Anyone who watched the GOP debate tonight had to realize what a jerk Donald Trump truly is.  While he may satisfy a certain lust in our hearts for someone who will poke the left and the GOP  "leadership," he is a poster boy for self-love and bad manners.  He may be brilliant at making money and deals, but tonight he did his usual bragging about his wealth and success, he insulted all of his fellow opponents on the stage, and he blew hard without much substance in his windy retorts.

He gets a few things right – the danger posed by North Korea, and the fact that criminal illegal aliens are a terrible threat to our safety and need to be deported.  Beyond that, there was very little to remember about his performance.  He mugged, smirked, and stuck his nose in the air.  While many of us may have enjoyed his amusing entry into the fray, we should admit he is not presidential material.  Not even close.

Those of us who are enraged at the lack of pushback by our elected GOP leadership should be forgiven for welcoming Trump's cocky, arrogant style; it was like getting to slap McConnell and Boehner across the face for their failure to live up to our expectations.  But after a couple of months, the man's true nature is obnoxiously obvious: he is as big a narcissist as Obama.  To elect him would be to trade one man afflicted with a personality disorder for another.  Despite the differences in their professed ideologies, the results would likely be the same: national disaster.  We cannot afford another national disaster as president.  We are about to be overrun by the barbarians at the gates. 

Trump may indeed have knowledge about how the world of business works, certainly more than Obama had or has, but his belief that he can simply bully other world leaders to do his bidding is fatuous.  He is a cartoon, comic-book character in a live-action play.  He cannot give a single specific on how he would fulfill his promises – build a wall, deter Iran, create jobs, save the vets, build up the military, etc.  He may know who the nasty players on the world stage are, if not by name, but he stupidly assumes they will bend to his will because he is who he is.  Not likely. 

We are supposed to believe he has superhuman powers just because he says we should, because he is a billionaire.  So is Hillary, and she is a liar and a cheat if there ever was one.  She has been selling her influence for years based on the assumption she would become president.  Trump may well be better than her, but just how is difficult to say.  Trump sees himself as our John Wayne, but he is in fact an Adam Sandler, a comic goof on our world stage.

There were fine people on that stage tonight.  Rubio, Cruz, and Fiorina each proved to be knowledgeable across the board and more than qualified to be president.  Each of them is an industrial-strength scrapper with the true grit to fight.  Dr. Carson was his ever-elegant self, unaccustomed to the verbal brutality of presidential politics.  One hates to deliver him into the malestrom.  He perhaps should remain the national treasure that he is, a mentor, not a combatant.   

If America is to recover from the terrible damage done by the Obama administration, we need a Braveheart, a Rooster Cogburn, not Breaking Bad's Saul Goodman or Blazing Saddles' Hedley Lamarr.