December 08, 2015
Short answer: C’mon. Absolutely, positively not.
Longer answer: Prior to endorsing U.S. Senate candidate Katie McGinty at City Hall on Tuesday, Mayor Michael Nutter spoke of an "ignorant" impetus for wanting to bar Donald Trump from entering the city limits.
“Certainly if I had the power to do so, the only banning that should be done is that of that person not being allowed in the city of Philadelphia,” he’s quoted as saying. “We have no place for that kind of ignorance ... and lack of understanding of what our country is about.”
While the spirit of Nutter’s motivation for saying those things may be understandable to some, a desire to ban someone from the city he’s led for the past eight years is about as mature as a grammar school playground spat.
A quote frequently attributed to Mahatma Gandhi goes like this: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Well, responding to ignorance with ignorance makes the whole world ignorant.
Sure, it’s a nice little sound bite from our lame-duck mayor, but if Nutter really would ban Trump from Philly if he could, he’s not much better than the man who wants to prevent Muslims from entering the country.
He’s better than that, and I hope he knows it deep down inside.
Here's hoping he walks it back a little at his 3:30 p.m. City Hall press conference about a pig's head being thrown at a Kensington mosque. And here's hoping Milton Street soon chimes in about what this means to his planned Trump rally somewhere in Philly, for that's a good way to keep the ludicrous quote train a'rolling.
