The media melt-down that followed the relatively innocuous joint press conference of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin was mesmerizing. Granted, the original complaint was reasonable: that Trump publicly cast doubt upon the data provided to him by the US Intelligence services that Russia interfered (intentionally, but with laughable ineptitude) in the 2016 election.
A Trump partisan might argue that the president has ample reason to mistrust the triumvirate of the FBI, DOJ and NSA. Their Russian hacking investigation consists of two entwined allegations: (1) That Russia was trying to hack the election; and (2) That Trump was a Russian agent colluding to do so. Considering that Trump knows quite well that (2) is a bunch of codswallop, perhaps he could be forgiven in harboring doubts about (1) as well.
As to insulting the intelligence services… seriously? For two years, the highest leaders of the FBI and DOJ and NSA were actively perpetrating a fraud upon the FISA Court in an effort to destroy the Trump candidacy and then his presidency, after which they stonewalled, prevaricated, deflected, redacted, lost, destroyed, and ultimately lied to Congress under oath in order to cover up the deed. Embarrassment is not in their lexicon.
Trump doesn’t trust any of them much. Hmm: go figure.
Still, there is a time and place for expressing such doubts, and a global press conference overseas is neither. Trump deserved the criticism he received immediately after the presser: the initial, rational, reasoned, and appropriately expressed criticism.
But the subsequent eruption of hysteria from the media once again, in that timeless proverb granted to us by the Fonze himself, jumped the shark. What began as legitimate concern over an ill-considered public comment began almost immediately to spiral out of control.
Layer upon eruptive, vituperative layer arose from ever more unhinged paroxysms of hyperbole. Somehow, the issue segued from one comment being inappropriate to the bizarre claim that a U.S. president even daring to meet with a foreign leader was, in itself, the nefarious equivalent of Krystallnacht, Pearl Harbor, 911, and Benedict Arnold all rolled into one awful, irredeemable, barbaric act, deserving of immediate impeachment and ultimately, execution for the high crime of treason.
There is an aphorism that “when everything is an emergency, nothing is”.
The complete lack of anything resembling scale in comparing an offhand press conference comment about intelligence data to the murder of thousands of civilians by terrorists, or the night of unimaginable evil that began the slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews by Adolf Hitler, or the Japanese sneak attack that brought the United States into World War II, is equal parts appalling and absurd. It is Kafkaesque. It beggars belief. It makes the press look like fools, and it makes the American public angry to be treated as fools in their turn.
The unintended consequence of this excess of left-wing hysterics was that the public soon became more irritated with the press than with the president. And, once again, the temporary satisfaction that the #Resist movement and their compatriots in the mainstream press garnered in indulging their latest conniption fit boomeranged to smack them right in their petulant little foreheads. Donald Trump, far from being damaged by the flare up, has managed to benefit.
The proof is in the polling.
In the current Gallup poll of issues of concern to the American voter, the “Russian interference” issue was mentioned by less than 1% of the respondents. So small was the percentage that it appears only as an asterisk on the poll results. The issue came in at number 27 out of 36 in the list, falling well below such burning national challenges as “Children’s Behavior” and “The Advancement of Computers”.
Meanwhile, after the smoke cleared from the latest Russia!Russia!Russia! kerfluffle, the Registered Voter approval rating for President Trump bumped up to 45%: the highest of his presidency in the NBC/Marist/WSJ poll, a poll not known to be favorable in general to Mr. Trump.
Given the fact that most media outlets had just spent a full week with wall-to-wall accusations of actual treason prior to the most recent spate of polling, one would expect the public approval for The Beleaguered Donald to come in somewhere below that of Attila the Hun. It isn’t. In fact, Trump is now tied almost perfectly even with Obama at the same point in their presidencies. That must drive the press absolutely over the edge of reason, which is becoming increasingly apparent with each successive temper tantrum.
