A Test for the Wolves at the Door -- Extreme, Extreme Vetting

August 18, 2016 Bob Howard

On Monday, Donald Trump gave the foreign policy speech long awaited by nervous Republicans throughout the country, laying out a series of specific policy prescriptions detailing what heretofore he has simply referred to as “winning” in the sphere of international relations. Trump spoke of clear differences between himself and the previous two administrations and what he sees as the pitfalls of rival Hillary Clinton’s plans, finally hinting at the possibility that he is a serious candidate worthy of the position he seeks. While many listeners found that they disagreed with the direction he intends to take the country on the global stage, they found themselves heartened to discover that Trump had, at least, finally found a direction, of some sort or another.

Well, that was the plan, anyway. Mostly he just talked about how shitty everybody else is, and how he’d have done, and will do, “it” better. But it would have been neat if he’d done that other stuff, instead.

Trump insisted that he’d always been vehemently against the war in Iraq, which isn’t true. But if Trump had found himself in charge of an ill-advised overthrow of the Baathist Saddam Hussein regime, he would have at least “controlled the oil”:

If we had controlled the oil, we could have prevented the rise of ISIS in Iraq – both by cutting off a major source of funding, and through the presence of U.S. forces necessary to safeguard the oil and other vital infrastructure. I was saying this constantly and to whoever would listen: keep the oil, keep the oil, keep the oil, I said – don’t let someone else get it.

If they had listened to me then, we would have had the economic benefits of the oil, which I wanted to use to help take care of the wounded soldiers and families of those who died – and thousands of lives would have been saved.

And the above “keep the oil, keep the oil, keep the oil” is certainly a weird way of interpreting his plan for Iraq that he expressed in November of 2004, when he said, “I do not believe that we made the right decision going into Iraq, but, you know, hopefully, we'll be getting out.” To be fair, it’s hard to imagine 2004 Donald Trump anticipating the rise of ISIS, but 2016 Donald Trump will have none of 2004 Donald Trump’s excuses.

Trump is so convinced of the bankruptcy of the generally united American ideological vision of classical liberalism that he doesn’t want to allow people who think differently than he does into the country, for fear that their ideas will find fertile ground here. So he wants a wall, and he wants a quiz. He is, in fact, so convinced that a nihilistic death cult has more appeal than the longstanding American ethos of “you do you, man,” that he has, from the beginning, modeled his campaign after one.

But we already know that Donald Trump is either utterly unaware of the fact that he is in a near constant state of self-contradiction or is an unabashed liar, or both. We already know that he is a coward, and at least professes to believe that just over half of the American voting public is as fearful as he is. WHAT ELSE YOU GOT?!

No, really, he said that.

The only new and exciting thing to come out of Monday’s speech was the sample test that Trump released (he did no such thing)--an example of the extreme, extreme vetting and ideological testing he would institute. This extreme, extreme vetting would augment the tissue-paper-like-sieve that is the current process, which takes all of 12-24 short months to get through--a failed system that has rendered large swaths of our once-great country a burned out hellscape pocked with the exploded ash marks of countless jihadists-masquerading-as-refugees that suicide-bombed their way through a third of our population.

The test is brilliantly designed to root out even the most clever and deceptive of Islamic Radicals. Trump insisted that if such a test had been given to the 9/11 hijackers, they’d never have been let in the country in the first place, and he provided an example answer sheet of how he believed they would have answered the questions.

Trump said that anyone scoring less than 18 of 20 correct would not be allowed in the country, and suggested that the test could be used on citizens, too, to determine who would be allowed to stay.

I. Multiple Choice

1. Of the following choices, which BEST represents the indomitability of the American spirit?

A. Arby’s

B. Ahmed ‘Clock-Kid’ Mohamed

C. Mary Lou Retton

D. Harriett Tubman

2. Of the following choices, which person BEST illustrates the American value of perseverance in the face of seemingly impossible odds?

A. Tim Tebow

B. Rosa Parks

C. George W. Bush

D. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

3. Of the following choices, which represents the highest legal authority, or the Supreme Law of the Land, of the United States of America?

A. Sharia Law

B. The US Constitution

C. What Bob Costas says, goes

D. Breakfast service ends at 10:30 am

4. Of the following choices, for which group do you have the MOST sympathy?

A. Hezbollah

B. Child victims of Jerry Sandusky

C. Women, generally

D. Jews, not generally but specifically Israeli

5. Of the following choices, with which historical figure would you MOST want to have a Budweiser, the American King of Beers?

A. Teddy Roosevelt

B. Abe Lincoln

C. I don’t drink

D. Jesus of Nazareth

**6. Of the following choices, which artist makes you feel America the HARDEST?**

A. Aretha Franklin

B. John Fogerty

C. Billy Joel

D. Bruce Springsteen

7. Complete the sentence: Osama bin Laden...__________.

A. ...got what was coming to him.

B. ...died a martyr’s death.

C. ...has fartypants.

D. ...should have been arrested and charged, not killed.

8. Of the following choices, around whose principles would you MOST want to build a system of government?

A. Muhammed, PBUH

B. John Locke

C. Bill Belichick

D. The Book of Leviticus

9. Of the following choices, which freedom is the MOST important to you?

A. Freedom to jihad

B. Freedom of speech

C. Freedom of religion

D. Freedom to Papa-Size

10. Complete the sentence: America is ________.

A. ...the land of the free.

B. ...the Great Satan.

C. ...finally ready to give soccer a chance.

A. True

B. False