That Was The Week That Was (TW3)
That Was The Week That Was.* The week of March 28 – April 3 2016. Week 13 was not a good one for the Trump Campaign.
There was a trio of jolting gaffes. First about the Trump photo-spread wife fights: Melania versus Heidi. Then the blow of a criminal arrest in Florida of lightweight bully campaign manager Lewandowski for misdemeanor simple battery on a female reporter. Then Trump’s clumsy, ill-considered remarks about the need to punish women who have an abortion, with his subsequent crawfishes, walk-backs, attempted revisions, and clarifications, which just made the whole spectacle worse.
Even Trump, the uber confident, never-mistaken candidate admitted on Sunday it was not one of his better weeks. He did not really offer any details, as is his habit, but said there were maybe two others as bad or worse in the campaign. He didn’t say which ones.
From Chas Danner in New York Magazine, April 3:
“Yeah, it was a mistake,” he told Dowd, conceding that “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have sent it.” Trump offered a similar mea culpa on Fox News Sunday, acknowledging he “could have done without” the re-tweet, although he still didn’t think it was “particularly bad.”
Trump also admitted in the Fox News interview that he shouldn’t have bungled one of his (many, disparate) abortion statements last week. Host Chris Wallace mentioned to Trump that his comment that women who violated an abortion ban should face “some sort of punishment” had done something “pretty remarkable” in that it “offended both the pro-life and the pro-choice movements with one statement.” Trump initially hedged in his response, suggesting that he was put in an impossible situation answering a “hypothetically asked” question about a hypothetical situation. Trump also tried to excuse his answer because “there would have been a very strong conservative, a very conservative group that would have said that was the appropriate answer.”
“Do you agree it was a mistake?” Wallace pressed.
“Well, I — as a hypothetical question, I would have rather asked it — you know, answered it in a different manner, yes. I would have rather answered it in a different manner,” Trump responded.
Trump then tried additionally to write off his comments as a result of his inexperience as a politician, insisting that as a businessman, he “was never asked many questions” and that he’s only “been a politician for a very short period of time” and “there’s always a learning curve.”
There is a theme here. Notice all three messes have some connection to Trump’s attitudes towards women, women’s issues, women’s rights, women’s appearance, and women’s social roles. Trump has a long history of making insulting comments about women he doesn’t like or doesn’t find attractive, all the while declaiming his virtual catnip status for the rest of the female sex.
By now, everyone in American knows how he feels about Rosie O’Donnell, Carly Fiorina, and Megyn Kelly. The past ten months of his Presidential campaign have only burnished his well-earned reputation for misogyny. He has achieved the near impossible with fully 70% of all American women thinking he is a jerk and a woman hater. In the language of the 1970’s women’s rights struggle, he is a sexist, male chauvinist pig. Disgust for his attitudes and behavior towards women is shared by women of all political stripes: Democrats, Independents, and even a slight majority of Republican women.
His drumbeat of tone-deaf statements, even if not deliberate, is problematic in the extreme. Women, after all, make of fully 54% of all voters in the general election. If he were to be nominated, a poor showing among women would be enough by itself to beat him. If he is simply being provocative, so as not to be boring, as is his pattern, it is hard to see how this behavior helps him enough with any other voter group to make up the difference. He has made statements often and consistently enough that women and those who care about and respect them are unlikely to get the joke, or take it in stride when Trump says he’s just kidding, and didn’t really mean it. There is no general election pivot on this level of crassness.
My former wife, when she encountered a particularly egregious example of boorish male behavior, would say “it was rude, crude, and unattractive” for public consumption, since she had been properly raised, and valued good manners.** Privately, she had stronger feelings and a long memory, and she was not afraid to act appropriately when the time was right. There are millions of American women who feel the same way. Trump is building a massive delayed action time-bomb against his own candidacy.
Anyway, the Trump campaign started out with their usual responses for all three setbacks. Cruz started it all. I will spill the beans. The assault never happened. There was no proof. The reporter lied. She lied once five years ago. She had a bomb in her pen. The question from Chis Matthews was unfair. Trump didn’t understand it. The question was hypothetical. Trump’s answer was actually correct. Take your pick.
Despite the full arsenal of Trump campaign response tactics, and the unprecedented apologies (sort of) for two of the three mistakes, the negative public reaction did not simmer down by week’s end.
With the Wisconsin primary looming on April 5th , it was time for Trump to bring out the big guns. Real women were called upon to defend his virtue. Hence the involvement of Melania, Trump Wife #3, and Ivana Trump, Trump Wife #1. in a one-two punch combination to reiterate Trump’s love and support for all women, not just his spouses.
A Trump Media Precursor: Bill Stern and Boxing
I grew up in the New York area in the 1950’s.*** The first book on boxing I ever read was by New York broadcaster Bill Stern (1907-1971), titled Bill Stern’s Boxing Stories (Pocket Books, 1948)
From a review of Stern’s book:
I’m not a boxing fan, but I was really happy to find a paperback copy of Bill Stern’s Favorite Boxing Stories in a bunch of free books that a neighbor on my block put out for the taking. It’s a first-edition 1948 Pocket Book with illustrations by Louis Glanzman. The writing is crisp and fun.
