They are still there!!.
Posted on 04/09/2011 2:31:20 AM PDT by quesney
Re “Donald Trump Gets Weirder,” by Gail Collins (column, April 2):
Even before Gail Collins was with the New York Times, she has written nasty and derogatory articles about me. Actually, I have great respect for Ms. Collins in that she has survived so long with so little talent. Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers) is not at a high level. More importantly, her facts are wrong!
...I don't need Ms. Collins's advice. There is a large segment of our society who believe Barack Obama, indeed, was not born in the United States. His grandmother from Kenya stated, on tape, that he was born in Kenya and she was there to watch the birth. His family in Honolulu is fighting over which hospital in Hawaii he was born in-they just don't know.
He has not been able to produce a “birth certificate” -merely a totally unsigned “certificate of live birth”-which is of very little significance. Unlike a birth certificate, a certificate of live birth is very easy to obtain. Equally of importance, there are no records in Hawaii that a Barack Hussein Obama was born there-no bills, no doctors names, no nurses names, no registrations, no payments, etc. As far as the two notices placed in newspapers, some feel the grandparents put an ad in order to show that he was a citizen of the U.S. with all of the benefits. Everybody, after all, and especially then, wanted to be a citizen.
[...]
For some reason, the press protects President Obama beyond anything or anyone I have ever seen.
[...]
Open your eyes, Gail, there's at least a good chance that Barack Hussein Obama has made mincemeat out of our great and cherished Constitution!
DONALD J. TRUMP New York, April 7, 2011
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I would have said it if you hadn’t.
The Donald is proof that some people will vote for any old crud if it says the right words about the birther thing. Is he a conservative on anything else? Is he a Republican? Is he even a northeastern RINO? Who knows? Who cares? He’s one of us! Yay!
“Odds are, Trump mashed this letter out within 15 minutes of having read her column.”
He could have been mocking her writings.
OK, I’m going to put this whole ‘horrible letter’ business to rest right now. What others have said is true, and (with the exception of Andy Jackson) none have supported their ‘horrible letter’ assertion with any examples of evidence from the actual letter of such judgment. I grade college essays and standardized test writing submissions (such as state assessments and the ACT) for a living. It is my job to assess the writing of others, so I feel fairly confident that I am highly qualified to make a legitimate judgement call on this, although I do not profess to be an expert grammarian. (And no disrespect intended to those who have passed judgement on the letter because of their college journalism class or because they, too, are writers.)
To the person who stated the verb tense was wrong in the first sentence: On the contrary, Trump’s context is that she has written nasty articles about him, and that action (writing articles) is an ongoing action. The introductory dependent clause does not change that. If he had used the ‘had written’ verb form, it would have been an incorrect implication that the action was something that no longer occurred.
Trump’s opening paragraph is weakly developed, lacking a clear topic sentence, but clearly the intent is to slam Collins, which he effectively does in his second sentence. His third sentence is poorly constructed, particularly the parenthetical which is really adding nothing to the sentence (except tooting his own horn). His closing sentence in paragraph one is his thesis, which is clear and concise.
In paragraph two, his opening sentence could be more succinct, particularly in the introductory clause. He gets a bit overzealous with comma usage in the next two sentences, but all are appropriately placed. Using the word ‘who’ rather than the word ‘that’ when referring to the ‘large segment’ is a bit perplexing, since who is used for persons and that is used for objects. What to do when an object is used to describe a group of persons? (I think even the wisest grammarian would struggle with that one. I’m sure there’s a rule, but I don’t have time to go look it up.) The dash usage in the final sentence is not problematic. Actually, ellipses are not allowed in academic writing except to indicate edits in citations, so the person who stated an ellipsis should have been used here was incorrect.
Moving on, I do not believe the quotations are required in the first sentence of the third paragraph. Capitalizing the names of the documents might have been more effective. Adding the adjective ‘official’ before Birth Certificate would have added more clarity. His punctuation in the opening sentence is flawed in several places. He begins his next two sentences with effective transitional phrases, demonstrating variety in sentence structure (an advanced writing quality). He then uses the ‘as far as’ again, which stylistically could be considered overused, but this is the least of his worries in this sentence, which is poorly constructed. The use of ‘thereto’ indicates his familiarity with legal documents. It is not a commonly used word, but is used often in the legal profession, particularly in real estate contracts. (I used to work in a commercial real estate office, and typed many contracts with sentences ending in ‘thereto’ all the time.) The last sentence in this paragraph is poorly punctuated, but the meaning is clear.
