Trump & the Conservative Establishment Deserve Each Other

No one should need National Review's advice to steer clear of Donald Trump. For one thing, the messenger is a curious one indeed. Although Trump doesn't talk like a neoconservative Wilsonian, he has not cleanly separated himself from that faction either.

Gaffe = Inadvertent Truth-Telling

Columnist Michael Kinsley once said that in politics a gaffe is an unintended statement of the truth that has to be withdrawn because it's harmful to the speaker's political fortunes. 

Latest example: Chris Christie's "misstatement" about "occupied territories" in Palestine. Christie was speaking before Israel-Firster Sheldon Adelson and the meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas: 

[A] source told POLITICO that Christie “clarified in the strongest terms possible that his remarks today were not meant to be a statement of policy.”

Instead, the source said, Christie made clear “that he misspoke when he referred to the ‘occupied territories.’ And he conveyed that he is an unwavering friend and committed supporter of Israel, and was sorry for any confusion that came across as a result of the misstatement.”

Christie might be able to salvage his presidential ambitions from the wreckage of the George Washington Bridge scandal, but he'd never survive a public acknowledgement of an undeniable truth: Israel's illegal and unconscionable occupation Palestine

TGIF: Will 2016 Be a Good Year for the Corporate State?

It's shaping up that way. See TGIF.