Republican front-runner Donald Trump has just run smack-dab into limits on his rhetoric. He has been quite publically disinvited from a major meeting of conservatives due to comments he made Friday night about Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, who committed the sin of acting like a mainstream journalist in Thursday night’s debate and asking him tough questions. In a seeming race to further cheapen our politics — by his rhetoric and the fact he demonstrates that there are those in American who will support their political hero no matter how extreme or cheap his political rhetoric is — on Friday night on CNN he lashed out at Kelly with a new-low comment: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”

Even Trump’s biggest supporters will have trouble trying to twist themselves into defense-lawyer, political pretzels to try and come up with any explanation that could obscure the fact that this guy has apparently seen too many 1940s movies and has utter contempt for women when he feels threatened by them.

Hie latest inexcusable comment — which further lowered the bar on the quality of our political discussion that he has already lowered so low that other Republican candidates are dancing the political limbo to get through it — was enough for Red State’s Eric Erickson.

Erickson dis-invited him from the Red State gathering, and wrote:

I have tried to give a great deal of latitude to Donald Trump in his run for the Presidency.

He is not a professional politician and is known for being a blunt talker. He connects with so much of the anger in the Republican base and is not afraid to be outspoken on a lot of issues. But there are even lines blunt talkers and unprofessional politicians should not cross.

Decency is one of those lines.

As much as I do personally like Donald Trump, his comment about Megyn Kelly on CNN is a bridge too far for me.

In a CNN interview, Mr. Trump said of Megyn Kelly, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”

It was not the “blood coming out of her eyes” part that was the problem.

I think there is no way to otherwise interpret Mr. Trump’s comment. In an attempted clarification, Mr. Trump’s team tells me he meant “whatever”, not “where ever.”

The other day, we sent out the agenda for the RedState Gathering. The file had been saved with the “final” tag and the Washington sent it out. But it still had Governor Deal on the agenda and it did not have Donald Trump on it. Obviously, it wasn’t the final.

I called Mr. Trump’s campaign manager and apologized and told him I felt bad for Mr. Trump because he has gotten so much sh*t from so many people and the party itself wasn’t treating the guy at the front of the pack as legitimate.

I think that is true. And I’ve been very sympathetic to Donald Trump because so many of the people who have led the party astray refuse to even treat him as a legitimate candidate.

But I also think that while Mr. Trump resonates with a lot of people with his bluntness, including me to a degree, there are just real lines of decency a person running for President should not cross.

And who did Erickson invite in place of Trump?

I have invited Megyn Kelly to attend in Donald Trump’s place tomorrow night.

Yes there are limits.

And Trump’s team’s clarification won’t convince many people. It’s classic CYA.

But, sadly, there are those how who’ll still defend trump.

They’ll call his being dis-invited an example of political correctness.

However, often when someone complains about political correctness it means they enjoy making flip comments, hurling zingers or applying labels to denigrate groups of people — and they need to open up a new lunch meat company called “Boors Head.”

And so it is with Mr. Trump.

And is for those who in any way, shape or form try to defend him or give him a pass on his latest comments.

Here is the reality about Donald Trump:

For all Donald Trump’s money, he is far too CHEAP a person to serve in the Oval Office.

He would diminish it.

Just as him being the front-runner today diminishes the Republican Party.

He is in a (low) class by himself.

So, I never thought I’d say this to Eric Erickson, but sincerely, Mr. Erickson:

DITTO.

UPDATE 3:
—Ed Morrissey, on the conservative blog Hot Air:

That will undoubtedly anger some Trump supporters, but after last night’s debate performance and his thin-skinned whining afterward, I wonder if that group wasn’t already in decline. This might fire up the die-hard Trump troops, but suggesting that a journalist went after his target-rich record only because she was menstruating should be a disqualifier for most voters. It’s vastly worse than anything Todd Akin said, and will almost certainly have media outlets demanding responses from the other Republican candidates. It’s practically tailor-made for Democrats to hoist up the Republican War On Women banner, especially Hillary Clinton.

Get ready for plenty of Team Trump dog-in-the-manger, sour-grapes quotes in the morning, if not overnight. There may be some legitimate anger among a small group of RSG15 attendees tomorrow who wanted to see Trump at this event, but Erick has a solid case for not wanting to have this overshadow the event tomorrow, with more presidential candid

ates on hand to make their pitches. Erick will almost certainly address this in the morning, and we’ll see what the fallout is over the rest of the day.

—Martin Longman on Erickson and other conservatives coming to Kelly’s defense:

If Megyn Kelly were old, fat, or ugly these same folks would laugh their heads off about Trump’s joke. But they all want to impress her, so they’re falling over each other to show the most outrage.

