Boy Scouts Learn It's Hard to Be Prepared When Trump Takes the Stage

Say what you will about President Donald Trump and his thunderous tirade at the National Scout Jamboree but, please, don't blame the 40,000 kids for what happened.They were unwitting props in a highfalutin speech that, while in perfect keeping with Trump's rambling, self-congratulatory style, bucked an 80-year tradition of leaving partisan politics where it belongs — in the political swamp that is the nation's capital.The Boy Scouts of America, headquartered in Irving, wasn't entirely blindsided by Trump's speech. But the organization quickly took cover, saying it has no control over what presidents will say to these young, impressionable minds."We don't condone or criticize his comments," Pat Currie, head of the Circle 10 Council that includes 24 counties in North Texas and southern Oklahoma, told me Tuesday before catching a plane back to Texas. "They are his comments. We are nonpolitical."Until Trump came along, the Jamboree was a virtual politics-free zone, too.For a brief moment — if you took a breath, you missed it — Trump gave a presidential nod to the nonpolitical ritual respected by everyone from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush. Even President Barack Obama — a target of Trump's broadsides — kept his message short and sweet in a 95-second video dispatch at the organization's 100-year anniversary in 2010.Then Trump took the Scouts on a wild 35-minute joy ride."Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I'm in front of the Boy Scouts?" Trump teased.Well, he did.  Continue reading...

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