Donald Trump and the art of the boomerang insult

[Democrats_win]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/14/politics/donald-trump-boomerang-insult/index.html

snip
New York (CNN) — Donald Trump has embraced a tried-and-true schoolyard tactic to swat away Hillary Clinton's barbs: He's flinging her words right back at her.

Clinton has accused Trump of being thin-skinned, feeding "prejudice and paranoia" and lacking any "real solutions...."

...The Republican nominee has gotten plenty of attention for his trash-talking and bare-knuckle style. But he's also developed a sub-specialty: the boomerang insult.

Rather than running from the words his opponents hurl at him, Trump seizes them, shakes them up and turns them around. It's a strategy that muddies stark differences between Trump and his rivals, and helps neutralize political vulnerabilities.

"Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing," Ted Cruz, whom Trump relentlessly attacked as a liar during the Republican primaries, said at a fiery press conference the morning of the Indiana primary in May. "In a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying. He accuses everybody on that debate stage of lying. And it's simply a mindless yell."

Trump's GOP primary opponents also relentlessly pegged the brash billionaire with the same accusation as he sketched out, with little specificity, grandiose promises to rid America of all undocumented immigrants, send the economy roaring and force other countries to bend at the knee -- all while lowering the federal debt. And like with Clinton, Trump threw the attacks back.

"Hillary Clinton is running a policy-free campaign. She offers no ideas, no solutions and only hatred and derision," Trump said Tuesday during a rally in Clive, Iowa.
---

Not a surprise to anyone at DU or fans of the Stephanie Miller Show. Stephanie Miller uses the Pee-Wee Herman routine to describe Trump:

"I know you are, but what am I?" Repeat endlessly.

[Democrats_win]

1. More from the article

"Like a schoolyard bully who can't rely on facts or issues, Trump has only one way of responding to legitimate criticism of his own vulnerabilities: 'I know you are, but what am I?'" Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri said in a statement to CNN. "You could dismiss these actions as insecure schoolyard behavior but this man is running to be President of the United States."