I like it when true conservative Bradley Gitz writes the truth about the personal disgrace that is Donald Trump, standing up for real conservatism against the cult of bad personality that is Trump.

I must respect then that Gitz wrote the truth Monday on what always needed to be done to the regime in Iran. He propounded that Trump--mad and frightful Trumpiness aside--was probably the person to do it.

This is an important thing that too many people don't or won't get: Four or more things can be right at the same time ... Trump is horrible; Iran needed thrashing; Trump gets credit for the general action; and we can and should lament and assail his lack of clarity in planning, goal and execution as well as of moral leadership.

Think about a world with Trump not the American president and Iran ground to submission. Now that's something to look forward to, isn't it? Then pray--it's the best idea I have at this point--that what rises from that election is better, and that what rises from that submission is also better.

We all need a willingness to judge actions as they occur, never minding our general judgments of the people taking them. We need to understand and accept that the matter of rightness and wrongness can be--and almost always will be--incremental.

A fan's rooting ... that's for March Madness. I so look forward. The world, though, is for objective consideration of hard truth.

People on the right and left give me grief for my odes to pragmatism, moderation, and centrism. People on the right tend to call me full of it. They say I kid myself if I think I'm not a highly partisan leftist. They say I tend to embrace the center only when it's someone on the right meeting me there, rather than vice versa.

People on the left call me naïve in unilateral concessions. They abhor what they ridicule as both-siderism. They say Trump is the mortal enemy and you can never give such a human abomination an inch.

And I say again: Several things can be right at the same time, incrementally.

There's a little story I have only shared on social media. It seemed more appropriately personal than public. I pledged the conversation would be off the record. But I think the mere happening, irrespective of anything said, is valuable in today's context.

I have a high school friend for whom I have the highest regard. His name is J.H. Williams. We met 60 years ago when I long-jumped (we called it broad-jumped at the time) 13 feet and some-odd inches in the fifth-grade track meet and was in first place until he jumped three feet farther.

As I've explained, everything is about increments.

He's a devout evangelical Christian. One day he sent me an important message: He wanted me to know he disapproved of elements of Trump's character and personality but would vote for him because he agreed with his policies rather than the alternative's.

He told me later that he corresponded with columnist Gitz, the retired political science professor at Lyon College, liking his writing and enjoying the association.

Late last year, he was delighted that, within the space of a few days, Gitz and I made the same point in our columns. He proposed a lunch meeting to celebrate the development. He was in Jonesboro, Gitz in Batesville, and I in Little Rock. He proposed the rendezvous in Searcy.

On the drive up that late morning, I passed the exit saying "Beebe," and had a thought: Former Gov. Mike Beebe, the paragon of moderate and pragmatic politics and governance, lived right there in Searcy, and it was a sloppy day perhaps not suitable for golf. Might he possibly join us? It wouldn't hurt to ask.

He asked: "Gitz, huh?" I said yes. I suggested that he read Gitz's column from the week before. He said he'd get back with me. Soon he called. "12:30, you say?"

We had a good time of laughter spiced with a dash of the commonality of ego. As I recall, only I propounded something political. The others let it slide.

You're thinking we'll be getting somewhere when Sarah joins us. It may be that there is an increment too far. But you never know.

© El Dorado News Times