RUSH: Okay, now, here’s Obama.  This is how this all works.  I have experience with this, too.  This is exactly how this works.  So the Democrats find a couple that they want to put on stage to exploit and it may be the Khans are sophisticated and are in on this.  It may be that they are fully aware of what’s going on and they’re willing participants. 

So the week prior, the Republicans’ honor the four dead at Benghazi, including all the other fallen in the War on Terror and the war in Iraq, and they put on stage parents, Pat Smith, her son died in Benghazi, and Pat Smith told the story of how Hillary lied to her, told her it was a video that was responsible and assured her that they’re gonna get to the bottom of it. 

After Pat Smith appears, the Democrats smeared her, the media smeared her, made fun of her, mocked her, fact-checked her.  Fact-checked a gold star mother type woman.  Chris Matthews:  “I don’t care what that woman felt.  She destroyed the convention.”  One week later, the Khans are up on stage, and it’s, oh, so sad and all that, milking it for everything that it’s worth.  But they were trying to create the reality.  This was a taunt.  And this why I maintain if the Trump campaign had somebody in it that saw these people ideologically and understood how they operate ideologically, they could avoid falling into the trap. 

So, anyway, you know the story.  Everybody starts piling on Trump, and Trump reacts to it in less than spectacular way.  And then the next phase is the president coming out, which he did this afternoon in Atlanta at the annual convention of the disabled Americans veterans.

OBAMA:  No one has given more for our freedom and our security than our Gold Star families.  (cheers) They represent the very best of our country.  They continue to inspire us every day, every moment.  They serve as a powerful reminder of the true strength of America.  And we have to do everything we can for those families and honor them.

RUSH:  Donald Trump has not done anything or said anything that has smeared Gold Star families.  Donald Trump, in fact, in his whole campaign has made his devotion to and respect of the military a central theme and fixing the VA.  And yet look at this.  The whole point of this statement is to imply, you want the audience to infer that Trump doesn’t care, Trump’s mean, Trump doesn’t understand, Trump doesn’t like the military.  It’s just obscene.  But the president piling on, that’s the formula that you know is coming. 

I don’t know.  It’s frustrating, folks, because when this stuff starts I’m pretty sure what’s gonna happen, and I’m pretty sure how it’s gonna fall out.  I know what the effort’s gonna be by the media and the Democrats. I can spot this.  I didn’t see it live in the convention.  I didn’t watch that convention before ten o’clock at night.  I only turned it on for the prime time, so I didn’t know about this thing until the next day. Then I saw this, and I said, “Oh, man.”  I wish I had seen it the night before, even knew it was coming.  I might have been able to sound a warning Klaxon, because this one sure deserved one.  And it has achieved its desired purpose. 

Or has it?  This we don’t know. 

Let’s go to the audio sound bites.  You know, this, by the way, is now considered by the intelligentsia to be the destructive moment for Trump.  This is it.  He’s finally stepped in it.  This is it.  He has finally committed the last vital destructive act.  This is it.  This is what they all thought Trump had done on his announcement speech, when he went after McCain and three or four, five other times in the campaign, and they were wrong every time.  They think this is it. Trump has finally imploded.  First, David Brooks on Meet the Press.

BROOKS:  I’ve never felt as nauseated as I was when I saw his comments about Mrs. Khan.  Disgust doesn’t begin to cover the range of emotions I felt and I think a lot of people will feel.  I think it stems from lack of empathy, a lack of respect, a lack of basic decency, and I wonder what this moral pygmy on top of the ticket is doing to the country and will do as president.

RUSH:  He sounds almost as mad David Gregory was.  Remember when David Gregory got all mad, Trump’s out there, “Maybe Russia, if you’re listening, maybe you could find Hillary’s missing emails, and then let the media know when you do.”  The reaction, “Oh, that is beyond the pale, how dare he, he’s urging the Russkies to hack, he’s encouraging the Russians to intercede in a Republican presidential election.  This is beyond the pale! In 41 years I have never heard anything more outrageous.”  It went on and on and on and on and on. 

Trump asked the Russians for help in finding Hillary’s emails.  David Gregory, NBC News, well, now at CNN, “I’ve never heard –”  Because they do not understand satire when it’s aimed at them. They don’t understand jokes when they’re aimed at them. They have no sense of humor at all. 

Now, David Brooks, you know what he’s saying he’s nauseated about is when Trump made reference to the fact that Mrs. Khan was just standing there. He said, “I guess she’s not allowed to speak.”  David Brooks (paraphrasing), “I was just nauseated.  Disgust doesn’t to begin to cover the range of emotions I felt.  I think a lot of people will feel that way. Lack of empathy, lack of respect.” 

Look, where was David Brooks when Hillary was calling Pat Smith a liar?  “I don’t think she must have heard what I told her,” she said to Chris Wallace.  Where was David Brooks when any of that was going on, fact-checking Pat Smith?  Here’s Doris Kearns Goodwin also on Meet the Press yesterday.

GOODWIN:  I do think this is a moment that will be remembered.  When Joe Welch said to Joe McCarthy, “Have you no decency?”  Somehow you have a powerful story told by a man, and the candidate somehow is able to look at the wife and say, “Why didn’t she say anything?  Was she told not to say anything?”  I’ve always predicted a bridge too far when he said that John McCain wasn’t a hero, I thought that was it, so maybe everything’s topsy-turvy this year. But I agree with David, this is gonna make a difference.

RUSH:  And George Will on Fox News Sunday.

WILL:  The straw that broke the camel’s back did not break the camel’s back.  It was the cumulative weight, the critical mass of straws, and the question is will there be a critical mass of these things.  Just when you think American politics has hit rock bottom Mr. Trump rises or stoops to the challenge of saying there is no rock bottom to American politics, and certainly attacking Gold Star parents is one of these things.

RUSH:  And so they think this is it, he stepped in it, he can’t recover from this one.  As George Will says, it’s not these things alone. Now it’s the cumulative weight of all these things.  It’s just gonna run Trump supporters away. They’re gonna be too embarrassed. Nobody can defend it. Nobody can support it. Nobody can explain it. Nobody wants to try, it’s bad.  They’ve all concluded this is it for the Trumpster.