Remember all of the criticism of President Obama for “making everything about him”. People used to count the number of times he would use the word “I” in a speech. There were entire white papers written on how the President turned any events into a referendum on his leadership or into personal attacks on him based on his race. But his predecessor doesn’t hold a candle to President Trump when it comes to self-centeredness.
The latest example comes from the Florida school shooting. Over the weekend the President blasted the FBI for failing to stop the suspect after being tipped off to his on-line threats several months before the incident. President Trump tweeted that the Bureau would have stopped the shooter if it hadn’t been trying to prove his campaign was involved in collusion with the Russians.
I highly doubt that field agents in Mississippi–where the tip on the shooter’s on-line posts came from–or in South Florida were spending a whole lot of time on the Russian collusion investigation. The President apparently believes that everyone in the FBI works on the same thing at the same time–mainly discrediting him. That is distressing, as the FBI is part of the Executive Branch of government–and therefore falls under the oversight of the President.
And then, the President took a trip to the hospital where some of the shooting victims remain in intensive care. He didn’t meet with them, but rather spent his time (a very short amount of it as we will discuss in a moment) with doctors and first responders. A picture of the President and First Lady with the group shows Trump with a smile on his face and a big “thumbs up”. That’s not exactly the empathetic type of response one would expect from our leaders at a time of tragedy. And while much was made of this “visit”, it took less than 20-minutes–as the President “needed” to get to a disco-themed party at his Mar-A-Lago estate that night.
When critics call the President “racist”, “bigoted”, “sexist”, “misogynistic”, “xenophobic” and “homophobic” I tend not to agree with them. Mr Trump doesn’t hate anyone of different colors, genders, heritages or sexual preferences. He simply does not care one iota about any of them–unless they can further his own success–then he puts up with them until they are no longer needed.
