Donald Trump to moderate a GOP debate? Now that's a bad joke

By Roland Martin, CNN Contributor

updated 12:01 PM EST, Sat December 3, 2011

Will the GOP presidential candidates allow themselves to be quizzed by a reality TV star?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Conservative website Newsmax.com wants Trump to moderate a GOP debate
• Roland Martin calls this "one of the stupidest ideas in the history of presidential politics"
• Martin says the Republican National Committee should denounce this proposal

Editor's note: Editor's note: Roland S. Martin is a syndicated columnist and author of "The First: President Barack Obama's Road to the White House." He is a commentator for TV One cable network and host/managing editor of its Sunday morning news show, "Washington Watch with Roland Martin."

(CNN) -- Earlier this week it was reported that former NBA slam-dunk champion, Anthony "Spud" Webb was planning to become head coach of Rick Cabaret's New York Stripper team.

From the moment I read it I cracked up laughing, knowing full well that my longtime friend and golf buddy, who also happens to be president of basketball operations for the Texas Legends (an NBA D-League team) would never do such a thing, and the press release was a joke.

I even left him a voicemail Wednesday saying it was funny and ridiculous at the same time, and the next day his publicist released a statement calling it an "ill-fated attempt at humor."

No harm, no foul Spud, and anyone taking it seriously needs to really learn to laugh.

Roland Martin

So when I began to see tweets Friday about the maniacal real estate mogul Donald Trump moderating a Republican presidential debate in Iowa on December 27, I had the same reaction as the Spud-strip team press release: this is a bad joke.

But according to the conservative website Newsmax.com, they really have asked Trump to be the moderator of a real GOP presidential debate, hoping the men and women who desire to be commander-in-chief will show up to be quizzed by a reality TV show star.

If this "debate" is real, it will represent one of the stupidest ideas in the history of presidential politics, and if the Republican National Committee has any decency, they would quickly denounce this madness and say none of its candidates will bother even responding to this stunt.

As I've written before, Donald Trump is a political chump who should not be taken seriously. To watch all of these GOP candidates make a pilgrimage to meet with him is ridiculous. It's not like he's disgraced former President Richard Nixon, who often hosted candidates wanting to discuss foreign policy, especially as it related to China. The only thing the late Nixon and Trump have in common is both are disgraceful.

It's time that real Republicans and conservatives put an end to this silly infatuation with Donald Trump. A question has been raised about whether he's actually a billionaire, and he's gone to court over the issue. His ideas about politics are about as useful as Flavor Flav's marital advice. And discussing the issue of character and the presidency would make Trump a laughingstock to the world.

But let's just call this what it is: a publicity stunt by Newsmax.com to gain more subscribers to its growing media empire and a chance for Trump to bask in the glow of being taken seriously by the candidates who want to occupy the White House.

If we have reduced the presidency of the United States to a reality show, we deserve to get our butts kicked economically by China, and we might as well let Russia become the world's biggest superpower.

Any candidate that would even consider showing up to take questions from Trump should have his or her head examined and summarily booted out of the race.

In fact, let's go ahead and let Trump moderate a debate. This will allow us to quickly narrow the field of candidates, "Survivor"-style. For every candidate that shows up to get quizzed by Trump, we would immediately vote them off the GOP presidential island. There is no way anyone could take them seriously.

Sorry, folks. Let's not even start with the idea of Trump moderating a Newsmax.com debate. I'd rather tune into strippers playing basketball than seeing the GOP presidential candidates stripped of their dignity.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Roland S. Martin.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/03/opinion/martin-trump-debate-moderator/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular

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