'Witless Ape' and Other Reactions to Trump

Jon Stewart is a happy man. It's because of Donald Trump's decision to run for president and a launch speech he describes as “the most beautifully ridiculous jibber-jabber ever to pour from the mouth of a bat---- billionaire," reports Mediaite. He thanked Trump for "making my last six weeks my best six weeks.” Some other reaction to the new candidate:

• 'Witless ape': A National Review column by Kevin Williamson is headlined "Witless Ape Rides Escalator," which is pretty much all you need to get the gist. That and the last paragraph: "The problem with messiah complexes is that there’s no way to know whether you are going to rise on the third day unless somebody crucifies you. Trump has announced, and I say we get started on that."

• 'Know-nothing xenophobia': Another conservative, Charles Krauthammer, panned the speech as "stream of consciousness," adding, “I think his single most important statement was ‘I am very rich.’" He ridicules Trump's hostile views toward other countries as "know-nothing xenophobia," notes a post at CrooksandLiars. (Trump later fired back at his "jerk" critic, reports Raw Story.)
• Ego central: Dana Milbank calls the speech a "festival of the first person" and Trump the "Frankenstein monster created by our campaign-finance system in which money trumps all" in the Washington Post. Trump declared the American Dream dead, and if it weren't already dead, "it would have killed itself listening to Trump’s 45-minute greed-is-good speech at a time when the gap between rich and poor is wider than it has been since the Great Depression."
• Cover treatment: The Daily News cover shows Trump as a clown, with the headline, "Clown Runs for Prez," notes Business Insider.
• Inside joke? "His candidacy may be a giant joke," observes Rick Klein at ABC News. "But don't forget there are voters who want to laugh, and hard, at the entire political process."
• Sorry, GOP candidates: "Next to Clinton, who is running without real competition, Republican candidates will look small fighting it out with a clown, who is likely to meet the polling threshold to participate in the debates," writes Allahpundit at Hot Air. "To Americans who consume mainly celebrity news, they may not know much about the Republican field beyond the fact that Trump is running."

Neil Young wants him to pick another campaign song. (More Donald Trump stories.)