Stern was a broadcaster and sometimes actor who was born in Rochester in 1907 and is famous for having announced the first sports event in television history (a 1939 baseball game between Princeton and Columbia). He was a huge star for many years, passing away in 1971.
Stern was known for telling hard-to-believe stories about incredible occurrences, many of which probably were not true. This collection contains thirty such odd, brief stories. The back cover promises tales about a prizefighter who kayoed a lion and a gypsy pickpocket who became a great musician and then a great boxer when someone broke his violin.
I wasn’t old enough when I read the book to fully appreciate the joke, but I enjoyed the stories very much. He brought his boxing characters to life.****
The Trump Campaign’s Pugilistic Response
The harsh negative reaction to Trump’s most recent three rounds of comments required a forceful, direct, 10-times harder feminine reply.
From Ashley Parker in the New York Times April 4, 2016:
Wearing a short baby-blue dress, Mrs. Trump joined her husband on stage at the Milwaukee Theater on Monday night for his final rally in Wisconsin — a subdued event with a crowd that was less than capacity — before the state’s primary on Tuesday.
“No matter who you are, a man or a woman, he treats everyone equal,” said Mrs. Trump, who spoke for just over a minute and read from notes, praising her husband as “a great communicator,” “a great negotiator” and “a great leader.”
“As you may know by now, when you attack him he will punch back 10 times harder,” she said. “He’s a fighter, and if you elect him to be our president, he will fight for you and for our country.”
Watch the video of her remarks here.
She said her piece, and stood by her man. It has been reported that she didn’t want him to run for President, and has chided him to act more like a president, but she thinks he will win. He consults with her, but he has taken to telling the public about her advice while he has deciding to do the presidential thing later, since he can turn it on anytime he wants. Now is not the time.
Meanwhile, the day before In New York, 730 air miles from Milwaukee, Trump’s former first wife, Ivana Trump, who had been somewhat estranged, but has been more supportive lately, gave a long interview to the New York Post on April 3rd, two days before the Wisconsin primary vote:
Ivana says Donald’s faith in her business acumen is proof of his respect for women. “When people ask, I say that behind every successful woman is a man in shock. And it’s true, so I think Donald knew that I could achieve.
“I don’t think he’s feminist,” Ivana says upon her return when asked of Donald’s stance. “He loves women. But not a feminist.” (Ivana’s reps called The Post two days after the interview to clarify that Donald was a feminist. Then they called to say he wasn’t. An hour later, they said he was.) It was that love of women that led to the couple’s divorce. Ivana discovered that her husband was cheating on her with former beauty queen Marla Maples. As Ivana told Barbara Walters in a 1991 “20/20” interview, Maples stopped her at a restaurant in Aspen and told her, “I’m Marla and I love your husband. Do you?”
Ivana filed for divorce, claiming in her deposition that Donald raped her after he used her plastic surgeon for a scalp-reduction surgery to remove a bald spot. “Your f – – king doctor has ruined me!” Trump cried, according to the 1993 book “Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump,” before forcing himself on her sexually.
Once the book was out, Ivana softened her remarks in a statement: “As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited toward me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”
Now, she tells The Post, “It was all the lawyers. The negotiations and stuff like that. I was never abused.”
“Donald took the divorce as a businessman. And he had to negotiate and he had to win,” says Ivana. “Once the financial part was settled, we’re friendly.”
Daughter Ivanka who has been a public supporter of her father’s campaign, has just given birth, and is not active on the campaign trail right now. Trump’s Wife #2, Marla Maples, represents the West Coast contingent of the extended Trump family groups, with his second daughter, and has been mostly quiet during the campaign. She did not weigh in this week.
One-Two Feminine Punch Program Results
The final pre-voting polls had Trump down to Cruz by 3 points, 37%-34%. The Wisconsin Primary Results are in. Trump took a shellacking at the hands of Cruz The final vote margin was 48%-35%, a 13 point loss, 10 points worse than predicted. He lost to Cruz by145,000 votes.
The Trump Feminine One-Two Punch had no discernible effect on deflecting the bad publicity vibes haunting the campaign’s mistake filled Week 13. If Trump’s goal was to repair his candidate standing with voters about his attitudes towards women across the board, the campaign needs at least a couple more tune-up bouts, and a new fight plan.
The Trump campaign’s gender defense moves have consistently exposed flaws that make it vulnerable in late rounds to repeated body blows thrown from both the right and left side.
There is a little time left before the final preliminary bouts, but Trump’s campaign will have to significantly step up their game, if they want to earn a shot at the title bout.
Last week’s events did not improve their contender ranking.
The other big news was the reluctant and fumbling apologies Trump was forced to offer on Sunday. This is so rare an event as to warrant notice, indeed it is a rara avis. You are as likely to look in your backyard one day and find a Dodo bird strutting around in the flesh, as to witness a true Trump apology.
Here is Trump’s explanation for his aversion to apologizing for mistakes:
Back on Fox News Sunday, Trump also gave a succinct overall explanation for why he doesn’t apologize, as a matter of principle, noting that, “A lot of times, when you apologize, they use it as ammunition against [you].”
