V.P. Pence commended President Trump for speaking his mind.  Apparently, his mind is limited to 140 characters.  Trump says, “We’ll destroy his career.”  Hopefully, he was referring to himself.

I e-mailed my Republican Senator to advise him that due to his paid vote to confirm the unqualified lobbyist, Betsy Devos, as Secretary of Education (the DeVos family contributed almost $50,000 to his campaign contributions), I will be working proactively to oppose his re-election in 2020.  I received a lovely form letter in response, thanking me for contacting him.  I’m glad he likes it – I will be doing it often.  I replied with a link to my blog.

Words – misspoken, inappropriate, inaccurate, combative, offensive, alternatively factual, absent, or let’s call it as it is, lies – which emanate from the White House, do have power.  Sure we laughed at how Frederick Douglass is doing a great job.  The Bowling Green Massacre could have been a classic blooper, except that Kellyanne Conway claimed it was a simple slip of the tongue … but it wasn’t.  She had said the very same thing in two other separate interviews.

Every word that comes out of the White House needs to be accurate, unbiased and measured.  One misspoken word, and especially one repeated misspoken word, could start a war, alienate an ally, foment violence or undermine this country’s stability.  But even more importantly, erroneous presidential words that are not misspoken but that are deliberately presented, aside from the highly inelegant vocabulary of the President, can convey inaccuracies to millions who follow him blindly.  Words can also be highly offensive to large groups of people. Let’s take a look at a few words, phrases and sentences that have come out of the White House.

“Bad hombres” was used in the debates, but it has been reported that it was also restated in a phone call between President Trump and the Mexican president.  Using Spanish when referring to criminals will inevitably link the two in some people’s minds.  How about “so-called judge?” – a mainstream Republican appointed by George W. Bush, a jurist who has deep convictions and speaks his mind.  It begs the question – was Trump itching for the inevitable response – so-called President?  Then, there is “dishonest press.”  The First Amendment to the Constitution protects the freedom of the press, and yet the President is attempting to delegitimize those who keep watch on our leaders, our country and our enemies.

Now, a more personal one – “America First.”  The Anti-Defamation League requested that President Trump refrain from utilizing this phrase because it is deeply offensive to Jews.  If you are not a student of history, you might not know that phrase was adopted as a credo by an isolationist anti-Semitic movement of the 1940s, headed by Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, which blamed the Jews for World War II.  Instead of heeding the ADL’s request, Trump hammered in the slogan at his inauguration.

And finally, the sin of omission.  Failure to mention Jews in the White House Holocaust Remembrance Day statement was not a proclamation of inclusion.  The State Department prepared a message that recognized Jewish Holocaust victims, but the White House deliberately didn’t use it.  Since the Holocaust Museum defines the Holocaust as “the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators," it was a particularly egregious omission.

Yes, words, or lack thereof, do make a difference – especially those emanating from or ignored by the most powerful source in the world.

Here’s a link to another recent White House misstatement:  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-repeats-backwards-claim-about-murder-rates/