It is hard to quantify the value of name recognition, but Donald Trump has gone from fame to international mega-fame. That has to be gargantuan when your business is your name.
Gene WeingartenYou know, I am not a particular Kennedy apologist or an awed fan - I was 12 when he was murdered - but I have discussed Kennedy with historians. For his incredibly short tenure, he was a very important president. Many put him in the second tier, below the big three and surrounded by Truman and Eisenhower. Kennedy moved our soul. Changed our thinking about service and governance. And won big in the greatest nuclear crisis of the Cold War.
Gene WeingartenDonald Trump is showing the intellectual rigor, and emotional maturity, of a second grader. That's hardly being age-ist. This is a man who, when accused by Hillary Clinton of being a Putin puppet, actually responded: "No puppet! No puppet! YOU'RE the puppet."
Gene WeingartenPeggy Noonan is not as good a columnist as my colleague Kathleen Parker, in my opinion, but they share something related to their Pulitzers. Kathleen won in in 2010. They won it for a similar reason. They broke from their crowd, and sprinted away. They delivered the politically unexpected take, at some peril to their readership.
Gene WeingartenI am perhaps being charitable but I think there are a bunch of people out there who feel stupid. Some will be feeling stupid for stupid and evil reasons - HEY, TRUMP HASN'T DEPORTED ALL THE BROWN PEOPLE YET - and some will feel stupid for good reasons, such as that he lied about everything. But I think being made to feel stupid is damage.
Gene Weingarten