GOP Media Guy On Trump’s McCain Comments: “The Atavistic Grunt Of A Vulgar, Maniacal Beast”
If you hadn’t heard by now, draft dodging real estate mogul and GOP Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump made comments about Republican Sen. John McCain’s Vietnam War service, saying that he wasn’t a hero because he was captured and held as a POW. While the comments caused a furor among Republicans, with most calling for Trump to immediately apologize, many conservatives have defended The Donald and his remarks. For his part, Trump doubled down on those comments shortly after making them at the Family Leadership Summit on Saturday, releasing an ego-drenched statement claiming that McCain doesn’t care about veterans while simultaneously stating that he received a HUGE standing ovation from the crowd.
One Republican that didn’t take too kindly to Trump’s statements was Rick Wilson, a GOP ad maker and strategist. Wilson is notorious for coming up with the Max Cleland ad that tied him to Osama Bin Laden and 9/11. The former Democratic Senator Cleland is a triple amputee who lost his limbs fighting in Vietnam. While Republican Saxby Chambliss and Wilson were excoriated for the content of the ad, it worked, and Chambliss defeated Cleland for his Senate seat in 2002.
Wilson brought up the ad while lambasting Trump and his fanboys, pointing out that while he attacked Cleland for his policies, he never brought up his heroic service as a negative, which is exactly what Trump did on Saturday to McCain.
Below is the series of tweets Wilson sent re: Trump’s remarks:
1/ So let’s get this straight. Ive never been a huge fan of McCain’s Acela politics.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
2/ And his military service had never shielded him from political critique on either the left or right.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
3/ nor should it.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
4/ but if you elect to attack his service and his grim tenure as a POW under the worst kind of physical and mental torture…
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
5/ then you are so far beyond the bounds of political discourse in this country that you and your slavish devotees deserve nothing…
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
6/ but our contempt. This is the kind of sloppy, shoddy, low attack in which a sloppy, shoddy, low thug like Trump revels.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
7/ It’s been mildly amusing to spar with his legions of pathetic, angry fan boys, who know nothing of real politics but their own rage.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
8/ This wasn’t political. It was personal. It was the atavistic grunt of a vulgar, maniacal beast, rich but obscene, gilded but vile…
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
9/ This kind of bellowing, boorish nastiness isn’t about McCain’s politics. It’s an insult to the time he spent in the Hanoi Hilton.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
10/ Now, you’ll see his legions, his angry, angry legions race to his defense. They’ll gleefully pile on, mocking McCain to emulate their…
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
11/ …their repulsive godhead. They’ll yell about RINOS and the “GOPe” and the wicked Establishment. They’re lost, now.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
12/ Newsweek asked if Trump was a fascist. I’ll reserve judgment but this is a man morally and personally unqualified to sit…
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
13/ …behind the Resolute Desk, to command our armed forces, to control our nuclear arsenal, or to be entrusted with the sacred burden…
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
14/ …of the Presidency. He is a thug. A bully. A grotesqu, driven not by service or philosophy but by a boundless egomania.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
15/ Attack McCain’s politics or legislation or policies. I have. Plenty. Service doesn’t shield you from bad policy decisions.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
16/ My infamous Cleland ad (aside from distortions) never questioned his setvice, but his votes.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
17/ But by all mean, Trump fanboys, let your revanchist fantasies about destroying the Establishment strip you of all decency.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 18, 2015
And, Rick Wilson with the mic drop!
While liberals and progressives have made valid points that it seems ironic that Republicans are getting upset about this when they cheered Trump on when he was saying horribly racist things about Mexicans, or that the GOP sure seemed fine with pillorying a veteran’s service record when they swift-boated John Kerry in 2004, the fact is that Trump finally went too far for a large check of GOP voters. The fact is, Trump used multiple student deferments to avoid serving in the war, and then has the balls to criticize McCain for getting captured while flying combat missions in Vietnam. Yeah, that shit isn’t going to fly with the flag wavers and Support Our Troops crowd. Not a chance.
Yep, it seems we’ve finally found the line for GOP voters that Donald Trump could not cross. The end to his sham campaign may finally be in site.
