CT Blue

This brings back memories:

Megyn Kelly might be getting a bit of a break from being Donald Trump’s main nemesis, because he was just kind of roasted by a bunch of foreign policy questions from conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

At one point, Hewitt asked Trump if he was familiar with “General  Soleimani” and the “Quds Forces.” (He referred to Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.) Trump said he was but then appeared to mistake the Quds for the Kurds, a Middle Eastern ethnic group.

“The Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by us,” said Trump.

Hewitt corrected him: “No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces.”

And after some more Qud/Kurd back and forth, Hewitt asserted that , and got classic Trump in return:

“Well, that is a gotcha question, though,” he said. “I mean, you know, when you’re asking me about who’s running this, this this, that’s not, that is not, I will be so good at the military, your head will spin.”

And out of that entire exchange, the only thing Trump supporters will hear is that last sentence.

via Daily Kos

I humbly submit that the diarist has it wrong here. Trump’s inability to answer the question proves virtually nothing about Trump, except that he’s incapable of admitting ignorance. Granted, that Trump knows very little about foreign policy, but the same applies to his fellow clowns on the Republican side. I would give odds that not a one of them would have been able to answer a similar question, and I can guarantee that Hewett would never ask them such a question, or assert in response to their ignorance that “these were standard things you should know if you want to be president”. To me, this is classic Village behavior, in the sense of that term used by digby over at Hullabaloo. Trump is invading their turf, and they are circling the wagons. His fellow clowns will be exempt from such treatment.

So, on to the memory that this story evoked. Back in 1988 Jesse Jackson was disturbing the Village from the left, and George Will was on the case:

Take Will’s 1988 interview of presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson on ABC‘s This Week(1/17/88). In a series of questions apparently meant to expose Jackson as unqualified for office, Will asked: “As president, would you support measures such as the G-7 measures of the Louvre Accords?” (These accords were technical agreements employed the previous year to stabilize exchange rates.) As Will sneeringly recapped in a later column (Washington Post, 1/28/88), Jackson’s “answer to [that] question was, ‘Explain that.’”

via Fairness and Accuracy in Media

Yes, indeed. It was a question never posed to Michael Dukakis, who no doubt was as ignorant of such technicalities as Jackson. Jackson was honest enough to not try to bullshit his way through the question, but the basic tactic on the part of the questioner is the same in both cases. In fact, one can run for president and be qualified for the position without knowing anything about General Soleimani or the Louvre Accords. It’s far more important to articulate the principles that you would apply when dealing with the problems in the Middle East or economic policy than to demonstrate mastery of every detail. That’s what advisers are for. I’m not arguing for Trump, by the way. He would be a disaster as president, though no more a disaster than his competition. But he’s absolutely right that it was a “gotcha” question, perfectly illustrating Village behavior.