This is actually insulting. Megyn Kelly is a smart, ambitious and accomplished woman, and she doesn’t need these penny ante knights in shining armor to pretend that they respect professional woman or female journalists. She knows that they don’t.

—American Conservative’s Rod Dreher:

Good for Erick Erickson. The sooner decent Republicans understand what a troll Trump is and turn away from him, the better for all of us. Trump may raise some legitimate issues, but Trump is always looking out for Trump — not conservatism, not the Republican Party, nobody but himself. And he is a vulgarian to the fingertips, as his disgraceful treatment of a female journalist who asked him a perfectly legitimate question demonstrates.

Again: thank you, Megyn Kelly.

—Oliver Willis:

In fact, the Republican Party where Trump is currently the top polling presidential candidate is one that was built on the sexism and misogyny that pundits like Erickson and Rush Limbaugh (of Sandra Fluke is a “slut” fame) built for decades. Fox’s Greg Gutfeld joined the Trump criticism brigade, but he’s got priors here too.

Megyn Kelly, the target of Trump’s attack and Erickson’s white knight act, even called out Erickson for his sexism in the past. The right built this house of cards.

—The Washington Monthly’s David Atkins:

Pundits keep pretending that Donald Trump is a media creation—a charlatan and entertainer who is crashing the otherwise serious political party to generate headlines. But he wouldn’t make those headlines without having an enormously popular appeal to the Republican base, which pundits attribute to general frustration with the political system on both sides of the aisle.

But that’s just not true. If it were true, then the Democratic Party would be just as susceptible to a liberal version of Trump. But it’s not. It’s hard to even imagine what that would look like.

The reality is that mainstream Democratic positions also happen to be broadly popular positions already without the need for demagogic bluster. Left-of-center positions tend to be based on science and a more complex, nuanced understanding of social problems. Even more importantly, liberals in the United States promote solutions that have already been shown to work elsewhere in the world. In terms of party divisions Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders simply present a more rhetorically forceful version of those positions, and where their opinions differ from centrist Democrats (especially on, say, Wall Street), their takes tend to be backed up by history and economics, and to have the support of the majority of Americans.

Once again, it’s important to note that both sides don’t, in fact, do it when it comes to political extremism. American conservatism has gone far, far off the rails. Donald Trump’s successful candidacy is only the latest—but far from the only—proof of that.

—Powerline:

His anger did not relent following the debate. He unleashed a series of attacks on FOX News host and debate moderator Megyn Kelly. As Byron York puts it (don’t click on the link unless you are prepared to be assaulted): “Trump spent much of Friday bashing Kelly.” Byron has the details.

The attacks culminated in his statement on CNN regarding Kelly: :”She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions. You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

Now that is not only offensive, it is pathetic. As a result of Trump’s waving the bloody “whatever,” Erick Erickson disinvited Trump from his annual RedState Gathering in Atlanta. Byron’s report includes Ericsson’s statement on Trump’s disinvitation.

I think the Trump balloon has sprung a major leak. He is descending to earth rather rapidly, embarrassing himself and his supporters. He needs an intervention. It’s too soon to say the end is near, but it should be.

—The Daily Caller:

It seems that Trump’s supporters don’t really care that he’s not a orthodox conservative and hasn’t demonstrated sufficient loyalty to the Republican Party. They like him anyway.

The mogul’s success has even made some of these figures hate their own base, with the implied admission that they don’t have that much influence over right-leaning voters.

That’s why the Red State disinvite could turn out to be disastrous for the conservative movement. As The Daily Caller’s Kerry Picket reported, the majority of Red State attendees appeared to have a positive opinion of Trump and thought he did very well in the debate. The Donald’s exclusion over a gaffe could very well turn into an issue about out-of-control political correctness that will not play well with the base.

And, against the intentions of movement conservatives, it could further boost Trump’s support.

…..Several conservatives have come to believe that Trump is a Clinton plant aiming to destroy the Republican Party. But if that’s true (which it’s not), then you have to accept the fact that Hillary knows the conservative base better than its own leaders.

Which begs the question: how does the conservative movement hope to convince America not to vote for Hillary when they can’t even get Republicans to dump Trump?

UPDATE 2: Some reaction on Twitter:

TRUMP RESPONDS:

I wonder if Eric Erickson @EWErickson realizes that when RINOs like him trash @realDonaldTrump, it only HELPS him!

— Pantano's Law (@PantanoLaw) August 8, 2015

Graphic: shutterstock.com

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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