Breaking: Donald Trump's Response Speech on the Orlando Mass Shooting

Donald Trump's response to the mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando was truly bizarre. It swayed wildly from compassionate, to almost profoundly rational, to unhinged and nonsensical. Looking particularly badly color-tuned, with day-glo yellow fiberglass looking hair, Trump started out blasting Islamic terrorism, intimating it was the sole consuming issue. Then--surprisingly--he swung into a passionate-though-scripted-sounding defense of gay people and their freedom, and then incoherent sentences with absolutely self-contradictory verbiage.


At one point, he's attempting to thrash Hillary Clinton, using the attack as a foundation, and then goes from there to flat-out lying about her positions on gun control. No, Mr. Trump, Mrs. Clinton has never advocated either "gun grabbing," nor abolishing the 2nd Amendment.

The speech is very difficult to follow, with points to like, points to vehemently disagree with, and parts to just scratch your head at. It will be very interesting to see how it ultimately lands with the people, and with the punditry. As I type this, he still is talking (giving this write-up its own likely somewhat muddled syntax), and is using some facts, some hypebole, some subjective opinions, some objective truth, and far too many parenthetical half-thoughts.

That's a photo from my TV. Do not adjust your set. . .

In short, he's all over the place. But more so than usual. Anti Muslim (except some good Muslims, but they're all bad, except when they're not, and on and on). Pro-Constitution, except when convenient, particularly when finding out about Muslims.

In addition to looking even more garishly colored than usual--bigly or big league, your choice--he also has a curiously audible inhalation every few lines.

Keep your eyes and ears open on this one. Because in the as-it-happens, this is impossible to figure out. He's pro-gun control, anti-gun control, anti-Obama and anti-Hillary to the point of utter dishonesty. He seems to have gone full-throatedly pro-gay, while refusing to be "politically correct." He seems to advocate some implicitly political correct ideas, but misconstrues the concept of PC as inherently bad.

He wrongly states that the shooter was born Syria (he was born in New York), implies that his policy could "Keep them out" (again, he was born in New York), and can't seem to stay on subject beyond one or two sentences. He seems to think that it's been years since the San Bernardino shooting. He jumps from Obama to Hillary, from specific to vague. He's forceful, I'll give him that. That kind of "wrong but strong" that works with dumb people. But if you parse this thing, it's an utter mishmash. It's like someone shoved a microphone in my Step Dad's hand, after he's had a couple of rum and Cokes, and just let him riff.