July 9, 2019--Trump's American History 101

In case you missed it, or perhaps decided to torture yourself by tuning into Trump's July 4th speech surrounded by tanks at the Lincoln Memorial, or perhaps you thought you were hallucinating when you heard him talking about our Revolutionary War airports, let me at least disabuse you of the latter--he did make mention of such airports and so you weren't having a delusional episode.

He in fact said: "Our [Revolutionary] army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets red glare, it had nothing but victory."

Oblivious, he mashed up the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Wright Brothers' first flight nearly a century later.

When Trump learned he had flunked History 101, as usual he blamed the mishap on something other than himself--it was raining and, he said, that knocked out the teleprompter.

To quote him, "I guess the rain knocked it out, but I knew the speech very well. So I was able to do it without a prompter."

About why you may have tuned in, you're on your own, as I confess I am.

But since you may have watched as I did, did you catch the performance of the "Marine Corps Hymn"?

In the background you could see Trump mouthing some of the words. Since I'm good at lipreading I can share with you what he was singing--

From the balls at Mar-a-Lago

To the shops at Tiffany's

I fight the New York Times

On the newsstand and TV

Who cares about rights and freedom

Or our democracy

As long as I don't have to serve

As a United States Marine