Two weeks ago, Jon Stewart appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and tried to say nice things about Donald Trump. Stewart had a really tough time with the assignment.
And I thought: it’s not really that tough. After all, Hillary Clinton could come up with something on the spot, and that was under the pressure of a live debate, whereas Stewart was on a show that was pre-taped and would air later.
But maybe that says more about Clinton’s ability to think on her feet than about any nice qualities Trump may actually have. And what Clinton said at debate, little more than a year ago, was actually about Trump’s children.
Of course Clinton realized this as she said it, and added quite seamlessly that the Trump children being “capable and devoted” reflects well on Trump.
Normally, a candidate's children are considered off-limits, and we all remember how Trump flouted that norm to attack Chelsea Clinton during the campaign.
“When they go low, we go high,” Hillary Clinton quoted Michelle Obama. And indeed she did. It would have been understandable Clinton her to respond with a slam at Trump’s children, but she’s classier than that.
Here’s the video of Stewart trying to come up with nice things to say about Trump:
Donald Trump is not a cannibal. That we know of. Almost everything nice that we can think of needs to be followed by at least one asterisk.
For example, if you think that being wealthy is a good thing, well, Trump is in such a complex network of debts that after sorting it all out he’s almost certainly a pauper.
Or how about that he’s charitable through his foundation? Thanks to David Fahrenthold at the Washington Post, we know that the Trump Foundation often reneges on promises.
And when that foundation does give money, it’s almost always money that’s been passed through from a different source and which could just as easily have been given without the involvement of the Trump Foundation.
Is anyone impressed that Trump married supermodel Melania Knauss? If you are, the asterisk is a link to a video of Melania swatting away his hand after they got off a plane.
So if you're constrained by plausibility (unlike Scaramucci when he praised Trump’s sports abilities), and, you know, truth, it’s extremely difficult to say anything nice about Trump.
So, having had all this time to think about this, this is the nicest thing I can say about Trump: he’s lived to be 71-years-old. That’s something many smarter and more ethical people than him have not achieved. I don’t need or want to see the birth certificate.
Though come to think of it, Army Specialist James McCloughlan was born in South Haven, Michigan, a few weeks before Trump, and was recently awarded the Medal of Honor, according to an Army announcement.
So even if McCloughan is no smarter nor more ethical than Trump (though quite likely he is), he’s certainly braver than Trump, so to live to 71 is for McCloughan a greater achievement than it is for Trump. The biggest danger Trump faced during the Vietnam era was probably a wayward golf ball.
Hmm… golf ball… Okay, I got it! I got something nice to say about Trump after all: he would look good bald and with a bright red clown nose.