2020 presidential hopefuls fall for the GOP's culture war trap.
Democrats’ verbal targeting of everything from plastic straws to cheeseburgers is stoking fears among anti-Trump forces that they’re unwittingly playing into Republican culture wars.
This was over the unmitigated nonsense about 2,300 children abandoned by illegal intruders into America, being “torn from the arms of their parents.” They are fed and sheltered better than they are accustomed to in the countries they fled, and their parents had no business putting them at this risk. The United States has 2,700,000 minors separated from parents in prison; 400,000 children in foster care; 760,000 separated from parents in the military, and there are over 16,000 children in insalubrious shelters in New York City alone. This is all nonsense, like the claims after the prearranged Charlottesville riots last year over what to do with the statue of Robert E. Lee, when Trump was accused of favoring neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. The ne plus ultra of Democrats’ irresistible polemical silliness, likening Trump to the imperishable Adolf Hitler, empurpled the air as the floundering hacks of the Resistance filed through the Trumpophobic networks’ television studios, fulminating about the fate of the illegally transported and abandoned children. There were at least 100 protesters for every one of the well-fed and sheltered young people..
As everyone in the known Universe is well aware, the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner was held on Saturday night in Washington, D.C.. The President of the United States elected not to attend. Proving, once again, that he is smarter than the formerly “ink stained wretches” that cover him. The White House Correspondents’ Association proved, once again, that they hate the average American. That’s okey dokey because we hate them too.I will not rehash the unholy mess that the alleged journalists presented to the world. Nina Bookout covered the dumpster fire aspect here and Lisa Carr covered the Nasty Women performance art here.No, I am going to focus on the reciprocal hatred between the “Average American” and the “Elite Journalist”. When it comes to elite, it doesn’t get any more elite than the White House beat. These reporters of all things newsworthy call their dinner the “Nerd Prom”, which just goes to show how smart they think they are. If I were to think of a “Nerd Prom”, I would think of programmers, aerospace engineers or biochemical researchers. Journalists? It makes one laugh that they think they are that smart. So, um, climb down from your high horse, people.
Every time the Washington political press freaks out and goes into full panic mode against President Trump, the blockbuster, Watergate-volume story always unfolds the same way.
First the news starts leaking or breaking. Newsrooms from the Potomac to the Hudson become seized and fixated on every morsel of the delicious story. News flashes zing around the internet.
Then it hits cable television and the press starts slinging the most salacious and scandalous accusations they can whip up, charging the president with the highest crimes imaginable.
Each time, these reporters sink deeper and deeper into a fantasyland as they dream bigger and bigger. THIS TIME, they keep thinking, we FINALLY got him!
Reporters and Democrats alike — not to repeat myself — are actually now speculating about whether Mr. Trump will survive the certain impeachment hearings to come.
But then, as the heavy breathing subsides and the adrenaline rush gives way to factual, concrete reporting, the most damning charges fall away.
Turns out Mr. Trump is a germaphobe and wasn’t in that Russian hotel room.
The bust of Martin Luther King is still in the Oval Office.
He didn’t abandon conservatives by naming his sister to the Supreme Court.
Mr. Trump’s Tower — and people involved in his campaign — were, in fact, surveilled.
Slowly, agonizingly, Truth becomes very inconvenient for all these people predicting Mr. Trump’s certain demise.
In the end, they are all left clinging to the smallest Styrofoam shard of their original story, bobbing in the harsh sea of Donald Trump Derangement Syndrome.The last remaining wastrels pontificating about the “scandal” formerly larger than Watergate are left with just one flimsy accusation.
“Well, he could have handled it better,” they sniff. “He didn’t follow Washington political protocol.”
Are you freaking kidding me? It all starts with charges of high crimes and misdemeanors — impeachment imminent — and when it all turns out to be fake news these people walk away grumbling about how Mr. Trump could have handled it better?
Just look at this latest “Watergate” scandal.
The upshot is that Mr. Trump finally fired a man who every single person in all of Washington, except perhaps James B. Comey’s wife, has said at one time or another in the past year should have been fired.
Why was he fired? For all the reasons every single person in Washington has stated at one point or another during the past year.
