Barely four days have elapsed since the horrific attack in Orlando in which 49 people were killed by a gunman spraying bullets from an assault rifle and threatening to blow things up. Meanwhile, a tone-deaf Missouri gubernatorial candidate insists on running an advertisement depicting himself spraying rounds from an assault rifle and sparking a big explosion.

GOP candidate Eric Greitens seems to think the civilian world will be blown away by his experience as a Navy SEAL officer. It's a constant in all campaign messages, debates and public comments, as if Greitens envisions the Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City as some kind of bunkered outpost where he would personally direct armed commando missions. Recalcitrant legislators beware.

The ad message is out of whack with the reality of a governor's responsibilities. It's particularly inappropriate, tasteless and tone-deaf in the wake of America's most deadly mass shooting. SEALs are taught command judgment; Greitens should use it and take down the ad.

A campaign spokesman, Austin Chambers, suggested the ad will stay put. "This election is about what kind of country we're going to live in, and if it will be safe from radical Islamic terrorists," he said.

The Republican Party already is grappling with the absurd antics of presidential candidate Donald Trump, who goes out of his way to offend sensibilities and provoke controversy at every turn.

In a recent debate, Greitens was still reluctant to support Trump's candidacy, so why does he mimic Trump's undisciplined, shoot-from-the-hip style? He should be talking about the actual needs of this state, not some fantasy military mission.

Greitens actually did change his website after the Orlando attack. He added a page that opens with conservatives' requisite "radical Islamic terrorism" wording, even though it now increasingly appears the attacker was a confused man who couldn't figure out what he stood for religiously.

The shooter, Omar Mateen, was not known as a particularly devout Muslim. He might have been a closeted gay man. He didn't know if he backed the Islamic State or its arch enemy, the al-Qaida offshoot al-Nusra Front, or Hezbollah, the Shiite militia that is at war with the hard-line Sunni Islamic State and al-Nusra.

Greitens' website asserts that he knows this evil. He fought this evil. Technically, he didn't. Neither the Islamic State nor al-Nusra existed during his Navy service, and Greitens has made no claim to serving in Lebanon and Syria, where Hezbollah operates. Protecting gay nightclubs from attack isn't mentioned anywhere in his record.

But he does know about guns and explosions. And those do serve a purpose. They help distract GOP voters from the fact that Greitens has no experience in elective office and clearly no perspective on what's appropriate in the wake of a major national tragedy.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST LOUIS POST DISPATCH

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