“You know, it’s interesting, nobody has ever told me I don’t know how to buy property before. You’re the first one. I appreciate your advice.”

Fred A. Bernstein in the New York Times looks at The Donald's "Adventures in golf" and shares some fun new anecdotes from the recent hearings in Scotland.

During his two-and-a-half-hour appearance, Mr. Trump praised the site — which is in Balmedie, 13 miles north of Aberdeen — for its natural beauty. But when the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds argued that the landscape should be preserved, according to accounts in the British press, Mr. Trump said that 25,000 birds were being shot each year over his property and that residents were dumping garbage there.

“It’s a total mess,” Mr. Trump was quoted in The Guardian as saying. “When you walk on the site right now it’s sort of disgusting. There are bird carcasses lying all over the place. There are dead animals all over the site that have been shot. There may be some people that are into that. I am not.”

Mr. Trump later added: “It’s a killing field. They’re shooting birds. And all we’re going to do is shoot birdies and eagles.”

According to British press accounts, David Tyldesley, a planner hired by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, asked Mr. Trump about Scottish “rambler laws” that would allow birdwatchers and hikers to walk across the site.

Mr. Trump told the inquiry that golfers “would have a problem with people walking all over the course.” Ramblers, he added, could get hit by a golf ball, or break a leg and sue him. (Back in New York, Mr. Trump said, “We go by the laws of Scotland.”)

He was perhaps most combative when he was asked by Martin Ford, a member of the Aberdeenshire Council and an opponent of the project, how he had managed to buy the land without knowing it had been classified by Scotland as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. “You have little understanding of the property you bought or the environmental status of it,” Mr. Ford told him, according to a report by The Associated Press.

According to the Guardian account, Mr. Trump, who said he did know about the site’s designation, replied: “You know, it’s interesting, nobody has ever told me I don’t know how to buy property before. You’re the first one. I appreciate your advice.”

According to reporters at the hearing, Mr. Trump provoked guffaws when he told the inquiry that his proposed golf resort would “enhance” rather than harm the sand dunes. “I consider myself to be an environmentalist in the true sense of the word,” Mr. Trump said.

Comments

[frank D]

isn't it enough that most of the world already hates us - do we now have to add scotland also ?

[thusgone]

can't we forbid trump from traveling as part of the war on terror, or just on the basis of common decency? it's not like american golf doesn't have enough issues without that dbag becoming our "ambassador."

[Aunt Blabbie]

Leave Donald alone. In memory of his mother, he's attempting to develop something beautiful, that will be open to the public and provide income for many Scots.

Good riddance to the killing fields and garbage dumps. Scotland deserves better.