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| Short, four paces behind. |
Trump refused to apologize and instead asked on Twitter when "the Radical Left Congresswomen" would "apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said."
"So many people are angry at them & their horrible & disgusting actions!" he wrote.
Asked whether Trump's comments were racist, Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, defended Trump, telling reporters he had been responding to "very specific" comments made by Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who was born in Somalia, and was not making a "universal statement."
But Trump didn't make that distinction in his tweets. He cited "Congresswomen" — an almost-certain reference to a group of women known as "the squad" that includes Omar, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
"I don't think that the president's intent any way is racist," said Short, repeatedly pointing to Trump's decision to choose Elaine Chao, who was born outside the country, as his transportation secretary.
Marc Short is an idiot. But then he works for Pence.
Elaine Chao is Mitch McConnell's wife, for Christsakes.
So -- Marc Short suggests Trump is not a racist because he gave McConnell's wife a cuhshy high income federal job? What brand of communicator is this dude? Pence must like to be surrounded by ones a cut less talented than himself (if suitably dogmatic too). Not that they're hard to find, in DC.
Would you be surprised if Marc Short were also to have said giving McConnell's wife that job proves Trump is not a misogynist? It fits.
Perhaps Pence should upgrade to someone like Doug Wardlow as spokesperson.
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image source
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Bio info on Short:
Short attended Washington and Lee University where he majored in politics and helped start The Spectator, an independent conservative magazine that he later said was to counter “the liberal values being taught by the faculty.”
After graduating in 1992, he went to work for the Young America’s Foundation, a nonprofit set up to promote conservative views on college campuses.
During that time he met Oliver North, the decorated Marine lieutenant colonel who had been a part of President Ronald Reagan’s administration until he was fired in the 1980s in the aftermath of an “arms for hostages” scandal known as the Iran-Contra affair. The administration illegally used profits from arms sales in the Middle East to bankroll rebel fighters in Central America. North’s convictions on several federal felonies were overturned on appeal.
North, a political conservative, “had a huge impact on me as a young man,” Short said.
“Ollie really helped to shape my faith and helped me accept Christ as a young man. I had a certain perspective of what Christians were, and then I saw Ollie North as a Bronze Star, multiple-Purple Heart Marine who was spending a lot of his time I was working for him in service to other men. It sort of changed my perspective.”
Short worked on North’s unsuccessful 1994 bid to unseat Democratic incumbent Chuck Robb for one of Virginia’s U.S. Senate seats. In the aftermath, Short worked for North’s political action committee before moving to Santa Barbara, Calif., to direct the Young America’s Foundation and oversee Reagan’s western White House – Rancho del Cielo – which the foundation operates as a memorial to the former president.
Social networking note, Pence is but one link away from Ollie North. If not closer. Small World.
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This Marc Short is quite plugged into Repubican circles including a private sector stint for a Koch operation, (much as pete hegseth did with "veterans" astroturfing within Koch tendrils before landing the FOX gig.
A seasoned DC sharp operator. An evangelical christian, as one would expect to see atop a Pence staff.
So, it seems that, less than dumb, Short drew the short straw and was placed in front of a microphone with incredible talking points he had to deliver. What Trump likely intended is clear, but more than that irrelevant.
You attack four newly elected young minority female members of Congress with that childishly bombastic stuff, saying what was said, you were making a racist statement, per se. Failure to even recognize and acknowledge it as such changes nothing. Such stonewalling against all evidence and logic, if anything, is an exacerbating fault.
Aside from dumb commentary against the four legislators, a single saving grace in this, if there is one, is that more delicate language was used this go-round with regard to less affluent nations than to call them shithole contries.
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WaPo. Politico. Wikipedia. Why do I see a resemblance, here and here?
Minnesota coverage: Omar and allies a focus in the latest Strib report.
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| fighters for progress and justice for all |
Also: Latest Strib op-ed. Strib carrying an AP feed. With Omar representing Minnesota's CD5, the local focus is Omar - and three others.
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Bonus time. Another topic, Strib online again, a headline showing some folks are banking Klobuchar. Against better judgment being the view at Crabgrass. The guess here, a Klobuchar fade after Iowa. Running into the sun, but she's running behind.