‘Man baby’ Donald Trump mocked for lack of vision

WASHINGTON: Most Presidential elections in America have a pivotal campaign moment -- some sublime, others ridiculous -- that makes or mars a candidate’s prospect. Often it is a single visual (Michael Dukakis looking comical in a helmet, riding an Abrams battle tank; "the photo-op that tanked" it was called); or Gary Hart’s escapades on a yatch aptly called "Monkey Business"; or an aging Reagan destroying a youthful Walter Mondale on live television ("I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.")

No such electric moment has occurred in the 2016 election campaign already brimming with invective and name-calling. But the politically savvy comedian Jon Stewart surcharged the liberal set on Monday by called presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump a "man baby," in a deft swipe at his limited powers of expression and lack of intellectual heft or vision.

"I’m not a constitutional scholar, so I can’t necessarily say, but are you eligible to run if you are a man-baby, or a baby-man?" Stewart told former Obama advisor David Axelrod during a live-taping of his Axe Files podcast on Monday. "He has the physical countenance of a man and a baby’s temperament and hands."

Stewart also shredded Hillary Clinton in the hour-long interview that saw him emerge briefly from retirement as a trenchant political commentator, calling the presumptive Democratic candidate "a very bright woman without the courage of her convictions, because I’m not even sure what they are." But he was quick to clarify that her flaws were not on the same magnitude as those of Trump, who he called an "unrepentant, narcissistic asshole."

However, it was the "man baby" moniker that went viral within hours on social media surpassing anything Trump's rivals coined for him (bully, con artist, phony etc) or what Trump has tied to his rivals (Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted, Crooked Hillary. Goofy Elizabeth). Considering he is openly vain about his looks and his manhood, the #manbaby moniker could well become the signature taunt of his critics in an election that is already being fought through #hashtags.

Many pundits concur that Trump has lived up to the charge of being shallow and immature with his off-the-cuff outbursts (expressed without much clarity or consistency) and lack of any policy depth. On Monday, Trump said people like the newly elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan could be an exception to his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, because, he rambled infelicitously, he was doing a "good job."

"Because I think if he does a great job, it will really — you lead by example, always lead by example," Trump rambled incoherently with what critics say is the vocabulary of a high-schooler. "If he does a good job and frankly if he does a great job, that would be a terrific thing."

Khan, in any event, snubbed Trump, saying it wasn’t about him alone and he did not want an exemption from "ignorant" Trump's Muslim ban.