But if you are among the legions around here suffering from Donald Trump Derangement Syndrome, it is always much more sinister.
Russia!
The FBI was closing in on Donald Trump’s sordid connections to the Russians! (Minus the laughably debunked Moscow hotel room scandal that was one of Mr. Trump’s previous “Watergate” scandals.)
The FBI had just asked for more money to pursue the Trump-Russia connection, we were breathlessly told. Subpoenas were just being issued to known associates of known associates of President Trump!
So incensed by the lies of the scandal’s coverup, it was reported, that a top official in the Justice Department was threatening to quit in protest rather than carry on working for such a criminal in the White House.
And then inconvenient reality unfolds again.
One by one, each of these blockbusters came under clouds of scrutiny. Nobody quits in protest.
By Thursday morning, the whole scandal had substantially come unraveled.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Chairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, said he and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the committee, had recently met with Mr. Comey and came away with the clear impression that, in fact, Mr. Trump is not a target of any investigation by the FBI.
“Sen. Feinstein and I heard nothing that contradicted the president’s statement,” he said.
And in a stunning display of nonpartisanship, Mrs. Feinstein agreed.
Well, OK. But the White House should have handled it better.
Republicans: Hillary looks sick.
Democrats: Conspiracy theorists!
R: You know, she’s coughing all the time.
D: Conspiracy theorists!
R: Hillary just passed out.
D: She has allergies and some heat exhaustion. It’s one of the hottest days ever!
R: It was 77 and breezy.
D: Are you suggesting that women have a different, weaker physiology than men?
R: No, I’m suggesting maybe she’s sicker than we think.
D: Misogynist … oh, the campaign says she has a little walking pneumonia. Now we know.
R: Why not say that in the first place?
D: She’s a warrior, amirite?
R: So this 70-year-old lady ill with a contagious sickness is hugging little girls and attending fundraisers?
D: She’s 69 and 7 months, you liar.
R: …
D: She’s a hero to elderly women.
R: Is she contagious?
D: Of course not.
R: If it’s no big deal, why is she canceling campaign events?
D: Actually, this dangerous, contagious sickness has infected a bunch of senior staffers who may now die — that’s how bad it was.
R: Seems serious. If Hillary lied about this, is it possible she is lying again?
D: Conspiracy theorists!
“What our supporters are doing is responding to a candidate who has in fact, in many ways, encouraged violence,” Mr. Sanders said. “When he talks about, you know, ‘I wish we were in the old days when you could punch somebody in the head,’ what do you think that says to his supporters?”
Mr. Sanders said, “Donald Trump has got to be loud and clear and tell his supporters that violence at rallies is not what America is about and to end it.”
-- "There's a risk -- the risk is that (Hillary) gets out there even further in saying nothing happened, and then (President Clinton) has to announce on national television in two weeks ... 'I've been lying to her,' or, 'She's been cooperating with me in a conspiracy.' Which is worse?" -- Chris Matthews, "Hardball," Aug. 19, 1998-- "In 1992, Hillary was very effective when she came before the American people on the '60 Minutes' program and offered herself very effectively as a character witness for her husband. She said, 'Of course, he's had problems in the past,' as he admitted he caused pain. 'But he was a good man.' She was a character witness."In 1998, in January, on that Matt Lauer interview on the 'Today' show, she didn't offer herself as a character witness. She offered herself as an alibi. She said, 'He didn't do it.' I'm here -- I'm this guy's wife and I'm telling you it didn't happen. ... How can a woman, who's been betrayed by her husband so vividly, come back and offer herself once again as a character witness? How can she swear to his character if he betrayed her?" -- Chris Matthews, "Hardball," Sept. 18,1998.-- "Men feel they get married and they cut a deal. It's called fidelity. It's a great deal, you spend your life with somebody you love, and it's a great deal, let's face it. But there's one little catch. ... And then they see Hillary say, 'Well, our deal's a little more complicated,' as they like to say at the White House. Everything's more complicated when you're guilty." -- Chris Matthews, "Hardball," Sept. 30, 1998-- "Was Hillary Clinton part of the cover-up (of the Monica Lewinsky scandal) the last seven months?" -- Chris Matthews, "Hardball," Aug. 19, 1998
