Alan can skip this story because it's from #FAKENEWS!
Trump's Mistake at the Boy Scout Jamboree
The president addressed the quadrennial gathering like a campaign rally—talking to a group devoted to service as if it valued self interest.
Donald Trump continued his ongoing tour of cherished American institutions on Monday night, delivering yet another jarringly partisan speech to an apolitical audience—this one, comprised of tens of thousands still too young to vote.
During the campaign, his performance at the Al Smith dinner—where presidential candidates roast their rivals and themselves every four years—devolved into overt attacks on his opponent. Shortly after his election, he stunned CIA employees by delivering a campaign-style stump speech before the agency’s Memorial Wall. On Saturday, he surprised the crowd of uniformed personnel at the commissioning of the USS Gerald R. Ford by imploring them to lobby Congress in support of his agenda.
So his speech on Monday night to the 2017 Boy Scout Jamboree ought to have been unsurprising. Trump, after all, seems to have only one mode, irrespective of the setting, or the nature of the audience he’s addressing; one familiar litany of triumphs and grievances to which he constantly returns, delighting his fans and galling his critics.
But he retains the capacity to surprise.
“As the Scout Law says: ‘A Scout is trustworthy, loyal’—we could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that,” Trump said, and paused there. The assembled scouts shouted the rest of it for him: “…helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”
Like millions of other boys, I grew up reciting that creed on weekends. I had always taken it to be a list of obligations; its lessons that the path to leadership lay in serving others, and that there are ideals greater than self-interest. The Scout Oath is a pledge to “do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law,” to subordinate self gratification to the pursuit of that litany of virtues.
So when Trump paused at “loyal”—when he interjected, “we could use some more loyalty”—I was stunned. This is the president who told James Comey, “I expect loyalty.” Over the weekend, he’d inveighed against Republicans who “do very little to protect their President.” And there he was, looking out at a sea of Scouts, telling them that “Boy Scout values are American values,” apparently unaware that his own definition of loyalty—something that he himself is owed—is precisely the opposite of the definition those Scouts are taught to embrace—something that we owe to others.
Just what the Boy Scouts would like to hear right? He president threatened to fire one of his Cabinet members, attacked former president Barack Obama, dissed his former rival Hillary Clinton, marveled at the size of the crowd, warned the boys about the “fake media,” mocked pollsters and pundits, and said more people would say “Merry Christmas” under his presidency.
He started his speech by saying: “Tonight we put aside all of the policy fights in Washington, D.C., you’ve been hearing about with the fake news. Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?"
Then went on and talked about politics because, well, he can't help himself...Trump whining, it's what he does.
Wonder if Trump has ever heard of the Boy Scout Law before his speech writers put it up on the teleprompter?
A Scout is:
Trustworthy,
Loyal,
Helpful,
Friendly,
Courteous,
Kind,
Obedient,
Cheerful,
Thrifty,
Brave,
Clean,
and Reverent.
Well, Trump is clean...he's very, very clean. He's a germaphobe! The rest, well not so much. I doubt Trump was ever a Boy Scout...ya know what I mean?
Ironic since the Boy Scouts are too young to vote. Maybe he's campaigning for 2020?
