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发帖数: 214 | 1 http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/299208-my-dinner-with-donald-no-bombast-bullying-or-bluster
Does Donald Trump have the temperament to be President? What’s he like when
the cameras aren’t rolling? A couple of my simple experiences may shed
some light on that.
I first met Donald Trump four years ago, at a dinner for Mitt Romney
supporters at the U.S.S. Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. The event was
held to thank the donors and fundraisers who had been most helpful to the
campaign, most of whom were millionaires and billionaires, just as with any
gathering of major donors to any major party candidate.
Having spent most of my career in public service, as a Foreign Service
Officer, a senior Administration official, and an officer of various non-
profit foundations, I was not a major donor; but I had solicited
contributions from so many other people, nearly all in modest donations,
than most donors were able to give. Thus the dinner on the Intrepid.
We were seated back-to-back with Melania and Donald Trump. It was very
crowded, and our chairs were literally touching theirs. With four-years-
delayed apologies to the Trumps, we could not help overhearing their dinner
conversation, and what we heard shocked us.
Donald Trump was quiet, and was interested in what others at his table had
to say. He made no attempt to dominate the dinner conversation, but rather
showed an intellectual curiosity; he solicited opinions and information from
his dinner companions. In his personal comportment he was kind, and showed
great solicitude toward his wife’s comfort. In short, he was a perfectly
normal human being, utterly devoid of the bombast, bullying, or bluster that
are part of his public persona.
After the dinner he turned to introduce himself, and spoke with us for
several minutes about our background and experience. He had nothing to gain
from talking to us, but he showed genuine interest. He was kind and
thoughtful, a very decent human being. A mensch.
We saw him again on Election Night in Boston. This time we had a couple
teenagers with us, and he was especially gracious to them. He spoke with
them more than once throughout the night, and inquired about their schooling
and their plans for the future.
Near the end of the night, after it was clear we had lost the election, he
was leaving the building in a rush, furious at the loss. But he stopped when
he saw my kids in a back hallway and stayed to exchange a few words with
them, and was again very gracious in spite of his anger at the bad news.
Two snapshots of Donald Trump, from a complete stranger, set against the
backdrop of 3 decades of public life, may be insignificant to someone making
a judgment about the temperament of a potential Commander-in-Chief. But we
can learn much about a person’s character by how he acts toward people from
whom he expects to gain nothing, especially when nobody is watching.
Which is the real Donald Trump? Is it the mensch I met at dinner, and who,
nearly alone among all the grandees on Election Night paid attention to a
couple of teenage kids, even when he had just seen his hopes for Romney
evaporate?
Or is it the character we see in public, who makes outrageous statements and
boasts? I believe the best indicator of what he truly is like is to look
at his grown children. They are sound, sober, gracious, industrious, serious
, and they are clearly close to him and devoted to him.
Trump‘s outrageous public behavior has garnered him billions of dollars’
worth of media coverage. Is it possible that underneath it all, his true
character differs widely from that public persona? It would not be unusual,
except the usual pattern is public virtue and private vice. His behavior
with strangers, when nobody was watching, suggests that he is doing it the
other way around.
Bart Marcois is a former Foreign Service Officer, and was Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs in the Bush
Administration. |
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