Not here to argue whether or not the attacks are justified. Am here to say Trump has only brought completely into the open what's been going on for more than 200 years.
As one of the "common taters" on NPR said yesterday, Trump's relationship with the press is directly proportional to how favorably the individual outlet reports on him.
Pardon or don't the next bit of language, but No Shit, Sherlock. That's the way it works, the way it has worked and the way it will continue to work where the POTUS is concerned. You want to get up close and personal with any POTUS, you better be on his good side.
Didja ever see Obama appear on a Brietbart show? Didja ever see him sit down for a long talk with Alex Jones? Nope. How many times did Obama hit the studio with Rush Limbaugh? Aaight then, how often did Hillary Clinton sit down for a chat with Pat Buchanan?
With whom did Obama siddown and talk? Media outlets that were friendly toward him. Check the history. You'll see this throughout. Arsenio Hall made no bones about not having Bush on his show after Clinton made an appearance.
Pay attention. This is The Way of Washington. Trump just makes it so obvious that everyone can finally see it.
Understand this. The press and the government have never gotten along. Witness the negative side of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson's mixed bag of comments about the press. "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper," he wrote in 1807. "Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day."
And
"Our printers raven on the agonies of their victims, as wolves do on the blood of the lamb," he wrote to fellow Virginian and future president James Monroe in 1811. Five years later, he wrote: "I rarely think them [newspapers] worth reading, and almost never worth notice."
There were some halcyon days in the relationship, like during Kennedy's reign when his philandering was overlooked. Even there, the Prez and the media were like a pair Titans warily circling each other and waiting for one to show the slightest sign of weakness.
Where was the bitching when Obama did the same thing? Where was the outrage when Bush II did it? Why didn't people scream and shout when Clinton was doing it? Bush I got away with it. Hellfire, Ronnie Raygun called the press "sonsabitches" and people laughed. Oh. I found it!
Here's a fact that you can find it you look hard enough: Presidential press conferences are staged. The prez & staff pick out reporters ahead of time. Their questions are answered. If you are not one of the pre-selected, you can shout your question, but it won't be answered.
Here's another fact you can find if you look hard enough: If you want to join the Presidential junkets and get on the plane, you better behave, which means reporting what he says and NOT asking the hard questions. You start getting into hardball journalism and you don't get invited to press conferences, you don't get an invite to tag along on trips and so on. In short, play nice. If you don't, all of a sudden you're the fat kid at recess whom no one picks for the kickball team.
Scream and holler about Trump and how he treats the media all you wanna. He is doing the same thing Obama and all the previous presidents did. He's just obvious about it. He's ripped the rose-colored glasses off the face of so many.
There is one thing different about that conference, One thing that was buried amidst the invective. One thing that should stand out, but won't.
Trump didn't have a pre-selected list of reporters. He took questions from whoever.
Obama never did that in a press conference.
Welcome to reality. If the truth hurts, yer living wrong.
Prezactly!
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