Topic category:  Partisan Politics

There's no dispute that Army Capt. Humayun Saqib Muazzam Khan died heroically more than a decade ago in the service of the United States during the war in Iraq.

2016 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump promptly acknowledged that and has not uttered a word of criticism of him.

There's no dispute that his parents appeared at the Democrat National Convention to support 2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

They certainly were entitled to do so.

Khizr Khan, the father, spoke at the Convention, with his wife standing silently by his side showing her support.

Mr. Kahn turned out to be a Clinton attack dog.

Mr. Khan took the opportunity to attack 2016 Republican presidential nominee, perhaps in the belief that as a Gold Star family member he was immune from counterattack and perhaps in the belief that he could "bait" Trump into counterattacking by charging that Trump had sacrificed "nothing" and had never read the Constitution.

President Obama showed himself to be a bluffer by not backing up with military action his warning to Syrian President Assad not to cross a "red line" by using chemical weapons.

Trump is no Obama.

Trump defends himself and counterattacks.

It's an approach that would work well for a President of the United States.

Dana Perino, former press secretary to President George W. Bush, predictably opined that Trump should have dealt with Kahn's personal attacks the way her boss handled Cindy Sheehan's personal attacks on him.

Trump is no George W. Bush either.

Many Clinton apologists and Trump critics appeared to be horrified that Trump had counterattacked and attributed his counterattack to political amateurism.

Conservative icon Rush Limbaugh opined that Trump had been "outfoxed" by Democrats and insisted that Trump "doesn't see liberalism" (www.newsmax.com/Politics/rush-limbaugh-donald-trump-muslim soldier/2016/08/01/id/741646/#ixzz4GBeMmMcK).

Limbaugh opined that Trump "does not...see[] things through an ideological prism" and that he should, or else "he will never understand the method, the motive and the how and why these attacks against him happen."

Limbaugh stated, "It's clear that [Mr. Kahn] and his wife were put on that stage as props, disguised as the Democrats being thoughtful and compassionate and understanding."

Yet Limbaugh thinks that Trump missed the real point of the Democrat strategy of giving a platform and a spotlight to the Kahns.

Trump didn't miss it.

In Limbaugh's view, "Hillary Clinton is always the target. The Democrat Party should always be, and Hillary Clinton should always be the target, not [Mr. Kahn]."

Trump realized that Mr. Kahn is a provocateur who should not be ignored, lest silence be perceived as a sign of acquiescence or guilty.

To be sure, Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party are Trump's main targets, but they chose to use Mr. Kahn as a major weapon and ignoring their major weapons suggests weakness, not strength, and encourages more attacks.

The Constitution does not exempt from counterattack Gold Star families that choose to attack in the political arena. Trump refused to be bullied by a Gold Star father and banked on most voters preferring a President who won't be bullied and won't let the United States be bullied either.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.