make sure that they're earning a living wage. We need to take care of those schools today, which have a lot of kids who are, in some cases, actually hungry, coming from troubled families. We need to build public education in this country. We need to make sure that kids go to community schools, which are integrated and that means we have to focus on fair housing legislation and enforcement.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But does that also mean busing? Because your website actually says that you are coming out for repealing of the ban on funding for busing.

SANDERS: No, we've -- busing is certainly an option that is necessary in certain cases, but it is not the optimal. Does anybody think it's a good idea to put a kid on a bus, travel an hour to another school and to another neighborhood that he or she doesn't know? That's not the optimal. What is the optimal is to have great community schools which are integrated, that's what I think most people want to see. That's what I want to see.

Sanders was so evasive! Look how long he filibustered the question the first time Stephanopoulos asked it.  Stephanopoulos repeated the question, fortunately, and really cornered him with that statement from the website. I think Sanders said — if I may paraphrase for clarity — busing is bad, but it might be the least bad option, so it shouldn't be off the table. And let me infer: If busing — that bad idea — isn't on the list of options, it's harder to motivate people to do what is better and spend money on improving schools.

I've been noticing the phrase "We need to make sure" in political speech lately. Sanders says "We need to make sure that kids go to community schools, which are integrated and that means we have to focus on fair housing legislation and enforcement." I see "We need to make sure" as a sort of lie. It really only means we ought to try to get to a place out there that would be really nice to get to.

Here, the very nice place to be is where kids go to schools that are both integrated and in their community. If you're at all considering busing, then you are willing to sacrifice community schools to get more integration. You're obviously not planning to make sure.

Now, Sanders does offer a way of making sure: "fair housing legislation and enforcement." You can get integrated community schools through fair housing legislation? It's a good idea to eradicate racial discrimination in the housing market, and it might have some effect on the racial mix in some community schools, but I don't see how it would make sure that kids go to integrated community schools. So... doesn't that mean that Sanders is, necessarily, for the bad option he wants to keep on the list of options — busing?

No, it just means either: 1. He's incoherent, or 2. The question — "Does anybody think it's a good idea to put a kid on a bus, travel an hour to another school and to another neighborhood that he or she doesn't know?" — is a trick question. His answer is: No, but sometimes the best idea is a bad idea.

Did Trump say that Obama was behind a group of people who were trying to steal the election using the fake dossier?

From the unedited transcripts of Trump's interview with George Stephanopoulos (which aired in edited form on ABC last night). I'll boldface the crucial language:

TRUMP: [T]hey could not get the fake dossier printed prior to the election... But had that been printed before the election, that could have changed the whole election. And that's what they wanted to do: steal. And Comey and all these lowlives, they wanted to have that fake dossier, which was all phony stuff. They wanted it to go out before the election, George. And you know what? Had that gone out before the election, I-- I don't think I could've-- I don't think I would've had enough time to defend myself--

STEPHANOPOULOS: You clearly believe there was-- a group of people working against you. Do you think President Obama was behind it?

TRUMP: I would say that he certainly must have known about it because it went very high up in the chain. But you're going to find that out. I'm not going to make-- that statement quite yet. But I would say that President Obama had to know about it....

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you believe that President Obama spied on your campaign--

TRUMP: I don't know. But hopefully we're going to find out.

He ends with that "I don't know," but I think he revealed that he did know. Why would he say "I'm not going to make that statement quite yet" if he didn't already have a plan to make the statement in the future? To say "you're going to find that out" suggests that he has already found out.

Notice that Stephanopoulos asks his question 2 ways and gets different answers. When asked whether Obama was "behind" what was "a group of people working against" him, Trump says he's not ready to talk about that "quite yet," while indicating, I believe, that he himself already know. The follow up question has Obama directly involved in a specific activity — Did Obama spy? As to that, Trump says he doesn't know but hopes to find out.

"Look, George, you’re being a little wise guy, okay, which is typical for you. Just so you understand, very simple, it is very simple, there was no crime."

