One of the major reasons why I identify with the political Left is my habit of questioning pronouncements from voices of authority. In a society dominated by political activists representing the corporate elite, this is generally a good attitude to have if you have a strong personal desire to know The Truth.

This is why I was disappointed to hear pro-Bernie voices pushing the Clinton campaign's meme that Donald Trump's finger on the nuclear button is much scarier than the thought of Hillary Clinton's finger on that button:

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It was sad to listen to hear these long reliable Berners fall for a Clinton manipulation that they probably should have recognized from a few months earlier, back when Clinton's strategic team got a bunch of Democrat economists to ridicule Bernie Sanders' failure to 'understand' how current federal law works re: banking industry regulation.

Briefly, they reported that Sanders seemed confused during a NY Post Editors interview when he was asked certain questions re: the purview of the FED vs. the Treasury. In actual fact, he was confused, but not due to any lack of expertise on his part, but only because he was being asked questions that reflected the ignorance of his questioners. In order to embrace the conclusions of his accusers, you had to simply assume that they were right about their essential allegations, which they were not. (This is an aside, not a quote)

We are now seeing the same gambit being played on Trump as the dangerous man with his finger on the nuclear button. The 'evidence' being cited includes some interviews in which Trump is reported to have asked certain military experts, "Why can't we use nuclear weapons if we have them?"

The Clinton spin on this, of course, is that he could not possibly have asked such a question unless he is an ignorant rube who actually doesn't have enough common sense to already know the answer to his question. It is precisely the same thing they did to Bernie's NY Post interview.

The possibility they aren't giving any consideration at all is that this is Trump's method of questioning the experts he is consulting to see how they would answer the question, to see if they've thought out all the angles, to see if maybe there are some reasons military professionals have in their minds why they should or shouldn't be used in certain situations.

It could very easily have been a completely innocent question that was being asked simply to encourage his consultants to expound on all the dimensions of the question, "when, if ever, should nukes be used?" A method of soliciting information, not an expression of a hardened predisposition to use them at any opportunity.

The important question that Cenk and John did not ask themselves is how they are maybe being played by the Clinton Campaign once again. Remember the 'artful smear' charge she leveled at Bernie prior to Iowa?

That accusation was intentionally made with emotion to deflect attention from the ultimate truth that the very accusation they were making was in itself part of an artful smear of Bernie Sanders. It was a truth they wanted so badly to hide from media attention and found the ideal way to do that.

That is what we are seeing once again re: this claim that Trump is the ignorant, reckless foreign policy rube who is actually eager to employ the nuclear option because he is too stupid to understand the grave consequences.

This meme is being pushed to distract attention away from the established historical fact that Hillary Clinton is far more likely to get us into a nuclear war than Trump is.

This, because of Hillary's long-practiced tendency to reach for the most adventurous and provocative military responses to 'developments' that involve Russia or China.

The big difference between the two? Hillary is far more likely to escalate tensions over some development than Trump is, which is the only kind of scenario that will ever lead either of them to be tempted to push the button.

Even though Bernie was not guilty of any of the innuendo and misrepresentations they were making about him, the Clinton campaign was nevertheless able to tag Bernie with the 'reputation' among certain categories of voters that he was incompetent on the financial industry, compared to Clinton, even though that was actually never true.

I would like to suggest to you now that precisely the same political gambit is being played in the effort tag Donald Trump as a dangerously incompetent mad man who is likely-to-be-reckless with nuclear weapons.

There is actually no evidence that this is true, but only an interpretive slant that is being offered that only seems persuasive if you already embrace the accusers fundamental (fallacious) claim because you assume that the accusers are qualified to make and are disposed to make a fair judgment of the facts.