Read this soft-pedal Bloomberg.com article on Trump meeting with families receiving the remains of soldiers killed in Syria, and contrast with this Washington Post article on the same topic which doesn’t put on any kid gloves regarding “Trump’s decision to pay tribute to the victims came just weeks after he had declared the Islamic State vanquished and vowed to pull remaining U.S. forces out of Syria.”
Pundits may no longer be openly begging Trump to be “presidential” but they’re still waiting for him to step up and do something praiseworthy; and by the same token, they become so personally outraged when he fails to, and worse yet, directly attacks the media in the crudest possible fashion, even though being disparaging and maladroit is prototypical of his public persona. It is as if the media is collectively Charlie Brown, running up to kick the football that Trump’s Lucy Van Pelt is holding. There is really no reason at this point to ever expect Donald Trump to be anything other than the infantile narcissist that he has evidenced to everyone from the public to world leaders to even the people he selects as his advisors. There is no more reason to give Trump a chance to step up and start acting like an adult, much less one trusted with one of the greatest executive decision making roles on the planet, because he has never shown that kind of temperament, and there is no reason to not call out his hypocrisy when it is due.
Why is there still even a White House Press Corps? Do Jim Acosta, Peter Alexander, April Ryan, et cetera really have nothing better to do than report on the litany of outright falsehoods, fabricated ‘massacres’, dissembling bullshit, or just flagrant insults? When the White House pulled Jim Acosta’s press credentials, why was it a multi-day story of recreational outrage rather than Acosta just saying, “Great, now I can go report on some real news instead of wasting time handing around the briefing room to hear another line of freeze-dried bullshit from Sarah Sanders”? And why does CNN not only report on every fucking nonsense tweet that Trump craps out into cyberspace like most people take a dump after breakfast, but actually has to put an image of the Tweet and then reproduce it word for word followed by some “analysis” about what it all means when it clearly has about as much semantic content as a toddler fingerpainting his own shit on the wall?
All the media is doing in this vein–besides feeding their own narcissism about how critically important they are even though they are doing the absolutely least important thing they could possibly be doing in covering the Trump administration–is giving some patina of legitimacy to Trump and going along with the whole notion that “there are good people on both sides” to establish some vague notion of fairness in reporting. Even The Washington Post, which has at least staked out a pretty clear editorial position that Trump is a menace to democratic institutions, still publishes the most ridiculous op-eds from people within the Trump administration without following it up with a big fact-checking on every falsehood raised within it. Obama, like many presidents before him, had to endure constant criticism and fact-checking at even the slightest and obviously unintentional errors, and while it clearly grated upon him he never revoked a press pass or made threatening or dismissive comments about the media. But Trump often gets a pass, partially because there is so much untruth and misdirection that it is difficult to find any factual statement coming from him or any of his cabinet, but also because the media is just desperate to not constantly bash on him, even when it is absolutely their job to do so.
Fox News is blatantly biased and almost always wrong about nearly everything, but at least they actually have a position on where they stand and what they chose to report on as “news”. And yes, they thrive on manufactured outrage, but then, Fox News has always been about drama and fear-mongering with no real pretense of actual journalism. Their “Fair and Balanced” motto was so transparently ludicrous that it really served just to illustrate what a sham of a news organization it was; like sticky “virgins” returning from Lover’s Lane, nobody was fooled. CNN, and The New York Times, and the major network news divisions could all choose to have a position, too: that telling the truth and fact-checking nonsense and lies is more important than trying to maintain balance on a see-saw that has a kindergartener on one end and an obese kiddy-diddler on the other. Instead they’re collectively like an ineffectual substitute teacher in the middle of an out-of-control classroom trying impotently to appeal to the kids’ better nature to sit down and pay attention rather than raising her voice and demanding discipline.
Every credible news organization should just pull their people from the White House Press Pool, stop paying attention to Trump’s tweets unless they actually provide some useful information (like who he is firing today, or what country he is threatening nuclear annihilation against), and get on with reporting on actual news instead of attending this clown circus. Maybe they could do something useful with them, like have them follow Mitch McConnell around all day, every day, asking about what plan he has for getting a budget through the Senate with sufficient votes to override a presidential veto and get the government operating to at least some marginal level. Because that would have more actual utility than just getting all up in arms about Trump doing something outrageously Trumpian…like he does nearly every single day.
Stranger