Not much in American politics surprises or dismays me. The prospect of a Donald Trump-moderated GOP presidential debate a week before the Iowa caucuses most certainly does. I heard about this proposed circus when I emerged from a screening of “Act of Valor” at the Motion Picture Association of America in Washington this past Friday.
The film, to be released on Presidents Day weekend, is a deeply moving action movie about terrorism, the Navy, the SEALs and the families of the warriors featured in the film.
It is a “Top Gun”-style action picture, made with the full cooperation of the Navy, and it stars seven SEALs, all of whom remain on active duty. It turns out it was easier to teach the SEALs to act than to teach actors how to be SEALs.
The movie is an intense and violent action picture, and one Washington Post reporter who saw it said the first battle sequence in it was the most intense he had ever seen on film. Nearly everyone who has seen the movie says the same thing.
What is most surprising is how deeply touching the film is as it provides glimpses of what military families face and have faced for the past decade. The wife of one Navy pilot — a seasoned and accomplished advocate for military families — and another woman at the screening, the daughter of a special forces operator as well as the sister of a Ranger, both wept through the movie.
“‘Act of Valor’ is ‘Braveheart,'” said a pastor who had caged an invite to the media preview, “but real and now.”
“Act of Valor” is also a two-by-four to the collective head of civilian America on the seriousness of the job of commander in chief. For the past decade, first George Bush and now Barack Obama have been ordering the deployment of men and women to the most dangerous places on the planet. Many don’t come back, and many of those who do return are terribly wounded.
These military professionals willingly “go downrange” because of the terrible evil infesting the world. The combined arms of every branch of the military are working 24/7/365 to hold it at bay and defeat it, and have been doing so for 10 long years.
It is a slap in the face to the military making these sacrifices to make the process of choosing its next boss a game show staged on the eve of the first vote.
Want a serious debate about who should be the GOP nominee? Ask former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs or former Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Air For Force, Commandants of the Marine Corps or Chiefs of Naval Operations to ask the questions of the candidates. That would be a debate equal to the seriousness of the times we face.
In what I have long considered to be the best political column ever written because it was truly prophetic, Peggy Noonan wrote in November of 2000 that the “next president may well be forced to shepherd us through the first nuclear event since World War II, the first terrorist attack or missile attack.
“Half the foreign and defense policy establishment fears, legitimately, that the Big Terrible Thing is coming, whether in India-Pakistan, or in lower Manhattan,” Noonan added. “When it comes, if it comes, the credibility — the trustworthiness — of the American president will be key to our national survival.”
These paragraphs should be in front of every debate moderator when they begin their questions, and the moderator should not be a reality show host and real estate impresario, no matter how successful.
Trump is a man of accomplishment and charisma, but this is wrong. It trivializes, indeed demeans, everyone involved.
Can you imagine such a spectacle in the aftermath of 9/11? Then why tolerate it on what could be the eve of another?
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