Said Trump to George Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos is 5'5", so I take "little wise guy" as a personal insult.

Here's the clip:

"Over my lifetime I've done a lot of deals with a lot of people and sometimes the people you most distrust turn out to be the most honorable ones and the people that you do trust turn out to be not the honorable ones."

Said Trump, in this new interview with George Stephanopoulos. Watch the whole thing:

"Oh, I'm surprised at that," says George Stephanopoulos when Ronan Farrow tells him that Hillary Clinton cancelled an interview with him...

... after "her folks" heard he was "working on a big story" — "the Weinstein stuff."

Reported at Mediaite, with video that allowed me to transcribe the "Oh, I'm surprised at that," which I find funny, and Mediaite left out.

I find it funny — and I believe this is why Mediaite left it out — because I read Stephanopoulos to be lying. He knows why Hillary Clinton wouldn't want to be interviewed by someone who's digging into the Harvey Weinstein story.

1. Hillary was part of what the New York Times called Weinstein's "complicity machine":

In late September [2016], emails show, he was discussing a documentary television show he was working on with Hillary Clinton. He had long raised campaign cash for her, and her feminist credentials helped burnish his image — even though Tina Brown, the magazine editor, and Lena Dunham, the writer and actress, each say they had cautioned Mrs. Clinton’s aides about his treatment of women....

Over the years, Mr. Weinstein provided [theClintons] with campaign cash and Hollywood star power, inviting Mrs. Clinton to glittery premieres and offering to send her films. After Mr. Clinton faced impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he donated $10,000 to Mr. Clinton’s legal defense fund. Mr. Weinstein was a fund-raiser and informal adviser during Mrs. Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, a guest in her hotel suite when she won and a host of an A-list victory party. He was an early backer of both her presidential bids.

2. Hillary was vulnerable to questioning about her protection of Bill Clinton over the years, and Ronan Farrow was emerging as the one who was fighting to take sexual harassment and rape seriously. Hillary's people were right to worry that he would have the nerve to really push her on questions about her behavior toward the women whose voice Farrow was about to amplify.

Stephanopoulos obviously knows this. He looked ludicrous playing the naif.

Great dialogue on ABC's "This Week" this morning on the subject, "Will Michael Cohen flip?"

From the transcript, with George Stephanopoulos and lawprof/defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, legal analyst Dan Abrams, and former prosecutor Mimi Rocah:

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: Oh, it's a very serious threat [that Cohen will flip on Trump]. This is an epic battle for the soul and cooperation of Michael Cohen. And prosecutors have enormous weapons at their disposal. They can threaten essentially with life imprisonment. They can threaten his parents. They can threaten his spouse. They have these enormous abilities to really put pressure and coerce a witness. On the other hand, the president has a unique weapon that no other criminal defendant or suspect ever has, he has the pardon power. And go back to Christmas 1992 when President Bush exercised that pardon power and pardoned Caspar Weinberger, precluding him from pointing the finger at him....

Reading the Comey interview transcript, I get a "Cat Person" vibe.

From the transcript, here's Comey describing his conflicted, confusing feelings about that encounter on the evening of January 27, 2017:

JAMES COMEY: ... and so I said, "Sir, whatever you-- whatever you like." And he said, "Well, why don't we make it 6:30?" And I said, "Sure." And then I called Patrice, broke our date, and-- as luck had it, I had-- an encounter with Clapper, who had left the government but we were giving him a recognition as honorary F.B.I. agent. And I told him about this invitation and he told-- comforted me by saying, "Yeah, I've heard lots of other people are getting calls to come for dinner." 

He comforted me...

And so then in my head I was-- "Okay, so it's a group thing. He must be having a group thing tonight, a group thing tomorrow night. That's fine." And so I went over there expecting-- a crowd of people.

And so then in my head I was... I feel as though I'm reading a #MeToo story told by a young woman. Why didn't he say "I thought..." like a plain-spoken adult? It's like the inside of his head is an environment with moods and wisps of cognition. He's invited into a private space, he has his trepidations, but other people will be there, and he's hoping he won't be alone with the man.