*That Was The Week That Was (TW3) was a British satirical revue show on BBC that aired from 1962-1963. See this retrospective look at the original British series on YouTube.
An American version was on NBC, initially as a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, then as a series from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. The pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, guests Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the opening song; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer and Calvin Trillin. The announcer was Jerry Damon. Also a guest was Woody Allen, performing stand-up comedy; the guest star on the final broadcast was Steve Allen. A running gag was a mock feud with Jack Paar, whose own programme followed TW3 on the NBC Friday schedule; Paar repeatedly referred to TW3 as “Henry Morgan’s Amateur Hour.”
The American version is largely a lost program, although the pilot survives and was donated to the Library of Congress by a collector.[9] Amateur audio recordings of most episodes also survive.[10] After the series’ cancellation, Lehrer recorded a collection of his songs used on the show, That Was The Year That Was, released by Reprise Records in September 1965.
In the American version, an episode showed a smiling U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson contemplating an easy 1964 campaign against the Republican nominee, U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The satirists sang that Goldwater could not win because he “does not know the dance of the liberal Republicans”, then a substantial component of the GOP, many of whose members had supported Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York for the Republican nomination.
** My ex-wife’s mother, Annie H., was born and raised in Pigeon Creek, Alabama (Butler County.) The nearest small town, 14 miles away, is Greenville (population 7.900 in 2014.) Pigeon Creek is 60 miles southwest of Montgomery in central Alabama. Annie H. grew up in the midst of the depression during the 1930’s and was the first member of her family to go to college and graduate from the University of Alabama with a professional degree. She was married for more than 35 years and worked all her adult life as a health professional, and then in real estate. She raised three children and taught them, by her own example, to know right from wrong, to have gracious Southern manners, and to appreciate the real value of a dollar. She was an admirable woman, gone much too soon.
Downtown Greenville, Alabama (1941). Nearest Town to Pigeon Creek, Alabama
***You can’t talk about boxing in New York in the 1950’s without describing the Gillette Friday Night Fights from Madison Square Garden (1946-1960) on NBC’s New York station.
The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports is an American radio-turned-television program that ran from 1942 to 1960. The program included broadcasts of a variety of sports, although it is primarily remembered by many[clarification needed] for its focus on boxing matches.
My grandmother bought our first family TV around 1953. It was a black & white model, I think an RCA Victor 17-inch console model.. I remember watching the Gillette Friday fights with my uncle and great uncles. Boxing legends Rocky Marciano, and Sugar Ray Robinson were among those I remember watching.
The Cavalcade of Sports also hosted the World Series, the Baseball All-Star Game, the Kentucky Derby, the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Cotton Bowl.. So I got to see a bunch of Yankee’s World Series games in the 1950s: in 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, and 1958. The Yankees also played in the Series every year from 1949-1952, and 1960-1964. During this 16 year period, they played in 13 series and won 9 times. Don Larson’s perfect game was in 1956. It seemed almost automatic to have October baseball in Yankee Stadium. Gillette brought New York sports fans the best baseball and the best boxing in one place.
These are memories I share with any boy who grew up in and around New York City in the 1950’s, including Donald Trump.
Listen to the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports Theme “Look Sharp, Feel Sharp” on YouTube
When I began to shave regularly around age 15, I would only use a Gillette Safety razor and double-edged Gillette blue blades. Habits created young build in strong consumer preferences. Fifty years later, I still reach for a Gillette razor for a proper close-to–someone-else shave. I have tried other brands of razor blades over the years (Wilkinson, BIC, and Schick) and have used electric shavers from Remington, Panasonic, Braun, and Norelco briefly at various times. In my opinion, nothing else even really comes close, for someone with a moderate to heavy beard. I might be wrong, but that’s what I believe. At least the health of the U.S. economy and our place in the world do not depend on the strength of advertising promises the way a man’s shaving habits can.
**** Bill Stern was a U.S. actor and sportscaster who announced the nation’s first remote sports broadcast and the first telecast of a baseball game. NBC hired him in 1937 to host The Colgate Sports Newsreel as well as Friday night boxing on radio. Stern was also one of the first televised boxing commentators.
He broadcast the first televised sporting event, the second game of a baseball doubleheader between Princeton and Columbia at Columbia’s Baker Field on May 17, 1939. On September 30, he called the first televised football game.
Some observers consider Stern’s style a blueprint in the 1940s for the style of Paul Harvey, ABC Entertainment Network social commentator, who adapted both Stern’s newscasting (transforming his Reel One to Page One) and his stories about the famous and odd (to Rest Of The Story), although Stern made no effort to authenticate his stories and, in later years, introduced that segment of his show by saying that they “might be actual, may be mythical, but definitely interesting.” Harvey, on the other hand, said he told only stories he had authenticated in some way.
Stern occasionally appeared in feature films as himself. Two of his more familiar credits are The Pride of the Yankees, starring Gary Cooper, and Here Come the Co-Eds, starring Abbott and Costello.