Do you ever wonder what constitutes “evidence” in
the president’s mind? For most people,
evidence refers to the facts of forensic investigations and eyewitness
testimony, at least in the legal system.
In the president’s mind, however, “evidence” seems to be whatever he
wishes is true right at the moment.
In science, evidence refers to established facts and
data. Scientific research includes
carefully controlled experiments aimed at investigating various aspects of the
material world, both biological and physical.
In chemistry and physics, attention is paid to the composition
and properties of elements, changes induced by chemical combinations, the laws
of motion and theories of gravity, evolution, etc. Among the luminaries are included Galileo,
Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and the late Stephen Hawking.
The difference is striking between what constitutes
evidence in law and science and what the president seems to think it
means. The president for years asserted
President Obama was not born in America.
He insisted there was no birth certificate to prove otherwise when in
fact there was.
He appeared wholly ignorant of the fact that
Congress has always had a committee that verified each candidate was qualified
to run for office. As early as 1789 there
was a Committee on Elections organized by Congress after the first
election.
(This was split into three Election Committees in
1895. The committees were later
abolished in 1947 but their duties were taken over by the new House
Administration Committee. )
If a candidate for president were younger than 35,
for example, that would be red-flagged, as would the fact if he or she were
born in another country.
There was some
discussion on this point concerning Ted Cruz and whether he qualified as a “natural-born
citizen” who could become president because he was born in Canada; the answer was
probably” yes” since his parents were Americans, although the need for final
resolution of the issue never came to a head.
Years ago (1964) there was some minor issue raised
about Senator Barry Goldwater—whether the fact that he was born in Arizona
while it was yet a territory (and not a state) would create a problem. He was born in 1909 and Arizona was not
admitted to statehood until 1912.
Was he a “Natural born Citizen”? As the senator was not elected to the
presidency, the issue was not further addressed at that time—the point being, there is a congressional committee that
examines closely all such matters.
President Obama could never have taken office had he
not met all the qualifications for president, including his birthplace in
Hawaii making him an American citizen.
Obviously the current president does not care to
read much history but such congressional procedures and safeguards are locked
in place; they are there for him to consider should he ever wish to turn over a
new leaf. What kind of “evidence” did
Trump have for making such a claim in the first place?
He had none whatsoever other than right-wing sources
who spread it as rumor and then repeated it as anti-Obama fuel to
fan-the-flames of racism. It was always a false assertion. Apparently, Trump has a problem answering
questions by relying on facts and evidence.
Even after
President Obama released the short form of his birth certificate, Trump could
not let the matter go and demanded to see the long form.
Consider: the
short form was already recognized as a proper legal document and legitimate for
passport acquisition and other purposes.
The author discovered this for himself when he
needed to request a copy of his birth certificate in 2013 in order to renew his
passport; the certified short form of my birth certificate was delivered along with
a brief history of its official adoption (2011). It was accepted as proof of citizenship by
Passport Services, within the Bureau of Consular Affairs, under the U.S.
Department of State.
It actually takes an extra step or two to re-acquire
the earlier long form version which President Obama also did—and finally Trump
kept quiet. After years of Trump making totally
false allegations on this matter, without the slightest shred of evidence, he
was forced to keep quiet.
When the Central Park 5 went on trial for rape,
Trump took out full page adds calling for the reinstatement of the death
penalty. All five teenage defendants were
convicted in 1989 but exonerated in 2002 when another man, already convicted or
rape and murder, confessed to the crime. That man’s DNA proved a match to
evidence left at the scene of the crime.
After spending six to thirteen years in jail, the
Central Park five were finally cleared and New York agreed to pay them $41
million. Even then, Trump did not change his opinion.
The renowned film-maker Ken Burns made a documentary
on the case in 2012 and opined: “Apparently Mr. Trump is unfamiliar with the
concept of wrongful conviction.”
When a person throws out false accusations without evidence,
it is shameful; when that same person refuses to change his opinion even after the legal system fully concedes a
mistake was made, it is more than shameful; it is morally reprehensible.