Are you finding Comey compelling?

We're watching the Stephanopoulos interview. Are you?

ADDED: The TV interview is still in progress, but you can read the whole transcript here.

One week it's Charlie Rose, 2 weeks later it's Matt Lauer. The morning-show man left standing is George Stephanopoulos.

Do these shows need a man? A week ago, NY Magazine ran "How Will CBS Replace Charlie Rose?" which doesn't assume that a man must replace Rose. Perhaps to take that position openly is to embrace sex discrimination. Even if you think it, you shouldn't say it, especially during The Reckoning.

And yet these morning shows seem to be so much about emotionally bonding with these hosts. I'm saying that from a distance. I've never watched any of them (except in brief clips that occasionally make the news). Isn't it a question of who the viewers — mostly women? — want to wake up with? I believe that's the way these shows used to be talked about. But now, perhaps, that kind of discussion is politically incorrect.

The NY Magazine article does refer to gender at the very end, but only like this:

Letting O’Donnell and King handle the show themselves would also save money, no small thing in an age of ever-shrinking network bottom lines. Oh, and it would send a perhaps not-subtle message: Two women can do just fine anchoring a morning show themselves.

Donna Brazile — on ABC's "This Week" — is much more hyper, agitated, angry, and scared than her usual.

Her usual demeanor — which I've enjoyed over the years — is slowed down, calm, and slightly jolly. The difference is striking and had me wondering what her colleagues have been saying to her and how much she's afraid that her book will not succeed in shifting blame for what happened to the Democratic Party onto others:



Here's the transcript. Excerpt:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Passionate Democrats who say they feel betrayed by all this. Any regrets?

BRAZILE: Do I regret taking on a job the second time in my life as chair of the party, cleaning up everyone's mess, taking all of the incoming, being unable to spend funds that I raised? Do I regret being on the road 100 percent of the time, being hacked by the Russians, being -- being harassed, getting death threats? Do I regret any of that? George, was worse than Hurricane Katrina in terms of the emotional toll. But do I regret stranding up for what is right, helping Hillary Clinton, helping the Democratic Party? And let me just say this, as somebody who went through the hacking experience, being able to tell the truth about what happened with the Russians, the attack on our government do I regret any of that? No. I wish I could have done more, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But do you think this helps for the book to come out?

BRAZILE: Well, George, I mean this is a lesson of 2016. If I released it next year, they would say, Donna, you're impacting our 2018. If I released it the following -- Donna, you're impacting. George, for those who are telling the me to shut up, they told Hillary that a couple of months ago. You know what I tell them, go to hell. I'm going to tell my story. I'm going the tell my story, George. Because this is a story of a young girl who started in American politics at the age of 9, who continues to fight each and every week of her life. I went down to Virginia last week, to kick off the canvassing campaign. Nobody paid me to do that. Nobody -- I'm not on the payroll, George. I care about my country. I care about our democracy. And I say go the hell because, why am I supposed to be the only person that is unable to tell my story?

She needs to tell her story, and she needs to get paid. And she will get paid. Her book — "Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House" — comes out tomorrow. I know I've pre-ordered it. And it's #4 at Amazon, beaten only bya Wimpy Kid, Oprah, and Leonardo da Vinci (because those 3 characters never stop fascinating us).

ADDED: As I was doing the tags for this post I wanted to use "Democratic Party in Trumpland" (which is my standard tag for the predicament of the Democratic Party after the 2016 elections), and I realized I wasn't sure if Brazile ever talked about Trump. She's doing a lot of blaming, but she's blaming Democrats. She's kind of messing up their game of blaming Trump for everything. I searched the transcript and found it devoid of mentions of Trump, except in this one passage, after Stephanopoulos asks her whether, during the campaign, she felt "under threat." She said:

Every day, especially when Donald Trump -- especially when Donald Trump would go out there and tweet. You know, look, I have worked on campaigns all my adult life. I have been called some of the the worst things in America. But when Donald Trump would go out there and attack me, I got the threats were just unbearable. My house right now is -- I got every different kind of security device. I had to get my home swept. I had to get the DNC swept twice. It was horrible.

