Donald Trump on Afghanistan: "It's Time to Go" (with video)

Amy Davidson (The New Yorker) with video (02:58):

When those who are not Donald Trump’s natural constituents think that he may be making sense, something striking is going on. In one of the videos he periodically releases “From the Desk of Donald Trump,” the man himself made a plea for peace, or at least for the end of a ten-year war:

Afghanistan is a total and complete disaster. What are we doing? We have all of these horrible events taking place there…. A man loses his mind and goes around on a killing spree, and the world hates us for it. What is going on? … Let’s get with it. Get out of Afghanistan. MORE...

Howie P.S.: Those of us who were around toward the end of our Vietnam war will recall how opposition brought together many "strange bedfellows."

(Updated) Wanda Sykes on The Donald, birthers, network tv and Karma (with video)

UPDATED: Here's the FULL VIDEO (09:21) I intended to post! And there's more Wanda in Seattle, here and here and here and here and here and here and finally, here. Like I said below, I just love Wanda.

Peter Birnie (Vancouver Sun) with video (01:32) from Wanda's show in Seattle in March, 2010.

First to the birthers, that gaggle of gap-toothed morons led by Donald Trump who refuse to believe Barack Obama was born in the U.S.

“I feel sorry for ’em, they’re just sad,” says Wanda Sykes. “I love that they’re hangin’ it on ‘Well, he’s not from this country’ when they should just face it: You’re havin’ issues because a black man is president. That’s what it is, and you need to deal with that, to work with that.”

And as for The Donald, as we once dubbed Trump, what does Sykes think of his anti-Obama grandstanding atop the birther bandwagon?

“He’s not happy unless he’s relevant in some way,” she says. “He wants people to be talkin’ about him. I thought he would be happy enough to finally have a decent season of Celebrity Apprentice but, you know, he had to make a little bit more noise than that, I guess.” MORE...

Howie P.S.: I can't help it, I just love Wanda.

"President Obama Takes On Trump And Birthers At The White House Correspondents’ Dinner" (with video)

MEDIAite with video (18:51):

President Obama was introduced with an intentionally cheesy video package (picture Barney Stinson’s video resume from “How I Met Your Mother) set to Rick Derringer’s “I Am A Real American” and featuring a repeating shot of his birth certificate set against an American flag background. Obama addressed the birther issue in his speech as well, announcing “I am prepared to go a step further…I am releasing my official birth video,” which turned out to be the opening number from “The Lion King.” Well played, Mr. President.

Obama’s delivery, so effective for most public addresses, didn’t lend itself so well to delivering zingers. Nonetheless, he made the handicap work for him, poking fun at criticism he’s received for being “professorial” and “arrogant.” He made a point to address the haters individually: of Matt Damon’s criticism of his performance so far, he said “I just saw ‘The Adjustment Bureau,’ so right back atcha buddy!” He also took the opportunity to start a rumor that Rep. Michele Bachmann was actually born in Canada, concluding gravely “Yes Michele, this is how it starts.” MORE...

"Lawrence O’Donnell Hammers NBC" (with video)

Alex Alvarez (MEDIAite) with video (14:46):

We’ve been closely following MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell’s coverage of Donald Trump and the would-be Republican candidate (or not, if you’re inclined to agree with O’Donnell’s assessment of the situation) and we were keen on seeing what he’d have to say about Trump tonight in the wake of the White House’s presentation of Barack Obama’s birth certificate. And O’Donnell did not disappoint.

Instead of going after Trump – a man to which he has devoted time week after week on his show, and one whom he accuses of doing or saying anything in his ongoing quest to quence his insatiable thirst for media attention – O’Donnell set his sights squarely on Trump’s employers at NBC, accusing the network of having effectively “created a monster.” O’Donnell pointed specifically to an anonymous NBC exec who told The New York Times that this is all “just Donald being Donald” (It’s a quote we at Mediaite also found… interesting, to say the least.) MORE...

"‘Big Problems To Solve’: President Obama Blames Media For Birther ‘Silliness’" (with video)

Mark Joyella-MEDIAite, with video (05:10):

President Obama, who was born in Hawaii as it turns out, and appears legally qualified to serve as president, wasn’t just irritated with the birthers who drove the issue to the country’s front burner (with a lot of help from Donald Trump). The President also called out the media for playing along. “Normally, I would not comment on something like this,” said Obama, explaining that, two weeks ago during the budget debate with Republicans in Congress, he found that the biggest news story was about his birth certificate:

“I am speaking for the vast majority of the American people as well as for the press,” he said. “We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.” MORE...

"Jimmy Kimmel Live - Can You Keep a Straight Face While Interviewing Donald Trump?" (video)

JimmyKimmelLive, video (02:33).

