Washington’s problem isn’t a lack of "tough" guys

Donald Trump likes to talk about being tough, though I have argued — and Trump has shown — that his “toughness” is a fiction based in another fiction. He uses the word “nice” with contempt, as when he advised a group of police officers in Long Island “don’t be too nice” to suspects in custody.

Abusing a suspect in handcuffs isn’t tough, of course: It is sadism, but this tendency informs Trump’s policy thinking, to the extent that he engages in such a thing: being “rough” with terrorism suspects’ families, “get tough” with China on trade, etc. He even had a book published under his name titled “Time to Get Tough.”

That’s a lot of toughness for a man with Trump’s debilitating medical condition. You know, the one that kept him out of Vietnam, where real-life tough guy John McCain endured nearly six years’ worth of torture for the sake of a point of honor.