A certain candidate has a history of attention getting -events that serve to get his face and name in the news many times a day. Free publicity! Most not quite as dramatic as Sept 16. Or July 13. The Golden Escalator, Deus ex machina (God from the machine) tactic was an early warning that as a candidate he would not play fair, but as it is said, all’s fair in love and war. Politics are a bloodless (almost) form of warfare. He blithely talks about shooting someone on 5th avenue. Free publicity!
January 6 was more significant but it has faded from consciousness. He can claim he was not at the actual insurrection, but there is little doubt he made it possible. He inspired and encouraged what turned into a riot, possibly the first step in an attempt to overthrow the government. More publicity at no cost to him! How much did it cost us?
Before he became a candidate, he earned notoriety as a ‘reality show’ host with the tagline “You’re fired.” More publicity! Most businesses I have known try to correct employees before firing them. Firing can be very expensive, may demotivate other employees and discourage creativity. Even before that he tried to convince Forbes Magazine to recognize him as the richest American. More Publicity! They did their own discrete audit and declared he was not even rich enough to be close to consideration for the 400.
Some of his stunts are less dramatic, but equally horrifying in a more surreptitious manner, like quit NATO, that’s the international equivalent of defund-the-police. More publicity! Cozying up to Kim Jung Un. That is like loaning your new sports car to a drunk you just met. Ten things can happen, and nine of them are bad. His careless invitations to Russian operatives with free access to wander within the White House were barely noticed by most people. Putin looks at him like a horny teenage boy looking at easy access to drugs or carnal pleasure.
Showing off classified documents to foreigners at Mar-a-Lago. Not to even mention the removal of tons of classified material from the White House to various sites and refusing to return any of it to the National Archive. More publicity! Storing those documents carelessly. More free publicity! Made-up nonsense about immigrants eating pets, or being murderers, rapists or poisoning our blood. Patently false, but it gets a headline. Incoherent rants that get played over and over by comedians. More free publicity!
Two assassination attempts, so close to election. Great for publicity, but were they really what they seemed? It’s far-fetched, but both attempts could have been publicity stunts that went bad, or maybe they went as planned. Thomas Crooks got off a shot, but did it really hit the candidate’s ear? Maybe he was supposed to just shoot in the general direction or in the air. Then maybe a small capsule produced some red stain on the candidate, between gunshots. Hollywood has been faking shootings for years. How could the Secret Service be so inept as to not secure a roof with a clear line of site to the podium? The roof was sloped, they claim. Roofers work on much steeper roofs every day. Unlikely, but not impossible and Thomas Crooks can never be interrogated.
Ryan Routh got caught before he could draw a bead. Was he a free agent or set-up? How did he know there would be an opportunity at that place, and day? Routh wrote. “This was an assassination attempt on him but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster.” Failed whom? Either one of those would be assassins seemed unstable enough to be baited into a compromising situation the Secret Service could then thwart. Routh left expensive incriminating evidence behind, it seems. Can that evidence actually be proven to have been in his plan when the Secret Service opened fire? Even if it can, can his motive at the moment be proven? One possible motive for such an attack is to become famous like Bonnie Parker, Jack Ruby or John Hinckley Jr.
This candidate plays the media like a jukebox.
Feedback is encouraged at obenskik@gmail.com. Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a biweekly column for West Hawaii Today.