Then Stephanopoulos reminded her that Trump's tweeting now is promoting her book saying it's "the real story" that "Crooked Hillary" was the one doing the "collusion." Brazile said:

Well, Donald Trump likes to distract. I mean, what Donald Trump should be focusing on right now is protecting our country from being hacked again.... Donald Trump loves to distract us and divide us. I'm not playing his game.

She's giving him material he can use in his game, so I guess "not playing his game" is doing what she sees fit within the Democratic Party and not listening to warnings from her own people that what she's saying will help Trump.

"I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband's name, and that’s what hurt me the most because if my husband is out here fighting for our country and he risked his life for our country why can’t you remember his name?"

Myeshia Johnson sits for an interview with George Stephanopoulos this morning:



Trump's response this morning is: "I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!"

Stephanopoulos began the interview with "I hope you're feeling the thoughts and prayers of everyone." Meade, who was listening and not watching, said: "He sounds like he's speaking to a child."

I said: "Well, he's modeling the kind of empathy that he wants us to understand that Trump failed to express. But he sounds smarmy and patronizing which shows how hard it actually is to do it right."

Johnson seemed most concerned with the facts about her husband's death and the treatment of his dead body: "They won’t show me a finger, a hand; I know my husband’s body from head-to-toe and they won’t let me see anything." She sounds troubled by doubt: "I need to see him so I will know that that is my husband."

I'm thinking that alternative response open to Trump is to do something to relieve Johnson of these doubts, but that might not be possible, and Johnson seems clear that she wants nothing to do with Trump. Prompted "Is there anything you'd like to say to the President now?," she says, "Nah, I don't have nothing to say to him."

So maybe it is best for Trump to leave Johnson alone. The anti-Trumpers are not leaving her alone.

At the end of the interview, the other "Good Morning America" host — her name doesn't appear on screen or in the linked article — says in a showbiz-sincere way: "Ugh! It's so powerful! And to have to go through all this while she's grieving her husband! Truly unthinkable, but she's a powerful woman." Well, who's putting her through this? Why does she have to go through it? Who's imposing this on her?

And I'm listening again to that line "I hope you are feeling the thoughts and prayers of everyone." You know, you can trash just about anything anybody says if you want.

I could say it's obviously disingenuous to express that hope, because there is no ability to feel the thoughts and prayers of everyone. It seems to express a belief — which I doubt Stephanopoulos holds — that prayer opens up channels of communication that flow to God and then out to the people who are prayed for. And it's absurd to say that "everyone" is praying for Johnson. It's even offensive, because many people do not believe in prayer.

"I can tell you that this issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who's worked in New Hampshire politics."

"It's very real. It's very serious. This morning, on this show, is not the venue for me to lay out all the evidence.... I'm saying anybody—George, go to New Hampshire. Talk to anybody who has worked in politics there for a long time. Everybody is aware of the problem in New Hampshire."

Said Stephen Miller. He was talking to George Stephanopoulos, who kept asking for evidence, when all he needed to do was go to New Hampshire and ask anybody.... everybody in New Hampshire knows.

The prospect of a woman at the town hall debate asking Donald Trump: "Do you think I'm fat?"

On "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" today, the panel got to talking about the next presidential debate, which will be in a "town hall" format:

JOHN HEILEMANN (of Bloomberg): It is a harder debate than the first debate in some respects, because you've got real voters asking questions...

ROLAND MARTIN (of TV One): What happens if a size 12 or 14 woman stands up and...

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: No, no, no. I'm serious... What if a size 12 or 14 woman who's the average size in America stands and says, Donald Trump, I have two daughters and look at me. Do you think I'm beautiful? Do you think I'm fat?

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: -- question comes, Donald Trump is going to stand there with a deer in the headlights look and....

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: -- but, no, no, but in this format, you have to answer that question. You have to answer to all that you've said in the past. That's going to be a problem for him.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you can't dis -- you can't dis the questioners on this one.

