Presidential Language

Syntax is not a fee for immoral behavior.

   Like it or not, the leader of a nation's government sets examples for what is considered standard or acceptable behavior, both moral and legal, for the rest of the nation to follow.
   There was a time when reporters would "clean up" the language and grammar of a political leader or anyone in the news. For good or ill, those times are long gone.
   Now we are faced with the speech and the antics of a president whose sentences are garbled and whose syntax is such as to drive a grammarian bonkers trying to diagram his sentences. In addition, vulgarity is common in the president's speech, presenting still another problem for journalists who try to report accurately what he says and does.
   All day today, television news presenters faced the challenge of how to quote the president as he refers to certain countries whose people immigrate to America in search of better lives.
   For a time, the presenters would say "s-hole countries" and the accompanying text would use "s***hole countries." Eventually, when online postings by the Washington Post and the New York Times spelled out the full term, TV text would use "shithole countries," but the anchors still would not speak the term.
   Whether journalism should report exactly what the president says is not entirely a separate issue. It becomes relevant when the terms he uses accurately describe his feelings and attitudes toward the people of the countries mentioned.
   Today, Donald Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as "shit-hole countries," and he expressed a preference for immigrants to America to come from Norway.
   Clearly, this shows racism and bigotry, especially when added to his history of anti-immigrant comments in general.
   This is especially curious, considering that there are several immigrants in his own immediate family. Donald Trump's grandparents were immigrants, his mother was an immigrant, and two of his three wives were immigrants.
   So to show a preference for newcomers from European countries and to denounce those from Latin American and African nations displays a clear bias.
   Similar anti-immigrant bigotry was shown by former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio over his treatment of Mexicans in Arizona. Again, that bias is peculiar considering that both Arpaio's parents came to America from Italy. And it seems likely that the sheriff is of an age to remember stories his parents could tell about what they had to deal with, including half a dozen disparaging slang terms used to describe people of Italian heritage.