Yes, this classic Trumpism is from the man who proudly asserted, “Ya know what I’d be good at – MILITARY” Well he may have the best words, but he doesn’t use very many of them. And his harrangs would be mercifully shorter if “huge”, “incredible” and “amazing” were removed from his repertoire. Nor does he seem to know how to string together his best words into proper English sentences, that is unless the sentences come in the form of a retraction.  The most recent retraction was issued to clean up the mess he made at this week’s debate.  And I strongly suspect those great sentences with the best words were written for him by someone on his staff. But why all the fuss?  Well, the man who repeatedly boasts he’ll be good at “military” didn’t realize that he cannot order troops to perform illegal acts like waterboarding or “much much much more” than waterboarding.  Yes, that issue was settled at the Nuremberg Trials, apparently unbeknownst to Mr. Trump.

During the debate Mr. Trump insisted that our military personnel will do whatever he commands because he’s a leader and people follow a leader. Even if his orders were illegal or unethical, by the sheer force of his persona the military would bend to his will. Obviously his team realized this outrageous boast needed to be dialed back, hence the clarification with lots of words neatly arranged and delivered to the Wall Street Journal after the debate. But Trump just couldn’t control himself and on Face the Nation the following morning he waded back into the issue. This time he decided the way forward was to couch the argument using one of his favorite words – competition! Yes torture and killing POWS is illegal and he would never order our troops to do anything illegal. So what is needed?  We need to change the laws so that we can compete with ISIS. He argues they are chopping off heads, but we can barely bring ourselves to even waterboard because we are sissies. If only we were unshackled from legal restrictions we could compete on a level playing field with the Islamic terrorists.  What is needed he argues are less restrictive torture laws so we can torture people – legally!

I’m with Louie CK, the leading Republican candidate for the president of the United States is channeling strains of National Socialism. I suspect his supporters would know what that is by it’s more popular designation – Nazism.