As most of us know by now, there is a new
Sheriff in town, or at least a new resident ensconced at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue (Washington, DC). Beginning November 9, 2016, that reality, for all
practical purposes, divided the America’s political and ideological world into
two separate spheres. By January 21, 2017, the day after Inauguration, those opposing
spheres had devolved into two full-fledged oppositional camps, and a resistance
movement was launched.
The Administration’s first Press Secretary,
Sean Spicer, in his initial appearance in the White House briefing room, made an
indignant statement, condemning the media’s coverage of the inauguration’s
crowd size. Needless to say, this is a tone Spicer, and his two successors and
counting, have taken with the media on many occasions. His rant included the following:
·
Accused the press of deliberately
false reporting
·
Asserted that the media
intentionally framed their photographs to minimize its size
·
Insisted Trump’s was the
largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and
around the globe
·
Admonished these attempts to
lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong
Journalism Professor Steve
Doig, of Arizona State University, has provided crowd estimates at several
previous inaugurations. He has a deep and central understanding of the
challenges associated with assessing crowd-size at such events. He made several
pointed observations, including:
·
There's no turnstiles; you
didn't have to buy tickets
·
Standard metrics for measuring a contained crowd are not
available
·
The fallback is overhead
imagery
·
That allows experts to estimate
the density of the crowd and multiply it by the area it covers, to produce “a
reality-based estimate of the crowd size
·
Based on the photographs
available in the media showing the part of the crowd that was on the mall, the
claim that this is the largest ever is ludicrous on its face
That of course was just the
upshot of the first 24-hours of the Trump Presidency. The following day, as she
set out on part of the circuit of Sunday morning news shows, President Trump’s
Special Counselor, Kellyanne Conway clashed with “Meet
the Press” host Chuck Todd on NBC Sunday over the administration’s false assertion that
Trump had the largest inauguration crowd in history. In pushing back against
what Todd referred to as a falsehood, Conway told Todd:
·
You’re saying
it’s a falsehood. Sean Spicer, our Press Secretary, gave alternative facts.
After laughing at Conway’s
retort, Todd deadpanned a terse reply:
·
Wait a minute, alternative
facts? Alternative facts are not facts, they’re falsehoods
Just
for the sake of reference, the concept of alternative facts was popularized in Nineteen Eighty-Four, often published as 1984, a dystopian novel published in 1949 by English
author George Orwell. In
the novel, Big Brother, the Party Leader, rules, ostensibly, by tyranny. He apparently enjoys an intense cult of personality, even though he may not even exist.
OK, enough reminiscing about the first weekend
of the Trump Presidency. Let’s fast-forward to the current dimension, and the
fascinating recognition that the phantasmagorical just keeps on coming.
Ordinarily, I’d say you have to see it to believe it. However, some of the
daily news items related to the President qualify routinely for the idiomatic
expression, truth is stranger than fiction. The world may debate, for years to
come, whether Trump was a great President (though I doubt it), but one thing
about which there will be no need to debate is, Donald Trump has done more for
Twitter than anyone not named Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass,
Biz Stone, or Evan Williams (Twitter creators).
The double-whammy combo of Trump tweets and
bizarre comments is without question the king of the news cycle more often than
almost anyone would like, except Donald Trump, and that includes his team.
While it certainly keeps his surrogates, spokespersons, and sycophants, some of
who are paid for their services, busy, I’m sure even some of them would like an
off day.
Just so it’s clear what kind of things I’m
referring to, let’s review. A couple of the recent targets of opportunity
actually involve Republicans, either cabinet members, erstwhile allies, or
both.
In the first instance, Stephanie Ruhle, of NBC
News reported, after stories leaked that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
called President Trump an moron, that, “Tillerson
didn’t call Trump a “moron” during a heated argument at the Pentagon; he called
him a “fucking moron.”
Not surprisingly Trump called the report fake
news, as did his Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Nevertheless,
according to Ruhle’s sources, Mr. Tillerson’s comments followed Trump comparing
the administration’s Afghanistan strategies to his own efforts to renovate a
steakhouse. In retrospect, if Trump said that, Tillerson was indeed, far too
kind.
Of course, Donald Trump being Donald Trump,
even if he thought it were fake news (and I don’t believe he did), he could
never forego a pointed comeback, and he wasn’t about to start with Rex. In an interview with Forbes magazine, published yesterday, Trump shot
Tillerson a zinger saying:
I
think it’s fake news, but if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ
tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.”
In the second case, Tennessee Senator Bob
Corker, who recently announced he would not seek reelection in 2018 when his
current term expires, has been engaged in a tit-for-tat with President Trump.
In an interview this past Sunday with the New York Times, Corker, Chair of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, said:
“The President has treated his office like a reality show, and
is leading the U.S. down the path to World War III. He concerns me. He would
have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”
To the
surprise of no one, Donald Trump, the avowed counterpuncher didn’t disappoint.
Upon hearing the Senator’s remarks, he responded thusly:
“Senator Bob Corker begged me to endorse him for re-election in
Tennessee. I said NO and he dropped out (said he could not win without my
endorsement).’
In a
subsequent tweet, Trump added:
“He also wanted to be Secretary of States. I said ‘NO THANKS.’
He is also largely responsible for the horrendous Iran Deal.”
A not to be
lost bit of irony here is that Corker opposed the Iran Deal, and was
instrumental in forging opposition to it. But hey, in TrumpWorld, a world of
alternative facts, why not press that button? But this match was not over. In
Corker’s next volley, he noted in his own tweet:
“It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care
center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”
Lest anyone deigns
to think, “And that was the end of that,” think again. From the friendly
confines of his tweet throne, Trump replied yesterday:
“The Failing @nytimes set
Liddle’ Bob Corker up by recording his conversation. Was made to sound a fool
and that’s what I am dealing with!”
I’m not sure about the purpose of the
apostrophe following “Liddle.” By the way, Liddle is the current iteration of
the appellation he applied to Marco Rubio during the Republican Primaries. Once
again, despite the alternative fact referenced in the tweet, Corker was aware
the NYT reporter was taping the conversation, as was he. Just so you know.
From hailing his Inauguration crowd size as the
largest ever, to calling Republican Attorney General Jeff Sessions beleaguered,
to asserting there are very fine people among the KKK/Nazis/white supremacists,
to referring to football players who kneel during the National Anthem as Sons-of-Bitches,
to challenging Republican Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to an IQ test
face-off, to consigning the appellation Liddle’ to Republican Senator Bob
Corker, to the 1,318 false or misleading claims Mr. Trump has been credited
with during his 263 days as President, according to yesterday’s Washington Post
(that’s 5 per day, in case you’re counting), this alternative fact-driven
President seems locked in his own alternative universe…if not the Twilight
Zone. What can I say? “TrumpWorld:You Just Cannot Make This Shizzle Up!”
I’m done; holla back!
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