"Confronting The Coded Racism of Donald Trump"

Ari Melber (The Nation):

Even respected liberal commentators have given Trump something of a pass for the racial tension animating Birtherism. Hendrik Hertzberg, the authoritative essayist, argues in this week's New Yorker that Trump's appeal to birtherism is "part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality" by Republicans, like denying the science of global warming, or believing that "contraception causes abortion."

I think that a loose relationship with the scientific method surely helps conspiracies spread, but Birtherism draws on passions that depart substantially from greenhouse gasses. It is a putatively non-racial, vaguely constitutional way to challenge the legitimacy of the first black president and appeal to racists without sounding officially racist. Sure, there may be plenty of G.O.P. tenets running counter to reality nowadays, yet none evoke the suppressed fury of the Birthers. They won't go away. They are an audience-in-waiting for any amplified race-baiter, from Lou Dobbs to unserious presidential candidates. Indeed, Politifact, the fact-checking site for politics, says its article about the issue, (with a link to the certification of live birth!), is the most read item that it has ever published.

I asked Hertzberg about his formulation, and while he wouldn't "exclude racist undertones," he said the attack is "more about identity." "Obama’s erudition, his ivy-league-ness, his urbanity, his citizen-of-the-worldness, his foreign-sounding name, his respect for the authority of reason and science, his 'aristocratic' 'aloofness' (all of which I love, of course) are equally or more part of the package," Hertzberg proposed in an email. MORE...

Howie P.S.: For the record, the photo above DID NOT accompany this article. I found it online somewhere else (The New Yorker).

David Horsey Takes on Trump (with cartoon)

David Horsey (seattlepi.com):

So, the current question being asked by the punditocracy (hoping for a positive answer) is this: Can Trump be taken seriously?

I’ve got a better question. Given that Trump is at the top of several GOP presidential polls, can Republicans take themselves seriously?

Trump believes in nothing so much as in himself. This deeply self-impressed bully believes being overbearing is the way to run a company and a country. His idea of a nuanced foreign policy would be to threaten OPEC and send troops into Libya to grab the oil. Willing to adjust his politics to further his own interests, he has done a quick flip-flop on abortion to please the Religious Right and made it known he drops by church on Christmas and Easter. His past praise of Barack Obama has been switched to a harsh critique that includes the loopy allegation the president was born in Kenya. MORE...

Donald Trump Doesn't Know Who Ben Smith is...

The Donald has inveighed (in Sharpie!) against our intrepid blogger. We found his comments so delightful, we had to share.

Juli Weiner (Vanity Fair-with photos and documents):

It was with great delight and a sense of kinship that we at Vanity Fair read Donald Trump’s letter to the editor of The New York Times. Writing in response to Gail Collins’s April 2 column, “Donald Trump Gets Weirder,” the petty casino fauxgul and insincere 2012 presidential contender took a few grammatically daring swipes at the columnist (“Her storytelling ability and word usage [coming from me, who has written many best-sellers] is not at a very high level”) and repeated his latest cri de coeur, Birtherism.

We, too, are recent beneficiaries of Trump’s editorial suggestions. On March 24, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter received a packet of documents from Trump containing a print-out of a VF Daily blog post from the week prior (shown below), several articles from blogs and newspapers concerning the ratings of Celebrity Apprentice and Trump’s presidential aspirations, and a debossed “DONALD J. TRUMP” note card of surprisingly thin paper stock. MORE...

(Updated) "Donald Trump for President? Don't Rule It Out" (with video)

UPDATE: More wisdom from The Donald, video (07:37), from the The Morning Jokesters.

E ONLINE, with video (00:45):

Will the Donald give Barack Obama a run for his money?

Appearing on Good Morning America today, Donald Trump revealed that after years of false rumors, he's considering running for president in 2012. And this time he means it.

(SNIP)

According to Trump, the United States has become a "whipping post" for China to assert its control because of the nations' trade imbalance and China's currency manipulation, a problem he claims President Obama has tried and failed so far to address.

That would change under a Trump administration, says the real estate tycoon.

(SNIP)

There's good news for Obama, however. Trump said if he runs, it'll be as a Republican and he would be willing to spend at least $200 million of his own money in a campaign. So watch out, Sarah Palin!

But it all depends on whether America "continues to be taken advantage of by the world."

"Would I rather be in the race or not be in the race? I can tell you, I love what I'm doing. I'm having a great time what I'm doing. I'd rather not be in the race," said the businessman. MORE....

Howie P.S.: I spoke with Ed Schultz live, on-air, on his radio show this morning about this in the last ten minutes of his first hour. We agreed that it would be helpful to raise the visibility of this issue. Schultz said the Republican party would not accept Trump as a candidate and he would have to run as an independent third party candidate.