Trump defenders have their say
The three articles I wrote about Donald Trump have received much attention, both pro and con. I have also written essays expressing my concern about the candidacy of Hillary Clinton and her fitness to fill the office of the United States Presidency as well as my disgust with the morals of Bill Clinton. The Press intends to publish them Sept. 6-8.
UYLESS BLACK
Coeur d’Alene
There is clearly no distinction between opinion and factual reporting in your newspaper. The front page used to be a place where a paper reported significant national or world events. Opinions were found on the editorial page or opinion section and were clearly labeled as such. No more in the Press.
This series is nothing but Black’s personal political opinion masquerading as some sort of thoughtful analysis. Placing this on your front page shows the political bias of the Press and should convince any fair-minded person that your coverage of this Presidential election cannot be trusted as to accuracy or fairness.
As to the series itself, typical of Black’s “analysis” is his reliance on alleged notes by one Schwartz who was a ghostwriter for Donald Trump. Black admits he “cannot verify the accuracy of his journal, nor can anyone else,” yet he “takes Schwartz at his word.” This does not pass even the lowest standard for scholarship or any real analysis.
Labeling this series as Analysis is laughable. It is no more than one man’s opinion, a man who has no educational background or experience that makes his opinion any more persuasive or valuable than any other citizen. It offers nothing of substance to this electoral process. It is in the Press simply because you agree with it.
THOMAS LAWRENCE
Hayden
I wonder if Mr. Black and the CDA Press will devote three front page articles about Hillary Clinton and her habitual ability to not tell the truth.
How many people under 40 years old remember the numerous scandals involving her and Bill when they were in the White House. Such as Filegate, Whitewater, Travelgate, IRS Illegal audits, Pardongate, missing billing law files, money made on cattle futures, etc. How about the looting of White House merchandise to the tune of $190,000 when they left, or the vandalism for another $14,000. How about the death of Vince Foster or the numerous other people who died unexpectedly.
Woman rights — hiring private investigators, even back in the Arkansas days, and of course in the White House, to dig up dirt on women Bill either raped or molested. Thank God Monica saved her dress, as Mrs. Clinton was getting ready to call her trailer trash.
I wonder what Mr. Black’s psychology would be of Mrs. Clinton, who knowingly stands behind her man, knowing how he abuses women. Maybe he has some insight on Mrs. Clinton’s inability to tell the truth on anything! Just take some recent things, like Benghazi or her private server and all the thousands of emails she destroyed.
Yep, I am not a Mrs. Clinton supporter. Do I like Mr. Trump? Much better than her.
Would be nice to see the so called unbiased media report on some of the things everyone has forgotten. I doubt seriously if Donald gets elected, if his presidency would be riddled with corruption and scandals.
We know from her history that if Mrs. Clinton gets elected there will be nothing but more scandals like before. Not to worry though, the media will not investigate it like they should and most people will not know anything about it.
Of course there is nothing worthy of investigating of their foundation. It’s only foreign money trying to influence our politicians.
GEORGE SILVA
Coeur d’Alene
Uyless Black did an editorial case study on Donald Trump’s narcissism and concluded that he could not endorse him. By default one would conclude that he would endorse Hillary Clinton since a third party candidate like Gary Johnson just takes votes from the more conservative candidate, which is never Democrat.
I look forward to his case in point for support of Hillary, since this woman’s lust for power, her dozens of scandals, mysterious deaths of critics make her a better alternative. I believe DT’s narcissism will ultimately make him a better president; he hates to fail, is more in touch with everyday people and he has promised many moves in the right direction, most notably smashing establishment politics that only benefit itself.
KEN SIWIERKA
Hayden
Now that we have had three hit pieces on Donald Trump on the front page, I trust we can have a similar series on Hillary Clinton with the same front page coverage — written by someone qualified to present things about her that really need to be pointed out.
For what it’s worth… where was the current occupant of the White House in the list of narcissists that led off the first article? I know — a survey being quoted, but I didn’t see Black editorialize about that when he wasn’t bashful to link whatever he could to Trump, however weak the connection. And the second article supposedly about Teddy
Roosevelt… about a third or a little more was about Teddy, then lo and behold it shifted to hitting on Trump.
Fair and balanced... not. Quite an obvious agenda was being put out in all three “analysis” articles.
