President as celebrity-in-chief

TV's “The Apprentice” P.T. Barnum-style pitchman Donald Trump is riding the high tide of politician as celebrity. It may lead to an exclusive Pennsylvania Avenue address, but if so, he's not the first to get there. Politics as pop culture entertainment was first harnessed by blue dress intern-chasing “Slick Willie” himself, Bill Clinton. In 1993, a youthfully rakish, shade-wearing future president played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show. He also brazenly told the MTV generation whether he wore boxers or briefs (so Monica Lewinsky need not be consulted on the matter).

Likewise in 2007, Joe Biden's storybook 'first mainstream African-American who is articulate, bright, clean and nice-looking' had the same shiny newness as Bill—and a cool aloofness that appealed to superficial millennials, twice. In all three cases, Clinton, Obama and potentially Trump, all appeal to the lowest common denominator of the American electorate. Bill ran as a baby-boomer, regular guy centrist and won. Likewise, Obama successfully hid his ultra-liberal mind-set, ran on the nebulous slogan “hope and change,” and also won. Now we have Mr. Trump following suit, except his is a red-hot firebrand style of making dubious, wild promises (Mexican-paid border wall-building; expelling 11 million illegal squatters) absent specific plans.

To a man, theirs is the power of image and personality. Indeed, none of the above should be taken seriously or have the opportunity to hold the most important office in the world.

America does not need another unpredictable, “celebrity” egotist as president in 2017. 

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
http://www.americanthinker.com/author/david_l_hunter/
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Pope Francis: first responsibility PR, not children's rights

Empty-headed millennial icon Kim Kardashian has made her Twitter pronouncement: “The pope is dope.” Indeed, by every political optics measure, the United States public relations tour to rehab the reputation of the Catholic Church by Pope Francis was a resounding success. Undoubtedly, the main beneficiary will be the waning fortunes of the Church. In his final Mass in Philadelphia (from the Greek philos meaning “love” or “friendship” and adelphos for “brother”), the pope struck just the right tone of 'new beginnings' by meeting with survivors of clergy sexual abuse with the promise to hold accountable those responsible for church scandals.

I sincerely hope he fulfills that public pledge. Unlike a contemporary predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who ignored priest-child abuse, Pope Francis certainly is in position to “clean house” and should do so despite the institution's longstanding history of turning a blind eye to sexual immorality for profit. Even Kim would enthuse: it is W.J.W.D!

However, while in America pro-life Pope Francis neglected to be outspokenly critical of Democrat-supported Planned Parenthood. Likewise, the pontiff should have taken that golden opportunity both to defend the rights of the unborn, and taken top U.S. military brass to task for permitting children to be exploited as sex slaves by Afghan allies on U.S. military bases under all of their very noses. Doesn't the Vicar of Christ have a responsibility to combat this hot-button issue—both within and beyond the Church—wherever it is unfortunately found?

The larger question looms: with the world's eyes upon him, why didn't he?

On the ground, whistle-blowing soldiers with moral objections to arming Afghan pedophiles and making them commanders of local villages have been disciplined and/or faced career ruin for coming forward. As an example, two Green Berets beat up one child-abuser for keeping a boy chained to his bed. For this decent act of coming to the rescue of a defenseless child, one of the soldiers, Captain Dan Quinn, was relieved of his command and pulled out of Afghanistan. The past notwithstanding, doesn't today's disgrace warrant this pope's attention?

Pope Francis, like Obama pre-presidency, is a superficial symbol of 'hope and change.'  However, being at the helm of the world's most popular religion, he needs to do more than metaphorically placing a carnation in the barrel of a gun.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog

http://www.americanthinker.com/author/david_l_hunter/

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