Mike Dowd, a strapping Catholic Washington D.C. police inspector born in County Clare, Ireland, was in charge of Senate security for 13 years and Michael, my oldest brother, was working his way through law school as a Capitol elevator operator.The congressman began to tell a dirty joke. My dad raised his hand.“Stop,” Mike Dowd said. “Go say a Hail Mary.” Then he sauntered away with Michael in tow.Young Michael was a brainiac, with a Google memory before Google, who rarely lavished praise. But he always recounted that story about my dad with great pride.Someone should have told Donald J. Trump long ago to go say a Hail Mary when he started to say something smutty. Maybe then, the cheesy and cheddar-colored billionaire wouldn’t be reaping the whirlwind tonight, figuring out how to throw a Hail Mary pass to save his teetering candidacy, shore up his cowering party and salvage whatever is left of his brand.“Everything Trump touches dies,” Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant, told The Washington Post’s Phil Rucker.Trump has had an apocalyptic effect on the nation. Those who know him well describe being friends with “a hurricane.” And for 16 months, the Republican Party, Trump’s ever-shifting cast of advisers and at times, the media, have all been handcuffed to this hurricane.He has changed everything about politics. There were some good things in the beginning, like when he turned over the golden apple cart of political hucksters, showing that you can make it without a lot of high-priced mercenaries and a couple hundred million dollars worth of negative ads.But then came the avalanche of dreadful things: the bigotry, the xenophobia, the misogyny, the violence at rallies, the profane language, the vile epithets and uncontrollable vindictiveness. (I feel I got off easy being labeled merely a wacky, crazy, neurotic dope by Trump.)
Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News 