I thought this was pretty obtuse — except as Sunday morning entertainment. It's easy to talk about getting fat and the sensitivities attached to that totally down-to-earth mundane worry. It has nothing to do with the presidency, but it's easy to understand. Martin himself is fat. Trump is fat. Most Americans are fat. But do Martin and Stephanopoulos seriously believe that Donald Trump — with all his experience with women — wouldn't know how to talk to a woman who asked him "Do you think I'm fat?"? Frankly, I think it would offer him an easy opportunity to show the warmth and social skill that we have every reason to know that he has in his private dealings with individuals.

"The Time I Found Donald Trump’s Tax Records in My Mailbox."

By Susanne Craig at the NYT.

I just watched her on George Stephanopoulos's Sunday morning show, and she could barely suppress her glee at her coup getting these documents. My favorite part was when Stephanopoulos asked her if it was acceptable to reveal these leaked documents, and she relied entirely on what the lawyers told her, which is exactly what Trump says about not releasing his tax returns: I'm going by what my lawyers are telling me.

I'd like to see Trump flip the question back to Hillary skillfully. The real issue is the tax code. Does it need to be reformed or not? If Trump took deductions, it was because the tax code provided for them. Once the deductions are there in the tax code, he pretty much has to take them and would be a fool not to take them. If it looks wrong, what's really wrong is the tax code. So, is Hillary proposing to take away this deduction? Is Trump? Presumably, the deduction is there because it's good policy. Will either candidate defend the policy and, if not, promise to change it? I don't see what else matters here. And I suspect the candidates don't even disagree about that.

Robby Mook pushes the theory that it would be "unfair" to Hillary Clinton for the debate moderator not to intervene on her behalf and correct Trump.

On "This Week" this morning:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You guys have been pushing that pretty hard, this idea of a double standard, and saying it’s up to the moderator to point out falsehoods. But the debate commission has been pretty clear that they think it’s the job of the moderator basically to get out of the way and just ask the questions.

MOOK: Well, all that -- again, all that we’re asking is that, if Donald Trump lies, that it’s pointed out. It’s unfair to ask for Hillary both to play traffic cop while with Trump, make sure that his lies are corrected, and also to present her vision for what she wants to do for the American people.

Stephanopoulos pushes back. Debate moderators are supposed to let the candidates debate each other. Mook's response is that Donald Trump is "special," and "this is a special circumstance, a special debate," and Hillary won't be getting her fair share of the time if she has to use it to correct Donald Trump.

Stephanopoulos also asks Mook about the "psychological warfare" of talking about inviting Mark Cuban and getting the return fire of Trump saying he'll "put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him" (and Flowers accepting). Mook tries to act as though Trump started it:

If this is what Donald Trump wants this debate to be about, that’s up to him. He is a reality TV star. He’s very experienced at providing television entertainment. The presidency is not about entertainment. It's about serious decisions...

Trump followed their lead.  Trump said it best back in May:

If she wants to go the low road, I'm fine with that. And if she wants to go the high road, which probably I would prefer, I would be fine with that.... I can handle the low road if I have to do it. I mean, we've had some low roads over the last few months.... I'm fine with it if we have to go that direction. Maybe you haven't noticed.

ADDED: Ironically, the argument that Trump is "special" is really an argument that Hillary is special: The rules don't apply to her. That fits a template her people should want to take care not to confirm.

Did you notice what Trump refrained from saying when he was asked what he has "sacrificed"?

You've noticed, I'm guessing, that at the Democratic convention, a man named Khizr Khan asserted that Donald Trump has "sacrificed nothing and no one." Khan's son had, as he put it, "sacrificed his life."

"Sacrifice" means to give up something of value to obtain some higher value, and it's interesting to think about when we use that word — in religion, in baseball — but Khan used it in a way that's conventional in wartime: to elevate death.

There are reasons — good and bad — for using a word that makes it seem as though the dead person chose to die in exchange for a higher good rather than to say that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. A good reason is that it eases the pain of those who loved the person who died. A bad reason is that it cuts off the line of responsibility that runs to those in power who made the decision that put the person in the place where he died.

