Donald Trump: The Disrespect of President Obama Continues

Is Trump fanning the flames of ignorance simply for personal gain? Is he simply attempting to garner publicity for his new season of? Or does he truly believe that the President of the United States, doesn't deserve an ounce of respect?
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.
NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 12: TV Personality Donald Trump attends the 'Celebrity Apprentice All Stars' Season 13 Press Conference at Jack Studios on October 12, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 12: TV Personality Donald Trump attends the 'Celebrity Apprentice All Stars' Season 13 Press Conference at Jack Studios on October 12, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)

Donald Trump stooped to a new level Wednesday, one that is surprising even for him. With his latest publicity stunt, not only has he embarrassed himself, but he has further added to a long list of disrespect toward the President of The United States.

This week, Trump vowed to open a surprise door that would change the entire landscape of the presidential election and promised to release it via Twitter and Facebook. On Monday's episode of Fox & Friends, Trump characterized this as "serious dirt" and "very, very, big... you will cover it in a very big fashion."

Then at noon Wednesday, the big announcement came: Trump said that if President Obama released his college records and his passport application, the billionaire would personally issue a $5 million check to charities of the president's choosing. Trump said that the information must be received before October 31 at 5 p.m. in order for the check to be cut.

So in other words, he had nothing.

He became the boy who cried wolf, and they all fell for it.

Trump made the media believe he had a royal flush when in fact , all he had in his possession was one joker.

What was disturbing about this was that it was just another way of insulting President Obama, dredging up the old canard that the leader of the free world somehow is a fraud and a fake.

Personally, I think this was just another opportunity for Trump to take a personal shot at the president. In addition in the video Trump said: "President Obama is the least transparent president in the history of this country. There's never been anything like it, we know very little about our president." He also added, "I am very honored to have gotten him to release his long-form birth certificate," as if that were some big accomplishment it.

But he is not alone in this disrespect of the president. Ann Coulter had the audacity to tweet after Monday's foreign policy debate that she approved of "Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard." And Sarah Palin used a racially demeaning phrase, "shuck and jive," to describe the administration's handling of the terrorist attack in Libya earlier this month that exhibited nothing but disrespect toward the president. Despite the fact President Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, Rush Limbaugh has called him an affirmative action candidate. Limbaugh even has repeatedly played a song on his radio show called "Barack the Magic Negro."

Is there an underlying reason why it is so difficult for these right-wing extremists to respect the position of the president of the United States?

Are these examples of far-right fanaticism that do not represent or speak for the entire party?

Is there something else that is keeping them for being able to give the president of the United States the respect that the position itself demands? The president should not have to prove anything to anyone. Yet, he has handled every unmerited insult with nothing but grace and class. He has risen above every act of insolence, and proved them all wrong, but he shouldn't have to. As CBS' Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer said, about Trump last year: "There is an ugly strain of racism that's running though this whole thing."

What's ironic about all of this is that President Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a degree in political science. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude and was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. But apparently Trump is not impressed. Last year, Trump suggested -- without offering any proof of this baseless claim -- in an interview with the Associated Press that not only was the president a poor student, but he didn't deserve to be admitted to the Ivy League universities he attended.

Michael Eric Dyson described this situation perfectly when he said on Face the Nation: "Skepticism about black intelligence and suspicion about black humanity have gone hand-in-hand throughout the history of this country in feeding the perception that black people don't quite measure up."

Has any other president in the history of the United States ever had his citizenship cross-examined, his religious faith challenged and his educational achievements put to question?

Is Trump fanning the flames of ignorance simply for personal gain? Is he simply attempting to garner publicity for his new season of The Apprentice? Or does he truly believe that the President of the United States, doesn't deserve an ounce of respect?

In the past after being accused of racism, Donald Trump has stated that people who know him "would laugh" at the suggestion that he is racist.

Well Trump, I don't know you, but I'm sure not laughing.

This article was originally posted on the Washington Post.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot