“and I expect poor little Donald Trump could have managed as well, had he be possessed of sufficient fortitude to show up.”

Hi there, Donald, we’re hoping you will agree to show up in our wheelhouse to get butt fu cked on national TV by our attack poodle with her prepared questions and clips… what’s the matter with you… don’t you want to be humiliated on TV along with the rest of the much more boring and predictable candidates so that people will watch and please agree to this or just everybody will think you are chicken chicken chicken yellow…. please come over to our playground and get smeared…. hey c’mon donald dose are de rules….

and…dont forget…while we make boatloads of advertising revenue off you at the same time…

he did the right thing

this is not unlike reagans reykjavik walkout

You’re misinterpreting Trump.

Do you honestly believe that a man who has the stones to espouse politically incorrect opinions and constantly expose himself to withering criticism from the Dems, the leftist media, and the establishment Republicans would be intimidated by a single unpleasant woman?

Fox had telegraphed its intentions to torpedo Trump during the debate. When you see a punch coming, you duck.

The debate producer, Chris Stirewalt, even sent out a tweet that “the race will look totally different, I promise, on Friday than it does today.” If that doesn’t sound unethical, what does?

“Chris Stirewalt is the advance guy, the Fox political debate contractor/producer who is in Iowa setting up the parameters. He’s the scout organizing the Muslim activist to confront Donald Trump. He’s the guy organizing the Mexican immigrant to question/antagonize the intended target, Trump. Stirewalt puts the agenda script together – Ms. Kelly, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Baier execute the production.”

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/01/27/donald-trumps-fox-debate-boycott-and-the-ridiculous-fox-news-response/

Does any of this even remotely a resemble an attempt on Fox’s part to conduct a dispassionate political debate?

Trump is smarter than they are. We need to give him a shot to apply that intelligence to the presidency.

Donald has the biggest mouth in North America, and he’s pretty good at back chat. When Megyn Kelly asked him his past misogynist statements last August, he deflected her question effortlessly. So, what is he afraid of? Megyn Kelly was pretty nasty to Ted Cruz, and Cruz survived.

I’m afraid I do not buy into the malign Fox-News-Conspiracy-to-do-in-Poor-Donald theory popular in Trumpkinland.

I agree wholeheartedly with commenter “one” above, except I think you’re not misinterpreting Trump, you are being quite biased yourself against Trump. Calling Trump cowardly with such juvenile epithets as “chicken” is clearly the tactic of the opposition. Why don’t you just say you don’t like Trump, or you don’t want him as candidate or president, rather than resorting to such transparent attacks?

You also seem conflicted a bit, perhaps struggling with some form of cognitive dissonance, as when shaking one’s head yes while saying no, when you then report on how Fox and Kelly obviously engaged in gotcha so-called journalism, with no attempt or even pretense at neutrality.

I think it was the only sensible move on Trump’s part, to decline to participate in this commercial circus. And no, it’s not at all irresponsible, selfish, infantile, petulant, tyrannical, unrealistic – and it turns out, not at all self-defeating.

I’ve enjoyed Trump’s campaign actually. His impolite behavior and defiance of political correctness have been fun to watch. However, I remain perfectly well aware that Trump has never in the past been any kind of conservative, and not even a Republican. I don’t think Trump is very intelligent. He is poorly educated and has execrable manners and taste. He has never held elective office. And I would be highly reluctant to award the chief magistracy in the country to a spoiled billionaire with no principles, small intelligence, and a dictatorial temperament. I think it would be a very bad thing if Trump received the Republican nomination. In that unfortunate event, I’d probably feel compelled to vote for him over Hillary or Bernie Sanders, but it would be a lot like voting for Donald Duck.

JDZ, where do you get this “poorly educated” stuff from? Are you just parroting the mainstream, liberal, Alinksy-esque haters?

He went to NYMA, not a bad school. He went to the Fordham University for two years, then to the Wharton School, graduating with a BS in economics.

Why don’t you at least get your facts straight, and then disclaim “yes, I hate Trump,” before offering a false narrative.

Donald was clearly partying with the other rich kids at Fordham and U of P. Neither school molded him. Neither school made him into a gentleman or a man of taste. Ever see, on one of his television shows, how Trump lives? He decorates his personal digs with far more ostentation and vulgarity than Tony Soprano ever would. Trump speaks with a distinctive regional accent, and he has no manners. I seriously doubt that Trump could write a grammatical or intellectually substantive 5-page paper. What do we need a clown like Trump for anyway? We have Ted Cruz running, who is both a strong conservative and a conspicuous rebel against establishment Washington politics? And I have been trying to keep an open mind about Trump. I’ve been sitting there, smiling indulgently, as he went along, until he had a public temper tantrum and blew off the last debate. I have perspective. Trump is a yob, but we have just had a rancid communist mountebank in office for two terms. Trunp finally behaved in a adequately ridiculous fashion that I’m no longer neutral about him. He’s an idiot, an unstable personality, and unfit for any elective office, let alone the presidency.

JDZ, aside from yob, idiot, unstable personality type, and unfit, how do you really feel?

Seriously, unsubstantiated name-calling is the the hallmark of the ‘other side,’ I thought. Perhaps I’m wrong on that, or you are co-opting their tactic, or you are one of them.

Credentials don’t matter when you are opposed to the holder, I guess. If it was someone you supported I imagine NYMA, Fordham, Penn would count for a lot.

As far as his taste is concerned – who are you to judge? Is there some standard of taste that you understand that renders Trump’s unacceptable?

Regional accent? Are you kidding? Wow, you are really stretching here. You mean like Ted Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Margaret Thatcher? You think New Yorkers are unfit? People with accents are unfit?

And you expect people to take your comments seriously? Write something substantive, and substantiated.

NYMA is a military school. How do you get yourself sent to military school as a teenager?

I will admit that, knowing as many Ivy League graduates as I do, and being familiar with their politics and opinions, I have very limited respect myself for our Establishment elite, but… one inevitably has greater respect for someone who speaks Standard English, has a good vocabulary, speaks grammatically, and avoids vulgar colloquialisms. One also tends to respect more people who behave with personal dignity, who exercise a modicum of self-restraint, and who avoid behaving shamefully and saying stupid things. Doubtless some upper middle class people come out of Fordham and Penn. Trump just isn’t one of them.

I’m afraid that I disagree about there being objective standards of taste. Donald Trump decorates his personal domiciles in a fashion combining a bad parody of the palace at Versailles with a large admixture of New Orleans whorehouse.

Obviously, we Americans find British accents (Churchill and Thatcher) highbrow and distinguished. I am not an admirer of the Boston accent, but some people (even some louts and fakers) get away with it. FDR had an old-time US Brahmin accent. Trump talks like a Jewish shopkeeper. He wheedles. He flatters. And he loses control and blusters.

It’s true that all these objections are merely stylistic. I have in the past been able to forgive Sarah Palin for some of the same sins. But Trump has no record whatsoever as a conservative. He has clearly not even, in the past, been a Republican.

His constant boasting and his readiness to descend to crude insults (particularly against women) give evidence of bad character as well as bad taste. He had given repeated evidence that he is vainglorious, thin-skinned, and vindictive. He is a blowhard and a bully.

His readiness to stoop to totally-fraudulent Birther BS to attack Cruz. His obvious insincerity, but eagerness to employ any tactic for self advantage did not escape my attention. It is obviously possible to compete in a primary contest more honestly and more honorably. Watching all that, it began to become quite clear to me that Trump’s character is not what you want to see in a president.

This was followed more recently by his childish tantrum, his absurd hypersensitvity, and his ill-advised withdrawl from the last debate, a spiteful and irresponsible gesture combining insane egotism with contemptible poltroonery. Trump behaved like a spoiled child and like a stupid rich POS far too accustomed to yesmen, flattery, and life in his own personal Wolkenkuckkucksheim. We do not need rich solipsists, nutcases, fruitcakes, or spoiled 5-year-olds as president. Trump may actually be a worse egomaniac than Obama.

Why would anyone consider supporting him?

“NYMA is a military school. How do you get yourself sent to military school as a teenager?”

That’s foolish, naive, and insulting. The answer is, in part, all high school kids are teenagers. More seriously, there are many fine military schools, NYMA included, where teens are “sent” to get a good education; some of course for a more structured environment than alternatives offer.

His “ill-advised withdrawl (sic) from the last debate” is only so according to his detractors. Many will observe, and the polls seem to support, that it was a wise move. I agree that it was a wise move. To say it was irresponsible for him not to present himself when summoned by the obviously biased FOX News is just nonsensical.

Your attacks on him are unsubstantiated and exaggerated. What tantrum are you referring to? You present as fact much that is not in evidence, most of which requires reading Trump’s mind. His actions and statements certainly don’t support most of what you’ve said. It’s the anti-Trump party line. You have been thoroughly propagandized.

No, these are my own opinions. Though I find Trump dim & vulgar, I actually was amused by his middle-finger-in-the-air candidacy, his indifference to PC, and I enjoyed his rebellion against the establishment. But it is now time to get serious, put away the whoopee cushions and stink bombs, and pick a serious candidate who really could do a decent job as president. Frankly, I do not see how any rational person could take Trump seriously. He is a lout and a vulgarian. He has no manners and no particular morals. His character is execrable. He is an egomaniac and a bully, and he is petty and vindictive. Trump is the only candidate ever to whine for six months over one hostile question, the only candidate to attack a female reporter using an objectionable metaphor, and the only candidate invited to a major debate to decline to appear. I think Trump, and people who think that Trump’s cowardice will not hurt him, are smoking locoweed.

What about you? Why Trump? Why not Cruz or Rubio?