opinion

Montini: Trump insults disabled - and our intelligence

Since entering the Republican presidential race Donald Trump has been insulting our intelligence, shouting a seemingly endless string of exaggerations, misstatements, fantasies and fabrications that reporters have a difficult time keeping up with.

Now, Trump appears to be expanding his horizons, this time insulting a disabled reporter from The New York Times. You've probably seen the video of Trump mocking the reporter, and perhaps have heard Trump's subsequent denials.

It began with Trump claiming to have seen on thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating on TV after the 9/11 attacks, a suggestion that has been widely debunked. Trump has been defending his comments by pointing to an article the reporter, Serge Kovaleski, wrote that spoke of police investigating a party.

The reporter has a condition called arthrogryposis, which limits the functioning of his joints.

In a New York Times report Trump claimed that he'd never met the reporter and wasn't making fun of his disability.

“Despite having one of the all-time great memories, I certainly do not remember him,” Trump is quoted as saying.. “What I do know is that after 14 years and no retraction, this reporter tried to pull away from the tailgate party paragraph he wrote many years ago for The Washington Post.”

(As if there's no difference between a paragraph in a newspaper about a possible party and seeing "thousands" celebrating on TV.)

However, the reporter said that he knew Trump from his days reporting on Trumps career in the late 1980s

Kovaleski said, “Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years. I’ve interviewed him in his office. I’ve talked to him at press conferences. All in all, I would say around a dozen times, I’ve interacted with him as a reporter while I was at The Daily News.”

In a statement The Times said, “We’re outraged that he (Trump) would ridicule the physical appearance of one of our reporters.”

Trump's strategy in all of this is to somehow blame the media, as if debunking his fantasies and exaggerations is an act of retaliation rather than common sense.

He must figure that this strategy will work. So he insults the disabled. He insults journalists.

He insults your intelligence. Again.