One of my favorite movies was the 1955 film “Prince of Players” where Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes Booth was played by Richard Burton. In the movie, weeks after his brother assassinated President Lincoln, Edwin Booth returns to the stage to play Hamlet. When the curtain rises he is confronted by an angry crowd. That is easy to understand, under the circumstances. His brother was the most hated man in America. Booth (Richard Burton) is sitting there while the crowd is literally pummeling him with anything they can throw. The rest of the cast flees the stage in horror, but Booth does not move. He just sits their stoically absorbing their fury. Finally everything changes when one protestor yells, “He’s got guts.” Eventually the crowd stops screaming and starts clapping. Gradually, the rest of the cast returns and Booth goes on with the play.

In many ways the Prince of Players reminds me of Donald Trump. Never in our history has one person received such vicious, unrelenting negative coverage by the press. It clearly has become personal and it is obvious that many in the MSM absolutely despise the man. When those awful tapes were released the MSM attacked with all its fury. In many ways, Trump deserved their scorn; the tapes were indeed that bad. But I am beginning to think the MSM has made an enormous mistake. Instead of destroying Trump, they just may have exposed him as a man of unusual strength and courage. Trump definitely has his faults, but he also has guts. At some point one has to admire a man who can absorb such punishment without backing down. If people start to admire Trump for his raw intestinal fortitude, the MSM media, on mission to destroy him, may ironically propel him into the White House.

When you think about it, the most important characteristic of a President of the United States is strength of character. Strength of character does not mean being a choir boy who obeys all the rules. It is rather a flawed human being capable of making impossible decisions. FDR and Churchill both ordered mass bombing raids on civilian populations. How does one justify giving such an order? The answer is quite simply that both men realized that the most unethical decision they could make is one that would let either Germany or Japan win that war. Yet most of us cannot imagine ordering a bombing raid that would level a city and destroy 100,000 innocent civilians. I definitely would not want to be confronted with that kind of decision. These are not necessarily nice people, but they are necessary people. We are all very fortunate that FDR was President of the United States and Winston Churchill was Prime Minister of Great Britain during World War II.

Perhaps it is time that people start to ask a simple question. What, exactly, are we looking for in a Commander in Chief? I think choosing a person with guts is a good place to start.

TDM