{"id":11534,"date":"2018-11-26T11:53:15","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T19:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=11534"},"modified":"2018-11-26T11:53:15","modified_gmt":"2018-11-26T19:53:15","slug":"the-costs-of-presidential-candor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-costs-of-presidential-candor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Costs of Presidential Candor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"wpsdcp-drop-cap-default\">P<\/span>redictably, Donald Trump was attacked both by the establishment and the media as \u201ccrude,\u201d \u201cunpresidential,\u201d and \u201cgratuitous\u201d for a recent series of blunt and graphic statements on a variety of current policies. Oddly, the implied charge this time around was not that Trump makes up stuff, but that he said things that were factual but should not be spoken.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s tweets and\u00a0<i>ex tempore\u00a0<\/i>editorials may have been indiscreet and politically unwise, but they were also mostly accurate assessments. That paradox revisits the perennial question that is the hallmark of the Trump presidency of what exactly is presidential crudity and what are the liabilities of presidential candor?<\/p>\n<p>Concerning the catastrophic California Camp Fire (150,000 acres) and the Woolsey conflagration (100,000 acres), which in turn followed prior devastating California fires in spring and summer of 2018 (perhaps charring 1 million acres in all),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realdonaldtrump\/status\/1061168803218948096?lang=en\">Trump tweeted<\/a>: \u201cThere is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amgreatness.com\/2018\/11\/25\/the-costs-of-presidential-candor\/\">Read the full article here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Predictably, Donald Trump was attacked both by the establishment and the media as \u201ccrude,\u201d \u201cunpresidential,\u201d and \u201cgratuitous\u201d for a recent series of blunt and graphic statements on a variety of current policies. Oddly, the implied charge this time around was not that Trump makes up stuff, but that he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1161,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-302","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11560,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-on-trumps-candor\/","url_meta":{"origin":11534,"position":0},"title":"Victor Davis Hanson on Trump&#8217;s Candor","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Please watch my recent interview with Conduit News on Trump's Candor. Watch the video here.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11212,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/elites-value-mellifluous-illegality-over-crass-lawfulness\/","url_meta":{"origin":11534,"position":1},"title":"Elites Value Mellifluous Illegality over Crass Lawfulness","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Obama defies the Constitution but sounds \u2018presidential.\u2019 Trump follows it but sounds like a loudmouth from Queens. Donald Trump blusters nonstop. He offers contrasting messages about whether, on any given day, he might fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or Deputy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11305,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/progressive-regression\/","url_meta":{"origin":11534,"position":2},"title":"Progressive Regression","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 31, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Donald Trump has certainly changed the rules of presidential behavior, through his nonstop campaign rallies, tweets, and press conferences. What his critics call lowering the bar of presidential decorum by unfettered and often crude invective, Trump dubs the \u201cnew presidential.\u201d His style has become\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Progressivism&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Progressivism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/progressivism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11144,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/donald-trump-tragic-hero\/","url_meta":{"origin":11534,"position":3},"title":"Donald Trump, Tragic Hero","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 16, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review His very flaws may be his strengths The very idea that Donald Trump could, even in a perverse way, be heroic may appall half the country. Nonetheless, one way of understanding both Trump\u2019s personal excesses and his accomplishments is that his not being traditionally\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10340,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trumps-morning-joe-tweets\/","url_meta":{"origin":11534,"position":4},"title":"Trump\u2019s Morning Joe Tweets","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 30, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson National Review's The Corner: The one and only. Just when the media take-out of Trump has backfired and exposed an endemic absence of journalistic ethics and chronic malpractice, Trump goes on another crass and extraneous Twitter attack against the increasing irrelevant MSNBC morning hosts (who have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12140,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-new-post-trump-constitution\/","url_meta":{"origin":11534,"position":5},"title":"The New Post-Trump Constitution","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The Left sees Donald Trump\u2019s comportment, rallies, and tweets as a new low in presidential behavior that justifies extraordinary countermeasures. But Trump\u2019s personal characteristics are idiosyncratic and may or may not become institutionalized by subsequent presidents. And it is not as if liberal icons\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11536,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11534\/revisions\/11536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}