The law of unintended consequences is a funny thing. Maybe the press corps --- approval rating of 13% and all --- will eventually figure that out. But don’t hold your breath.... even as they turn blue by holding theirs.
A Trump partisan might argue that the president has ample reason to mistrust the triumvirate of the FBI, DOJ and NSA. Their Russian hacking investigation consists of two entwined allegations: (1) That Russia was trying to hack the election; and (2) That Trump was a Russian agent colluding to do so. Considering that Trump knows quite well that (2) is a bunch of codswallop, perhaps he could be forgiven in harboring doubts about (1) as well.
As to insulting the intelligence services… seriously? For two years, the highest leaders of the FBI and DOJ and NSA were actively perpetrating a fraud upon the FISA Court in an effort to destroy the Trump candidacy and then his presidency, after which they stonewalled, prevaricated, deflected, redacted, lost, destroyed, and ultimately lied to Congress under oath in order to cover up the deed. Embarrassment is not in their lexicon.
Trump doesn’t trust any of them much. Hmm: go figure.
Still, there is a time and place for expressing such doubts, and a global press conference overseas is neither. Trump deserved the criticism he received immediately after the presser: the initial, rational, reasoned, and appropriately expressed criticism.
But the subsequent eruption of hysteria from the media once again, in that timeless proverb granted to us by the Fonze himself, jumped the shark. What began as legitimate concern over an ill-considered public comment began almost immediately to spiral out of control.
Layer upon eruptive, vituperative layer arose from ever more unhinged paroxysms of hyperbole. Somehow, the issue segued from one comment being inappropriate to the bizarre claim that a U.S. president even daring to meet with a foreign leader was, in itself, the nefarious equivalent of Krystallnacht, Pearl Harbor, 911, and Benedict Arnold all rolled into one awful, irredeemable, barbaric act, deserving of immediate impeachment and ultimately, execution for the high crime of treason.
There is an aphorism that “when everything is an emergency, nothing is”.
The complete lack of anything resembling scale in comparing an offhand press conference comment about intelligence data to the murder of thousands of civilians by terrorists, or the night of unimaginable evil that began the slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews by Adolf Hitler, or the Japanese sneak attack that brought the United States into World War II, is equal parts appalling and absurd. It is Kafkaesque. It beggars belief. It makes the press look like fools, and it makes the American public angry to be treated as fools in their turn.
The unintended consequence of this excess of left-wing hysterics was that the public soon became more irritated with the press than with the president. And, once again, the temporary satisfaction that the #Resist movement and their compatriots in the mainstream press garnered in indulging their latest conniption fit boomeranged to smack them right in their petulant little foreheads. Donald Trump, far from being damaged by the flare up, has managed to benefit.
The proof is in the polling.
In the current Gallup poll of issues of concern to the American voter, the “Russian interference” issue was mentioned by less than 1% of the respondents. So small was the percentage that it appears only as an asterisk on the poll results. The issue came in at number 27 out of 36 in the list, falling well below such burning national challenges as “Children’s Behavior” and “The Advancement of Computers”.
Meanwhile, after the smoke cleared from the latest Russia!Russia!Russia! kerfluffle, the Registered Voter approval rating for President Trump bumped up to 45%: the highest of his presidency in the NBC/Marist/WSJ poll, a poll not known to be favorable in general to Mr. Trump.
Given the fact that most media outlets had just spent a full week with wall-to-wall accusations of actual treason prior to the most recent spate of polling, one would expect the public approval for The Beleaguered Donald to come in somewhere below that of Attila the Hun. It isn’t. In fact, Trump is now tied almost perfectly even with Obama at the same point in their presidencies. That must drive the press absolutely over the edge of reason, which is becoming increasingly apparent with each successive temper tantrum.
The law of unintended consequences is a funny thing. Maybe the press corps --- approval rating of 13% and all --- will eventually figure that out. But don’t hold your breath.... even as they turn blue by holding theirs.