And yet, all of this is only half the story. The first part deals with a president who ignores
facts not to his liking, such as Obama being an American citizen. For the record, Obama was born in Hawaii on
August 4, 1961 (which is two years after Hawaii became the 50th American state
on August 21, 1959.)
The president likewise stubbornly refused to accept
the exoneration of five falsely accused individuals, their wrongful convictions
proven by the new science of DNA evidence
and the confession of the actual perpetrator!
Now let us examine what happens when it comes to highly
credible allegations of Russia’s 2016 election meddling and the Saudi Arabian
government’s role in the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi in the Saudi
Arabian embassy in Istanbul, Turkey.
Suddenly the president becomes an expert on the insufficiency of evidence, a piece of
irony reaching a level of lunacy given his long history of falsehoods and uncontrolled
hyperbole.
Even though all the top intelligence agencies concur
that Russia meddled in American elections, Trump chooses to ignore their
findings!
The president’s response to the murder and
dismemberment of Jamal Kashoggi was no less shocking and boggles the
imagination.
In authoritarian regimes, everything is top-heavy
and top-down; orders come from above. People
don’t risk taking controversial actions on their own with such potentially
serious consequences waiting to ignite.
For Trump to suggest that the “question” of whether
the Crown Prince (next in line to be king) was involved--ranging from prior
knowledge to actually authorizing the murder—is in itself disingenuous and
superfluous.
Once again, American intelligence agencies (with
some access to Turkey’s key information) have already expressed a high degree
of confidence that the answer is yes, the Crown Prince was involved—it could
not be otherwise in such a society as Saudi Arabia now is.
The head of the CIA, Gina Haspel, met with Senators (12/04/18)
to brief them on the matter. A couple of the Senators came out fuming and
furious from what they learned:
Senator Lindsey Graham said of the Crown Prince,
Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), there’s” zero chance” that the Saudi Prince wasn’t
involved in the murder of Kashoggi.
Senator Bob Corker thought that if the crown prince
were put on trial a jury would find him guilty of murder in “about 30 minutes”
and there was “zero question” in his mind that the crown prince ordered and
monitored the killing of Jamal Kashoggi.
And what is Trump’s position on Russian meddling and
the Crown Prince’s involvement in the murder of Kashoggi? The president points out that Putin denies
being involved in any meddling and the crown prince denies being involved in
any murder.
What does the president make of all the evidence to
the contrary? Apparently, he has made up
his mind to ignore it for as long as he can.
He chooses to believe the two heads
of foreign states over the opinion of his intelligence agencies, even though
those nations have a long history of human rights abuses.
Trump thus reveals himself to be a practitioner of
the double standard taken to a new height of chutzpah or, perhaps better stated,
a new low of intellectual incompetence and moral depravity.
While he himself is repeatedly guilty of making the
wildest accusations against others without a shred of evidence, he turns right
around and ignores mounds of real evidence not to his liking—even though such evidence
points to a highly likely conclusion and at times rises to nearly irrefutable
proof.
Note well: He repudiates genuine evidence on the one
hand and offers unwarranted claims and wild speculation on the other. The president willingly spreads falsehoods while
he dismisses bonafide evidence.
He is becoming the poster boy for “double standard”
thinking: a “switch-hitter” who revels
in ignorance, falsehoods, hysteria, fear, bluster, and close-mindedness.
His reasoning, values, and opinions create an
amazing mess of inept and inane contradictions.
T
his would be true for any average citizen with a similar
history of such strange and inexplicable utterances.
Such a person would be recognized by the
field of psychiatry as needing therapy.
When such behavior is witnessed in the leader of a
democratic nation, such psychological instability leads to grave concerns for
the mental health of the president and the welfare of the nation.
The president’s foibles and follies appear to
reflect willful blindness, criminal deception, and the placing of smug egotism
over constitutional duties; taken all together, they threaten to drag the
president across the threshold of impeachable offenses.
Any man who holds truth itself--and the evidence upon which it is based--in such contempt cannot be
trusted to lead America.
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