Editor’s Note: Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, a former New York homicide prosecutor and currently is of counsel at the New York law firm of Edelman & Edelman PC, focusing on wrongful conviction and civil rights cases. Follow him on Twitter @paulcallan. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.
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Paul Callan: After a horrific attack in Britain, the best label Trump can come up with for terrorist is "evil loser?"
The term is a well-worn insult from Trump's campaign days, Callan says
President Donald Trump says the killers behind the suicide bombing in Manchester are “evil losers.”
“I won’t call them monsters, because they would like that term, they would think that is a great name,” he said. “I will call them, from now on, losers because that’s what they are: losers.”
In the aftermath of Monday’s major British terror attack that left 22 dead — mostly kids – and many more wounded, the world has the right to expect that the leader of the most powerful nation on earth would reflect on this unspeakable massacre with eloquence.
Instead, the President called the killer an “evil loser,” evoking the shallow and empty ring of hastily crafted campaign slogans.
The words echoed the feel of Mr. Trump’s name-calling campaign rhetoric, such as “Lyin’ Ted,” “Crooked Hillary,” and “Little Marco Rubio.” The adolescent insult was trivial and inappropriate in a description of the horrific slaughter of so many.
During his presidential campaign, Trump used the word “loser” on Twitter more than a dozen times to describe Gov. Jeb Bush, reporters, The Club for Growth, S.E. Cupp, Graydon Carter, Sen. Ted Cruz, debate panelists, Cheri Jacobus, Bill Kristol, The New York Daily News, Karl Rove, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Politico, among others.
The word “loser” in these descriptions was sometimes preceded by adjectives like “total,” “major,” “big,” and “totally biased.” Please note that this is a highly incomplete list, omitting similarly insulting “loser” descriptions of opponents in Trump’s stump speeches, debates and other campaign appearances.
The brutal and deranged Manchester killer (or killers) deserve a presidential description that evokes something other than this cheap campaign rhetoric. Mr. Trump might do well to read the history of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who once described the German Army as “…once again having proved the truth of the saying, ‘The Hun is always either at your throat or your feet…’”
In war, even in a time of political correctness, it is perfectly proper to demonize the enemy. But it should be done effectively and after at least a modicum of deliberation.
Churchill was successful in not only demonizing the Nazis but sending a warning that has never been forgotten:
“…Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”
The President might do well to dwell on Churchill’s words before directing his next hollow salvo at ISIS.