The popcorn stand

I heard a pretty good joke the other day about a group of children who toured a fire department. When the firefighter asked a child what he would do if his clothes caught on fire, the young boy replied, “I wouldn’t put them on.”

I’m about to put on clothes that have caught on fire. I’m about to defend Donald Trump. Sort of.

Anyone who knows me knows I don’t particularly care for Trump. He’s to politics what Howard Cosell was to sports. Cosell prided himself in “telling it like it is,” which was just his justification for being downright cruel. Same with Trump. And like Cosell, Trump is an insecure person who needs people to tell him how great he is — otherwise he’ll tell you.

And I certainly don’t go along with Trump banning the Washington Post or whatever he’s doing like he’s done to all these other news organizations: Gawker, BuzzFeed, Foreign Policy, Politico, Fusion, Univision, Mother Jones, the New Hampshire Union Leader, the Des Moines Register, the Daily Beast and Huffington Post.

But the Washington Post’s headline “Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting” was a stretch at the least and irresponsible at the worst.

The headline appeared online above the Post’s most-read article at the time. That was the original headline. The headline now states “Donald Trump seems to connect President Obama to Orlando shooting.”

I read the story https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/13/donald-trump-suggests-president-obama-was-involved-with-orlando-shooting/. I don’t see anywhere in the story any statements made by Trump that specifically link Obama to the Orlando tragedy.

Now I have to put out my clothes that have been on fire.

— Charles Whisnand