I like a man with convictions and determination: a man who will put his money where his mouth is; a man who — if a journalist — will put his column were his mouth is or, even better, a man who will eat his column if he is proven wrong.
Such a man is Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank.
In a Sunday column at the Post Milbank — like many of us — expresses his hopes that Republicans, angry as they may be at the political establishment, will not nominate “a sure loser,” and that Americans will not choose “a candidate who expresses the bigotry and misogyny that Trump has.”
Milbank is so confident that his judgment of Americans is correct that he’ll eat his words if Trump wins the nomination. “Literally,” he says, “The day Trump clinches the nomination I will eat the page on which this column is printed in Sunday’s Post. I have this confidence for the same reason Romney does: Americans are better than Trump.”
Milbank is referring to some “talking sense” words the 2012 Republican presidential nominee told a group of business-school students Georgetown University a week ago.
Milbank writes:
The Post’s Philip Rucker recorded Romney’s categorical prediction, and his rationale. “I know there’s some skunks in any endeavor — business, politics — and they get most of the visibility, but there are also some really good people,” Romney said. “The American people are a very good people and by and large find people of similar character to elect to the highest office in the land.”
Milbank asks, “And why won’t Trump, who, when he isn’t besmirching Syrian refugees as terrorists, is maligning Mexican immigrants as rapists, get the nod?” and immediately answers, “Because, Romney said, ‘when all is said and done, the American people usually do the right thing.’”
Milbank’s prediction that Trump will ultimately fail, comes, he says, “from faith that American voters are more sensible than many poll-obsessed journalists and commentators give them credit for. Trump (and Muslim-baiting Ben Carson) won’t prevail in the Republican primary because voters, in the end, tend to get it right.”
Quoting Romney’s “We’ve beaten the odds…in part because we’ve had, I think, people of real character who have led our country as presidents…and the American people have risen to the occasion time and again and have in fact then elected good people,” Milbank concludes, “I second Romney’s analysis. No matter what 2015 polls say, 2016 won’t be the year American democracy murders itself.”
By no stretch of the imagination is this writer as politically astute or prescient as Dana Milbank, but I do firmly believe — as both Romney and Milbank do — in the wisdom and character of the American people, Democrats and Republicans.
So much that I also pledge to eat my words — this column — if Trump clinches the nomination.
However, being of a more advanced age than Milbank and uncertain about the medical dangers associated with eating a full size, multicolor printout of this column, I have printed it on a very small piece of very thin paper using Georgia font, size “8” — rice paper and a smaller font size not readily available.
If, God help us all, I have to eat my column and survive to witness a general election where Trump is the winner, my bags will be packed and I’ll be ready to move to Canada, or elsewhere.
BrowniesGirl, do you have a spare room “up North”?
Lead image: www.shutterstock.com
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.