His next two paragraphs lack focus and unity. Combining those two paragraphs into one would have been more effective, using his topic sentence in the fifth paragraph (about the press) and moving the sentence about the derogatory (a term he used twice in one sentence, which is a poor style choice) nature of the word ‘birther’ to be the topic sentence for perhaps the second or third paragraphs. He uses a fairly sophisticated word (aspirant) in this paragraph, indicating specific word choice. I do not believe the quotation marks around “scam” are required.
The closing sentence is a comma splice and should be two sentences or should have a semicolon after Gail instead of the comma.
In terms of content and message, overall I believe he was effective in staying on point, although structurally there were areas that could use some fine tuning. He did support many of his statements with strong assertions, but to be more effective in his content, some reference to his sources should have also been included.
So, there you have it. After reviewing it carefully, I wouldn’t call it ‘horrible’(believe me, I have seen ‘horrible!’), but it was also not as effective as it could have been. It indicates to me that he spent very little time on it and probably just wrote it like many of us do when composing an ‘angry email’ response.
Now, back to my grading...
They are still there!!.
BRAVO Donald Trump!
I agree. The Donald rulezzzzz. The Republican’s only candidate with cojones. Contrast him w the Huckster w his dumbass TV show.
Nevertheless, I found Trumps letter direct and forceful. It's a joy to see him take on the MSM. You are probably right, he probably spent little time writing it.
P.S. please don't review my post -- I am not a professional writer :)
You get an A+
:-)
I agree. with you. Is it because of his divorces? I am glad to see at least somebody is not intimidated by the media and speaks out on issues.
Apparently Collins has written unflattering stuff about the Donald before and he sent her a copy of her article with a dogface drawn over her picture. LOL!!
We agree on that. I do not consider Trump a credible presidential contender. Would never vote for him nor do I think he will survive the primary process if he attempts to run.
Buty, as I said, I have to respect him for taking on Onada’s birth issue. Fortunately he seems to have sufficient money to afford the best in personal security.
I’m sure Onada will try to buy him off. But IMHO I don’t think it will be in Trump’s long term interests to be bought. He likes to make unlimited amounts of money. Marxists are the antithesis of that.
It’s also possible that Trump, in his own way, is a patriotic Constitutionalist American. He may simply see it as his duty to lead the charge against the Usurping Marxist President Onada.
LOL! I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The self righteous annoy me, no one is perfect.
I think the letter was okay. Remember, people have been blowing off the issue in droves. If he can keep it simple, so much the better. IMO
>The document has the stamped signature of the state registrar. The University of Pennsylvania’s FactCheck.org made a pilgrimage to the Obama campaign headquarters, examined the document, felt the seal, checked the serial number and reported that it looked fine.<
The problem is that anyone could get one at the time that Obama got his. The certificate of live birth means that someone was born. No idea where though. It never says where they were born, only that the birth was recorded in Hawaii.
THAT is the issue
I have always been told the same thing
>I don’t understand why so many here hate Trump. He has more guts than anyone for speaking out about this issue.<
agreed!
“I don’t understand why so many here hate Trump. He has more guts than anyone for speaking out about this issue.”
I don’t believe any hates Trump...but there are a good many of us who want this matter quietly addressed, because if Obama does finally prove that he is a citizen...oh let’s say just before an election, then he will make fools of his “enemies”.
I think the investigations should go forward, but we should bite our lips until there is 100% proof.
About freaking time.
So many many men in DC without balls.
It would be nice to have just ONE pro-American Man in DC, just one Man would make me happy. Just one, but not The One. : )
Those that think it is a distraction, spend endless hours on these threads trying to make the rest of us feel small for asking questions. I need to know, “WHY” do you feel the need to do this?
I'm sorry, but I swore an oath to protect the constitution many years ago, and I have never been relieved of that obligation.
To all of you that dislike the “birthers” STF up and go back to DU where you belong.
I wouldn't vote for Trump, but at least his voice is scarring the Hell out of the left.
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