I remember a time not too long ago that one could pull the transcript of a presidential speech from the White House website to get the full remarks in context rather than the snippets and selective bits that the media deigns to show during their news bulletins.

Interestingly enough, transcripts have become a lot harder to come by and it’s not particularly hard to discern the reason why given what we witnessed at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday on Memorial Day.

If you just went with the White House’s reporting, you couldn’t help but leave with the impression that the ceremony and the speech were a solemn and dignified affair that was a respectful rendering of honours to our nation’s fallen members of the armed forces.

In fairness, the vast majority of the speech was just that…a fitting tribute for those who had made the ultimate sacrifice in service to and defence of our great country and I was especially pleased to see the tribute to Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent recognising that women actually do serve in essential roles in our military and occasionally sacrifice their lives just as the men do in spite of the current policies being implemented at the Pentagon!

But the transcripts show that there were some other significant portions of that speech that had no business being in an address being delivered on Memorial Day on our nation’s most hallowed ground such as these (with my comments interspersed):

Thank you to Vice President Vance, doing a terrific job. Thanks also to a man who has devoted his life to service members and veterans, Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who’s doing really well. He went through a lot, didn’t he? But he’s doing really well. He’s a tough cookie. That’s what we want. He’s a tough cookie.

Went through a lot?

I’d argue the exact opposite and that the Senate should have rejected his nomination to be Secretary of Defence on the rather non-political grounds that he was hopelessly unqualified for the position and had Senator Thom Tillis not embarked on yet another one of his infamous U-turns, he probably wouldn’t have been confirmed.

Considering that it didn’t take long for SecDef Hegseth to completely throw operational security in the bin by putting the timings for an active operation on an unsecured platform that had a journalist seeing it in real-time (and later disclosures that his family members are also participants in conversations they have no business being a part of)…it is an absolute travesty that he’s still in the Pentagon and if he even had the tiniest shred of decency and honour, he’d have resigned long ago.

Those young men could never have known what their sacrifice would mean to us, but we certainly know what we owe to them. Their valor gave us the freest, greatest, and most noble republic ever to exist on the face of the earth, a republic that I am fixing after a long and hard four years. That was a hard four years we went through.  

Who would let that happen? People pouring through our borders, unchecked, people doing things that are indescribable and not for today to discuss. But the republic that is now doing so very well, we’re doing so very well right now. Considering the circumstances, and we’ll do record-setting better with time. 

We will do better than we’ve ever done as a nation, better than ever before. I promise you that. In every generation since, at Trenton and Yorktown, at Vicksburg and Shiloh, and in far away places with names like Chateau-Thierry, Anzio Iwo Jima, Khe Sanh, Kandahar. A few, really, just a few chosen names, and these are names that have become so important on the altar of freedom. 

Whisky tango foxtrot?!?

In what reality does any of the underlined bits have any place in a speech on Memorial Day at Arlington?

And did anyone actually read the second sentence of the second paragraph there and completely miss the inherent contradiction?

President Trump was right in that it was “not for today to discuss” and he darned well shouldn’t have used this particular speech to start airing those tired old grievances yet again.

The Memorial Day speech at Arlington is not and has never been intended to be a partisan political speech…ever. That it’s been done is a disgrace and insult to the memory of those who are buried there and their families and loved ones.

We’re going to have a big, big celebration, as you know, 250 years. In some ways, I’m glad I missed that second term where it was because I wouldn’t be your president for that. Most important of all, in addition, we have the World Cup, and we have the Olympics. Can you imagine? I missed that four years, and now look what I have, I have everything. 

Amazing the way things work out. God did that. I believe that too. God did it. 

You know, I got the World Cup and I got the Olympics. The 250 years was not mine, I’d like to take credit. But I got the Olympics, I got the World Cup when I was president, and I said, boy, it’s too bad I won’t be president then, and look what happened. 

I, it turned out, and we’re going to have a great time. We’re going to have a great celebration. But most important of all is the 250th anniversary that blows everything away, including the World Cup and including the Olympics, as far as I’m concerned. In any corner of the cemetery, at any resting place for our war dead, anywhere on Earth, you’ll find untold stories of equal hero, heroism and heartbreak, unmatched patriotism and devotion, and acts of selflessness and courage.

I would love to see the original text that was on the teleprompter because I just can’t imagine a professional speechwriter (or even an intern with the worst attitude ever seen!) ever write such a self-aggrandising set of paragraphs like that much less ever allow it into a presidential speech.

Especially *THIS* one in this setting!

Don’t get me wrong…I love the World Cup just as much as the next person that loves proper football rather than that much less active and action-packed form of rugby that’s popular in this country. I also used to really love the Olympics when it was actually a competition of amateur athletes rather than the stacked professional “dream teams” we see nowadays.

But there is no denying this is just plain unhinged and reeks of Trump’s tendency to ramble and riff off piste until the last sentence and the rest of the speech finally brings him back to where he really should have been all along.

I wish I could say I was surprised at the performance we saw…I really wish I could. But when the preview sent out over social media was this posted a few hours prior, the only saving grace is that the actual speech at Arlington could have been much, much worse!

Someone really needs to pull President Trump aside and remind him that there not only is there a concept called mixed-case letters but more importantly there is a time and a place for his usual rants and airing of grievances bereft of any semblance of objective truth and reality and that Arlington National Cemetery is most definitely not one of them!

Memorial Day was not and is not about him. It never was and never will be.

For him to say and do otherwise brings disgrace to the memory of those who served with honour and valour who rest in eternity and is an insult to those of us who have loved ones who earned their place in America’s most hallowed ground.