Reply #195: You have to draw the line somewhere. Once people lose respect for you, you're done. [View All]

[Azathoth]

Compromising, making deals, politicking, triangulating, pragmatic thinking -- all of that is part of the job. Humiliating yourself isn't. When it comes to matters of personal integrity, you have to stand your ground, otherwise people lose respect for you as a person. The President of the United States should not be surrendering to racist lunatics on national television. It practically drips with weakness and it sends a terrible message not just to his supporters and those who look up to him, but also to his enemies.

To make matters even worse, it makes him look incompetent in the eyes of independents. People will now ask: if he was willing and able to release the long-form certificate, why didn't he just do it years ago when this thing first took off? Why did he let this thing go for two years? And then they will immediately answer their own question: because he was playing a cute little political game. He thought it worked to his advantage to keep the birthers around, but then things got out of control when big boys like Donald Trump started to play and so he frantically had to shut the game down.