All's Fair in Love & War & Politics - Not!

All’s Fair is Love and War and Politics, Right?
The View from the Middle

Last night I was sitting on my back porch discussing the issues of the day with two friends who are often opposed to my political positions. Yes, some of my best friends are liberal Democrats. During our discussion, the subject of the condemnation of Melania Trump’s shoes came up. In case you missed this ludicrous story, Melania was resoundingly denounced by the lame stream media for wearing high heel shoes as she boarded Air Force One for her trip to the Hurricane Harvey disaster area. I brought it up to demonstrate the new low to which the media has dipped in their desperate effort to criticize anything Trump.
Believe it or not, one of my friends argued that this was a legitimate story because, “All’s fair in love and war and politics” and if your goal is to destroy our sitting President then even this piece of trivia was worth highlighting. Like most people, he hadn’t heard “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey would have said. Melania got off the Air Force One in a pair of tennis shoes. Most people will, in fact, miss the second half of this story because, as usual, the lie or distortion appears on the front page but the correction and or clarification appears on page 15 of section Z.
Two points became clear to me after I heard this “all’s fair” comment. First, while this cliché’ may be very clever, it is not true. People who want to rationalize their own lying, cheating and abusive behavior use it. I’m sure Hitler was a big fan of this saying as is ISIS as they burn people alive in cages. Even in war we have rules and you would think that love would deliver even purer motives. 1st Corinthians says, “Love is patient and kind. It does not boast and is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs.” It also says that love does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth and it always protects, trusts, hopes and preserves. It says nothing about deception, demonization and ridicule.
People ask me why I defend Trump so much. After all, he’s not a politician (that’s actually a plus for me) and he often says things that make me cringe, and I will criticize him when he does. I defend him because he is under relentless attack from Democrats, the lame stream media and “the swamp” who wake up every morning with the goal to condemn whatever he does, no matter what! These are the kind of people who will resort to denouncing Melania’s shoes. These people will even figure out how to criticize her change into tennis shoes when she got to Corpus Christie.
Trump denounced the violence in Charlottesville, on both sides. How dare he?! Even if it was absolutely true, he should have only criticized the Neo-Nazis, KKK and white supremacists. Then when he actually does condemn all of those parties by name. “Sorry, it’s too late!!” his critics will chant. Antifa has been escalating their violence for eight months and we finally got Nancy Pelosi to condemn their violence. That was eight months after the start and three days after the most recent event in Berkley, but that’s not too late? And that’s just Pelosi. What about Schumer? Clinton? Obama?
It is obvious that the leaders of this “Trump can NEVER do anything right” campaign will do anything to distract, disrupt and hinder this President’s efforts. They would rather see him fail even if that would have devastating consequences for our country, than see him succeed and have the country prosper. Why? Just follow the money, and the power. The American people may suffer tremendously if we handicap our President to these unprecedented levels, but the leaders of the “Hate Trump” thug groups will do just fine.
My other friend, interestingly, suggested that there were selfish, evil, corrupt and narcissistic people on both sides of the political spectrum and that we should come together “in the middle” (his words, not mine) and work to actually find solutions to our problems. I must agree with that wisdom.
So, when you see the unhinged, unbalanced, hyperbolic reports on either side of the political argument, reject them!! Let me even appeal to Obama fans out there who complained that he had obstructionist elements in his path. Is what you condemned before now commendable because the shoe is on the other foot? Is it OK to lie, cheat, distort and demonize to further your side’s argument? If your answer is yes, then you can wrap yourself up in your “All’s fair” blanket, but recognize that we’ll never resolve any of our issues if we play with this divisive, selfish and even inaccurate philosophy.