WAS W THE LAST REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT?

George W. Bush fears he’ll be the last Republican president. Ever. He has reason to worry, given the circus this week in Cleveland. Imagine the Marx brothers and the Keystone Kops running a convention of the National Socialist German Workers Party.

At a breakfast Monday (7/18), campaign chairman Paul Manafort took a shot at Ohio Gov. John Kasich, for skipping the convention. Kasich has a 60 percent approval rating – about 20 points higher than Trump in the Buckeye state. No Republican has been elected president without carrying Ohio.

The convention secretary actually went into hiding Monday afternoon so anti-Trump Republicans couldn’t present her with petitions from 11 delegations (7 were needed) to force a roll call vote on the Rules Committee report.

Once they found her, Obersturmgruppenführer Reince Priebus, armed now with the names of the rebels, sent bullies to browbeat them to recant. When not enough did, Priebus ignored the rules.

“This is a meeting of Brownshirts,” former Sen. Gordon Humphrey, R-NH, told MSNBC.

The turmoil provided great footage for the evening newscasts, left a lot of hard feelings. It’s puzzling why Team Trump resorted to Gestapo tactics, because they had more than enough votes to win. Evidently many delegates don’t want to have it recorded for posterity that they supported The Donald.

Pat Smith, mother of Sean Smith, a diplomat slain in Benghazi, highlighted the Monday night theme of “Make America Safe Again” with a heartrending account of how Hillary Clinton lied to her while standing next to her son’s coffin. The nasty response of the Lying Swine indicates she was scoring big.

Yet while Pat Smith was speaking, Donald Trump called into Bill O’Reilly’s show to bitch about Kasich. “In journalism, that’s called stepping on your own good story with a bad one,” said Michael Goodwin of the New York Post.

A critical paragraph in wife Melania Trump’s speech was lifted verbatim from Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democrat convention in 2008.

Plagiarism is a big boo boo. “Why did the wife of the Republican nominee borrow passages from the wife of the current Democratic president?” asked the New York Times.  Good question.

First by denying the plagiarism, then saying it was no big deal, then attacking Hillary for criticizing it, Team Trump fanned a smoldering ember into a raging fire yet again. The plagiarism story was Topic A on cable news shows next day. As the flap was dying down, Trump revived it Wednesday (7/20) with two stupid tweets.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made a powerful indictment of Hillary Tuesday (7/19) night. But only the very last speaker, a soap opera actress turned avocado farmer, addressed the theme of the evening: “Make America Work Again.”

“Anyone hoping to learn what Trump will do to get America working again was sorely disappointed,” said John Merline of Investors Business Daily.

Sen. Ted Cruz was booed off the stage last night for not endorsing Trump. If The Donald gets creamed in November, he’ll stand out from the timid souls who kissed the ring of Zod. But for now, he’s even more a pariah with the GOP(e) than he’d been before.

Team Trump knew well in advance Cruz wouldn’t endorse, orchestrated the booing against him. They could have scheduled his speech for a time that wouldn’t have pushed Mike Pence’s acceptance speech out of prime time. But they made this dramatic display of disunity the story of the night.

Was this just another blunder in a convention filled with them? Or is embarrassing Cruz more important to The Donald than winning the election?

In an interview with the New York Times published today (7/21), Trump praised the brutal Islamist purge in Turkey, wouldn’t commit to defending NATO allies if they were attacked by Russia, said America had “no right to lecture” other countries which abuse human rights.

“Trump is Obama in wolf’s clothing,” said Ben Shapiro. (He) pretends to be strong on defense, but mirrors Obama’s policies at every turn.”

Phil Klein of the Washington Examiner witnessed “a nearly chest to chest shouting match” between a Trump supporter from Arkansas and a Cruz supporter from Colorado.

“The only way to beat Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is to unite…” the Trump supporter began. “By selling out our principles?” the Colorado delegate interrupted.

“The party is not uniting around Trump,” Mr. Klein said. “All Cruz did was expose what is blatantly obvious to every intellectually honest person.”

Heidi Cruz had to be escorted from the convention floor to protect her from physical violence.

“If the choice is between suspending the rules of decorum, decency, and civility for Donald Trump as he casually badmouths his own country…or accepting that we are in dark and uncharted waters and conscience must light the way, I choose Ted,” said Jonah Goldberg of National Review.

So do I.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret, and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan Administration.  He is the national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.