This is the post where I failed to reply to all but the end. I'll try to finish now like I said I would.
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:From business Insider:
Taking aim specifically at the media, Trump repeated his attack from a tweet last week that "the fake news media" is "the enemy of the people."
"And they are," he said. "They are the enemy of the people.
He's right. When the news is misreported, inaccurate or slanted, sensationalized or what have you, it's influence is detrimental to the public.
"They're very dishonest people," he added. "In fact, in covering my comments, the dishonest media did not explain that I called the fake news the enemy of the people. The fake news. They dropped off the word 'fake.' And all of a sudden, the story became the media is the enemy. They take the word 'fake' out. And now I'm saying, 'Oh, no, this is no good.' But that's the way they are. So I'm not against the media, I'm not against the press. I don't mind bad stories if I deserve them. And I tell ya, I love good stories."
That's exactly what I've been saying. He's right. You can see it in the headline on the Washington Post story I linked to.
I think he's lying about not being against the press that publishes "bad stories" about him. While he does deserve them, when they happen he makes as much noise as he possibly can to distract from facts and tries to drown it out or away with his rhetoric. One of his main tactics is creating distractions and I think it works on his base.
He decried the use of anonymous sourcing, a stance on which his administration has doubled down as a tactic to sow doubt in reporting from major news organizations that has painted his White House in a negative light. Some of that reporting led to Trump asking Michael Flynn to resign as national security adviser last week.
Yeah, he wants names named. I do too. It's not going to happen. And it shouldn't.
The White House also took issue with a Thursday report from CNN that relied on anonymous law-enforcement sources to paint a picture of a conversation between White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and a top FBI official.
Not familiar with this. But okay...
"They should put the name of the person," he said. "You will see stories dry up like you've never seen before. So you have no idea how bad it is, because if you are not part of the story — and I put myself in your position sometimes — because many of you, you're not part of the story. And if you're not part of the story, you know, then you sort of know — if you are part of the story, you know what they're saying is true or not."
He's free to issue rebuttal to anything he believes is untrue. But he doesn't. Again, what he wants is names and he's not going to get them. The press isn't obliged to name sources.
Bannon repeatedly referred to the news media as "the opposition party" during his appearance alongside Priebus at CPAC Thursday. He said it's "always wrong" and addressed some of the stories of discord in the administration.
Steve Bannon Reince Priebus
Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus at CPAC. AP
"Just like they were dead wrong on the chaos of the campaign, and just like they were dead wrong in the chaos of the transition, they are absolutely dead wrong about what's going on today because we have a team that's just grinding it through on [what] President Donald Trump promised the American people," he said. "And the mainstream media better understand something: All of those promises are going to be implemented."
Bannon was obviously acting as influencer and yet, he's full of crap here. All of the promises haven't been implemented and never will be implemented.
Later in his interview with American Conservative Union President Matt Schlapp, Bannon said the critical coverage "makes sense" because news outlets are "corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed — adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has."
I have no real response to this.
Trump repeated a similar claim in his Friday address after saying he loved the First Amendment, which includes freedom of the press.
"But the First Amendment gives all of us — it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives it to all Americans — the right to speak our minds freely," he said. "It gives you the right and me the right to criticize fake news, and criticize it strongly.
Yes and as I've been saying he always specifies just stopping short of throwing the entire press under the bus. He's right about criticism, however, if the stories are false as he implies, he can Twitter a rebuttal. Again, he keeps hammering away at fake news because wants his base to turn their attention to him and so he implants this idea and stops there. If he had anything to rebut, he'd follow through. He's not about the follow through. He's about the rhetoric.
"And many of these groups are part of the large media corporations that have their own agenda, and it's not your agenda, and it's not the country's agenda — it's their own agenda," he continued. "They have a professional obligation as members of the press to report honestly. But as you saw throughout the entire campaign and even now, the fake news doesn't tell the truth. Doesn't tell the truth. So just in finishing, I say it doesn't represent the people, it doesn't tell the — never will represent the people, and we're going to do something about it because we have to go out and have to speak our minds, and we have to be honest."
No specifics again. When he repeatedly says that fake news is the enemy of the people, I agree with that.
The rest is smoke screen.
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When Jersey Girl insinuates we need to take Trump's word with nuance she negects to inform us of just which media organizations Trump has told us are allies of the American people, but we certainly know which ones he considers enemies. This is incredibly dangerous, because it's patently obvious if you print something he doesn't like he'll call it fake news, and you are now among the enemy of the people.
Agree. What I am getting at in my case making is that so long as we misrepresent him, we have little room to criticize him when he distorts. Hopefully that makes some sense.
I'm not overlooking the total picture. I've described repeatedly the tactics I see him using and why I think he uses them. With the "enemy of the people" line, he leaves himself just enough room to wiggle away.
Like it or not, he does have some amount of street smarts. In this case, it's knowing where the exits are. He makes his own exit.
Jersey Girl,
What's good way to summarize Trump's position so we don't have to always caveat his words to suit your notion of reality?
- Doc
I replied to this previously.
And I kept my word.
;-)