Steve Womack kept speaking and the hole he joined President Donald Trump in just kept getting deeper.
Womack, representing Northwest Arkansas, is among 239 Republican members of Congress who from time to time have to employ song and dance as they defend a president who makes it a practice to behave in ways that are fairly indefensible.
What’s the point?
The president’s crude sentiments about other nations and the desirability of emigration from them are unfortunate. Our own congressman didn’t help his cause by trying to defend the indefensible.
Donald Trump gave them a doozy this time. Or, more accurately, doody.
Readers of this newspaper know the controversy: In a meeting the other day with lawmakers to hash out details of immigration policy, the discussion turned to including immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries in a bipartisan deal over undocumented immigrants known as "dreamers" who were brought into the United States as children. According to several reports citing individuals who were in that meeting, President Trump was frustrated. His administration last year said it would revoke protected status from nearly 60,000 Haitians in the United States by mid-2019 after the Department of Homeland security concluded the "extraordinary conditions" justifying sanctuary after a 2010 earthquake no longer exist.
In the midst of those discussions, the president, who has been looking for ways to reduce legal and illegal immigration and refugee migration into the United States, is reported to have asked "Why are we having all these people from s***hole countries come here?"
The vulgarity, once exposed, set off reactions of disappointment, disgust and derision. Among Trump and other Republican leaders, it sparked denials.
But, let's be serious: Is anyone shocked that the language in a White House meeting might mirror that used in an episode of Game of Thrones? Trust us, that's pretty vulgar even for medieval times. And while we wish our leaders might rise above such crude characterizations, let's not get caught up in just the language. What matters isn't as much word choice as it is what the president is really getting at. What's worrisome are his ideas, and the concern that some of them seem pretty medieval, too.
So, now we turn to the interpretive capacity of Rep. Womack, who explained, in a fashion, what we're supposed to take from President Trump's words.
"I wish he would choose his words differently and more carefully and vet those but I try to look beyond those statements and just get to the root of what he is saying," Womack told a local television station. "And what he is saying is, we need to do a better job of attracting people into our country that will be part of the solution to the American challenge right now. How do we make America great again? And so what I think the president is saying in short is that if you are only appealing to people from countries that are behind the times, depraved countries, if that's the element you are appealing to -- and of course a lot of those folks want to come to America and pursue the American dream -- then he feels we should make the same or better appeal to people from other European countries, etc., that can come in here and actually fit in to the society as we know it and do the kind of things that will make America a prosperous nation."
Next time, perhaps Womack should just tell an inquiring reporter that the president has a spokesman, so go ask her.
Looking at Womack's statement in the best light possible, it's nonetheless disturbing. This assumption that Europeans deserve an advantage because they will fit in and help "make America great again" is flawed.
And the president's question doesn't take a stable genius to answer: It's not only Americans who take pride in their countries, but sometimes difficult circumstances force one's hand. War, natural disaster, political instability and crime can make life hard to bear or even survive. And it's not just billionaires who want better futures for their families. That's a fairly universal concern.
Womack attempted to defend the indefensible, and it ended up reflecting poorly on him. It seems the president's behaviors have a tendency to do that to people who sidle up too close, and it was not Womack's finest hour.
A nation without a doubt has every right to control who gains legal entry within its borders, but the condition of one's homeland says little about his or her worth as an individual and ability to contribute to the United States' great melting pot.
Just as the words that emerge from a president's mouth don't necessarily reflect the viewpoints of all Americans.
Commentary on 01/17/2018