Sunday School 4/24/11: The Trump Card

We’re back from spring break, and right back into the fray we go. Lots of talk about his Hairness, Donald Trump, today. There was some other good stuff today too, but we'll get to that another time.

First up, on NBC’s Meet the Press, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), was asked by David Gregory whether Trump was someone McCain could support. McCain answered:

“As you know, I’m staying out of it. I think that Mr. Trump is having the time of his life. I congratulate him for getting all the attention that he’s getting.”

Gregory followed up by asking if McCain thought The Donald was a serious contender; McCain's answer:

“Well, look, I’ll let the people decide that. I’m glad he’s willing to enter the arena. I think we have a lot of good candidates, and I’m not endorsing any of them. I would be happy if Sarah Palin got in. I’d be very happy with many of the governors we have running now. I think we’ll have a good candidate at the end of the day.”

Gregory asked Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) a Trump question too. This time, he went about it from the moral side, recalling that Coburn had said that New Gingrich doesn’t have the commitment to marriage to be a good candidate, much less president, and wondered if Trump with similar baggage would have similar issues. Coburn:

“We need somebody who’s demonstrated sacrificial leadership, that has demonstrated consistency, and an ability to lead based on a life that’s modeled on what American ideals are.”

What would 'sacrificial leadership' look like, I wonder?

On ABC’s This Week, host Christiane Amanpour talked with Reverend Franklin Graham about presidential candidates, among other things. Graham indicated that he thinks Sarah Palin will not run; in Graham's opinion, she doesn't like politics much, but does like talking on the issues.  When asked if Palin did run, would she be his candidate, Graham answered that it depended on who else was running, which opened the door for the Trump question. Graham’s response:

“Donald Trump, when I first saw that he was getting in, I thought, well, this has got to be a joke. But the more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, you know? Maybe the guy's right.”

Graham also refused to discount the whole birther thing, noting that he himself was born at a hospital in Asheville NC and that Obama could "solve this whole birth certificate thing pretty quickly.” But the thing is, he's already shown us his birth certificate, so I'm not sure what's left.

Chris Wallace was not immune to asking about Trump, either. His guest on Fox News Sunday was the other larger-than-life New Yorker, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Wallace asked if Bloomberg took Trump seriously as a candidate, and about The Donald’s focus on the birther thing. After stating very clearly that Obama was born here, he went on to add:

“I think the Republicans are making a terrible mistake making this a big issue. We have immigration. We have the deficit. We have the economy. Those are the things that the public cares about. My girlfriend always says it’s all about housing and jobs – my house, my job. That’s what the public cares about. If the Republican Party doesn’t start addressing that, they will lose and they deserve to."

Smartest words I heard today, bar none.