JOHNNY JOHNSON
Hayden Lake
I feel that Uyless Black had done a fairly good job of giving an honest assessment of Trump and his personality traits and character until the third article. He goes to great lengths to present him as a very dangerous and scary person to be in power. I do not fault his logic that he presents but I do wonder what his end game is. Will he also do a personality analysis on Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I was born and raised in Louisiana, attended college at LSU & worked and lived in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. I am 62 years old and have experienced a rich history of Louisiana politics which have always been colorful to say the least. I was born and raised in Winnfield, Louisiana which is the birth place of Huey, Earl K and Russell Long to name just a few of our colorful town characters and Judge O K Allen who succeeded Huey after his assassination. I attended LSU during the tenure of Edwin Edwards as governor of Louisiana. We live and breathe over the top outrageous political characters. I studied and received a BS in Petroleum Engineering from LSU and worked in that industry 14 years. I then attended Seminary and received a Masters of Divinity and served as a minister in Texarkana for 17 years. I also received training as a chaplain before moving to CDA in late 2014.
From 1995-2013, I lived in Texarkana, Texas which is a twin city of Texarkana, Arkansas. I am very familiar with Arkansas politics and the activities of the Clintons in that state. I feel that doing an in depth analysis of Trump and completely ignoring the character flaws of Clinton and not doing likewise for her is a tragedy of injustice for your readers. The Clintons have a rich heritage of intrigue, questionable tactics and ethics that at least match or exceed Donald Trump’s business and political faux pas. I also would like to point out that the CDA Press printed an article from AP about fact checking the Republican National Convention. I eagerly awaited the companion piece about the DNC. Amazingly, there was no such article.
PAT HARRELL
Coeur d’Alene
What I want to know is why the Press (generically) constantly reports how dissatisfied the voters are with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and then don’t mention the other candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. It seems to me that non-reactionary Republicans and centrist from both partys could vote for Johnson-Weld. And I would think all of the ex-Bernie followers would consider Stein.
This might be the year that alternative parties have a chance to really get some votes; at least hopefully they can get into the debates if enough people say they are interested in them now in the polls.
JAMES FULTON
Post Falls
Uyless Black’s three articles on Donald Trump and his narcissisms was very interesting reading. I read the book he refers to (Art of the Deal) by Tony Schwartz and came away with an entirely different take on Mr. Trump. I read the book to get an idea of what kind of a man Donald was and what we as a country could expect from him. What I found was a very hard working and clever man that was always trying to figure the best and most efficient way of doing things.
The story of the rebuilding of the ice skating rink in New York City says it all. After many years of ineptitude by the city to get the job done and many millions of dollars spent and still no ice rink, Donald approached the city and said he would take on the job, do it in 6 months and for only $2 million. Did he do it — you bet and ahead of schedule and under budget. He had never built an ice rink so he found the company that was the best in the business at doing so and hired them. What this shows me is the man is resourceful and dedicated to whatever he undertakes.
Is he boastful? Yes, very much so, but deservedly so, he gets the job done and done right.
Hillary Clinton on the other hand, hasn’t accomplished anything except destroying a country (Libya) and in doing so, killing the current ruler and laughing about it on national TV, getting a lot of our own people killed and feathered her own nest heavily (can you say the Clinton Foundation). And she lied all the time while doing same and afterward when questioned. In my opinion only Dyed-In-The-Wool Democrats and those who want to keep the status quo in Washington will vote for her. God help us, as he is the only one who can if she gets elected.
Mr. Black says he can’t bring himself to vote for Donald Trump. As an American that is his right. However, I can not believe anyone who is ex-military and has been where he has been can bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton and her ilk. They hate all of us military (current and former) people and look down on us with great distain and dismiss us and not as good as them.
DENNIS EDELBROCK
Hayden
Should we expect a three part series from Uyless Black on Hillary Clinton? In his “analysis” of Donald Trump’s narcissism, he describes “patterns of consistent, ongoing behavior that a rational American citizen should not want exhibited in the President of the United States.” I’m curious to know how Black would “analyze” the pattern of consistent behavior that most characterizes Clinton? In the most recent WSJ/NBC Poll of Americans surveyed about the presidential candidates, 69% voiced serious concerns about Clinton’s record of being dishonest.
Twenty years ago the late New York Times Columnist William Safire wrote, “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar.” This was written well before the recent string of scandals involving the State Department emails, Benghazi, huge speaking fees and the Clinton Foundation.
So rational Americans have a choice; elect a narcissist or congenital liar. Mr. Black stated “after much reflection about the character of Trump, I cannot bring myself to support his candidacy.” If the candidate’s character is his deciding issue, I really question how much he has reflected on Hillary Clinton.
MIKE THOMPSON
Hayden