But Khan went further than to say that his son sacrificed. He went on the attack — attacking a presidential candidate (and not the one who had anything to do with putting the son in the place where he died) — and antagonized Trump, telling him, in a statement that purports to have knowledge that Khan could not possibly possess: "You have sacrificed nothing and no one."

It was memorable rhetoric, and it was not surprising that George Stephanopoulos used it to question Trump:

STEPHANOPOULOS: He said you have sacrificed nothing and no one.

Trump did not say, yes, I have. He examined the question:

TRUMP: Well, that sounds -- who wrote that? Did Hillary's script writer write it? Because everybody that went out there....

And then he didn't complete his thought, but I think he meant everybody who went out there on the convention stage. I guess he was considering saying that Khan's speech didn't sound like a private individual's personal thoughts, but like part of the convention rhetoric, that is, the Party's propaganda.

Trump switched to talking about General Allen, who "went out... ranting and raving." It's much better to attack the general than the private citizen. The DNC wanted you to empathize with the father, not to question the warmakers, so Trump re-aimed the question well. When Stephanopoulos brought up Hillary's line "you don't know more than the generals," Trump lit into the generals:

TRUMP: Well, I tell you, the generals aren't doing so well right now. Now, I have a feeling it may be Obama's fault. But if you look at ISIS, General MacArthur, and General Patton, they're spinning in their graves. The generals certainly aren't doing very well right now.

See my Patton quote above, in italics. Stephanopoulos refocused on sacrificing: "How would you answer that father? What sacrifice have you made for your country?" And this time, Trump offered an answer:

TRUMP: I think I have made a lot of sacrifices. I've work[ed] very, very hard. I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've done -- I've had tremendous success.

Stephanopoulos needled him: "Those are sacrifices?" Is hard work a sacrifice? Trump seems to have swapped in the idea of doing good in this world. He makes no mention of giving anything up to pursue his line of work, though he could have. When people work long hours, they sacrifice leisure time. That's what the word means — giving up something of value for a higher value — but it's not politically wise to say that in response to a man who seems to be saying my son sacrificed his life for the greater good.

But there's something else Trump might have said, and it's something he says frequently, something that was expressed at the GOP convention — by Ivanka Trump:

In his own way, and through his own sheer force of will, he sacrificed greatly to enter the political arena as an outsider.

And Here's Trump himself (last May): "I’ve given up a tremendous amount to run for president. I gave up two more seasons of Celebrity Apprentice." And how many times has he said — at rallies — I didn't have to do this. I had a great life?

I'm not surprised Trump didn't deploy this theory when Stephanopoulos asked him the "sacrifice" question, but I'm rather sure he thought of it and chose not to say it. A lot of people seem to think he just blurts out everything that pops into his head, but it's hard to notice unsaid things like this one, and I want to give him some credit for restraint.

Did Donald Trump inadvertently reveal that he does not think of himself as a Republican?

That's a question that occurred to me as I listened to Trump on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." I'll give you the full context, with the part that raised the question in boldface:

STEPHANOPOULOS: They really seem to be piling on you last night. You heard those boos from the crowd as well. You think this is all happening because the other Republicans have figured out that if you win South Carolina, you may not be stopped?

TRUMP: Well, the reason it happens is because I’m self-funding. I’m putting up my own money. I’ve built a tremendous business, I don’t need anybody’s money, and I’m going to do what’s right for the people of the country. In that room were many people that I know very well. They’re all lobbyists and they’re special interests and they gave a lot of money to Jeb Bush. This guy’s wasted $140 million running a failed campaign. I mean, the guy spent $43 million in New Hampshire and he came in fourth or fifth. I spent $3 million and I came in first by a lot. I mean, this is the kind of a guy you want a president? So between him and Cruz, I’ll tell you what, the Republicans are in trouble and they will never beat Hillary Clinton. I’m the only one that’s going to beat Hillary Clinton. Believe me, they will never beat Hillary Clinton.