How low will GOP leaders let Donald Trump go?

Silence is not enough.

Republicans who refused to attend the convention last month got a lot of praise for not falling in line behind a dangerous demagogue. But after Donald Trump’s attacks on the Muslim-American parents of a fallen soldier, merely passing on attending this coronation is insufficient. As are the statements criticizing the nominee flowing out of Washington, D.C.

How can you condemn Trump for his inhuman reaction to the parents of an American hero but still endorse him to be president?

There have been many examples of Trump’s unfitness for office, but his attacks on the parents of U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in action in Iraq in 2004, are a bridge beyond any other. He damned the soldier’s father for speaking out at the Democratic National Convention and his bereaved mother for not speaking.

Trump, who can’t remember how he escaped the Vietnam draft, kept up the drumbeat through the weekend, and went so far as to say that being a real estate developer required sacrifices comparable to those made by Capt. Khan.

On Monday morning, even though he’d had time to sleep on it, Trump tweeted, “Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same – Nice!”

The continuing support for Trump from congressional leaders is mystifying in light of their objections to him. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wasn’t expansive, but he did reject Trump’s words, though he is still too timid to do so by name: “I agree with the Khans and families across the country that a travel ban on all members of a religion is simply contrary to American values.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was slightly more forceful: “Many Muslim-Americans have served valiantly in our military, and made the ultimate sacrifice. Capt. Khan was one such brave example. His sacrifice – and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan – should always be honored. Period.”

We now know that there is no amount of defamation of other Americans that will move Republican leaders to call out Trump. Word has gone out that the standard-bearer should be criticized only when absolutely necessary to sleep at night, but by no means should the almost universal endorsement by the party’s leaders be withdrawn.

What happened with the Khans makes you wonder what Trump would have to do to lose it.

Ryan conceded that Trump’s comments were racist when the candidate suggested that federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage made him too biased to fairly adjudicate the class action case against Trump University. Ryan then restated his support for a racist.

Silence in the face of Trump’s indecent behavior is itself indecent. Someday we will look back and ask how Trump got this far. Someday is now.

This story was originally published August 4, 2016 at 12:04 AM with the headline "How low will GOP leaders let Donald Trump go?."