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A few days ago, I was asked on CNN to make sense of one more case in which Donald Trump had said something demonstrably false and then explained it away with a caustic tweet and an indignant interview. I replied that there was a pattern here and a term for a person who did this kind of thing: a “bullshit artist.” I got cheers and boos for the comment from partisans on both sides, but I was not using that label casually. Trump is many things, some of them dark and dangerous, but at his core, he is a B.S. artist.

Harry Frankfurt, an eminent moral philosopher and former professor at Princeton, wrote a brilliant essay in 1986 called “On Bullshit.” (Frankfurt himself wrote about Trump in this vein, as have Jeet Heer and Eldar Sarajlic.) In the essay, Frankfurt distinguishes crucially between lies and B.S.: “Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point. In order to invent a lie at all, [the teller of a lie] must think he knows what is true.”

But someone engaging in B.S., Frankfurt says, “is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says.” Frankfurt writes that the B.S.-er’s “focus is panoramic rather than particular” and that he has “more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color, and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art. Hence the familiar notion of the ‘bullshit artist”.

This has been Trump’s mode all his life. He boasts — and boasts and boasts — about his business, his buildings, his books, his wives. Much of it is a concoction of hyperbole and falsehoods. And when he’s found out, he’s like that guy we have all met at a bar who makes wild claims but when confronted with the truth, quickly responds, “I knew that!”

Speaking of BS and its relative stink...
Donald Trump has endorsed Ryan and McCain. Personally, I feel that if he had previously endorsed their opponents he should stick to his guns. His supporters don't much care for either of them.

Dear Members and Alumni,
In every presidential election since 1888, the members and Executive Board of the Harvard Republican Club have gathered to discuss, debate, and eventually endorse the standard-bearer of our party. But for the first time in 128 years, we, the oldest College Republicans chapter in the nation, will not be endorsing the Republican nominee.
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Perhaps most importantly, however, Donald Trump simply does not possess the temperament and character necessary to lead the United States through an increasingly perilous world. The last week should have made obvious to all what has been obvious to most for more than a year. In response to any slight –perceived or real– Donald Trump lashes out viciously and irresponsibly. In Trump’s eyes, disagreement with his actions or his policies warrants incessant name calling and derision: stupid, lying, fat, ugly, weak, failing, idiot –and that’s just his “fellow” Republicans.
He isn’t eschewing political correctness. He is eschewing basic human decency.

Speaking of BS and its relative stink...
Donald Trump has endorsed Ryan and McCain. Personally, I feel that if he had previously endorsed their opponents he should stick to his guns. His supporters don't much care for either of them.

Read the Harvard Republican Club's Letter Blasting Donald Trump


Fortune

The Havard Republican Club represents all that is wrong with America: a group of snooty, elitist snobs who think that just because they've "studied" something, their considered opinion is worth more than a Real Man's gut feeling.

Every Real Man knows that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for the emasculation of each and every man in America. In the face of that threat, how could a man's man like Donald J. Trump be anything but a good choice for every Right Thinking American?

“The American people must accept that I am never, ever going to get better on my own, and realize that, if untreated, my condition will spiral even further out of control until I enter a persistent and almost certainly violent state of psychosis,” said Trump during what many pundits saw as the most devastating rhetorical blow landed during the debate. “Listen to me: I need to be institutionalized for the rest of my life and kept outside of normal human society. Please, stop cheering. I’m suffering.”

“For the love of God, I just want this to end,” he continued.

Trump reportedly concluded his remarks by making the evening’s most compelling argument for his case, saying it should be legal to detain Muslim U.S. citizens indefinitely without just cause.