Posted on 02/19/2017 2:58:39 PM PST by Kaslin
Arizona Senator John McCain is a very popular figure with the mainstream media. (I bet that’s a sentence you never thought you’d read.) The latest reason for this newly emerging love affair between the press and the decorated war hero is his response to the speech given by President Trump during his rally in Florida yesterday. Following the brief but raucous event, McCain was ushered out to give the media his own take on the speech, during which he invoked the image of a “dictator” when discussing the president’s critique of political journalism. (CNN)
“I hate the press,” the Arizona Republican sarcastically told NBC News’ Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.” “I hate you especially. But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital.”
But he continued, “If you want to preserve — I’m very serious now — if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press,” McCain said in the interview. “And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.”
We can have a debate over how much criticism should be fairly applied to cable news and the major newspapers if you like, but “suppressing the Free Press” is simply fake news. If we actually lived under a system where the Fourth Estate could truly be suppressed that would indeed represent a constitutional crisis. But as Powerline’s John Hinderaker observes, this is some sort of fantasy born from a fever swamp.
John, John, get a grip! Who is “suppressing” the press? Do you seriously not understand the difference between criticizing the press and suppressing it? The press is not above criticism. On the contrary, it deserves to be called out constantly for bias and inaccuracy. President Trump has taken a good step in that direction, but a great deal more press criticism is in order.
Also: not calling in CNN in a White House press conference does not constitute “suppressing” CNN.
That’s absolutely correct, particularly in light of activities taking place in other parts of the world. If you want to see actual suppression of the press you need look no further than the nation of Turkey. Over there, a nascent dictator on the rise quickly moved to engage in some actual press suppression immediately following the attempted coup last year. Rather than criticizing journalists who might have commented negatively on his policies, Turkey’s president simply shut down all of the media outlets aside from those sanctioned and controlled by the state. He upped the ante from there by not only putting hundreds of journalists on the unemployment line, but tossing a significant number of them in his dungeons just for good measure.
That, my friends, is what actual media suppression looks like. What’s taking place in the White House today is push back and criticism of American journalists. They are still on the air 24 hours a day and printing their newspapers, free to respond to these critiques and they have been doing so since the moment Trump began speaking in Florida yesterday.
It’s also worth noting that Senator McCain seems to have either a particularly forgiving nature or a short memory. I’m old enough to remember the autumn of 2008 when McCain was making his own bid for the presidency. At that time, the same media outlets who are now lionizing him for his brave stance in standing up against Trump were declaring him unfit for the office. To listen to their remarks and commentary in the final weeks of that race was to be treated to an endless series of tirades declaring that the very idea of voting for McCain over Barack Obama was laughable.
I suppose it speaks well of John McCain that he is so tolerant and forgiving. But there’s a new sheriff in town and his attitude on this subject is decidedly different.
Why is he in the GOP?
John and the rest of the uniparty see criticism of the press as suppression.
McCain was not elected president, which is why we had eight years of Obama, in the Oval Office.
Trump was elected.
Trump is President. McCain needs to sit down, and shut up.
McCain is a true Useful Idiot.
Useful for what. I believe he has dementia!
Why is he in the GOP
He would lose all he senior positions/head of a ton of Senate committees if he went Total Demonut ?
McCain is all butthurt because he ran for president and got trounced by the lamest candidate in the history of the world. Then Trump came along and walked through 16 Repub establishment candidates. Since Trump didn’t spend 40 years in various govt. posts, McLame is all kinds of galled that Trump just walked right into the White House. Arizona, please fire this a-hole.
Dictators come and go; he served one for the past eight years. Grief counseling is available.
If his family won't lock him up in a padded cell, it's the only way to stop the old fool from causing the world war he's already enabled to explode.
Run him and his bitch out of the party!
Then there is that many years old now article titled The Real McCain....
Trump is nuts.....and this is the face of rational...??????
I agree. We sure do. This crap we have now is a biased, lying mess. How much does one cost?
“Why is he in the GOP?”
I’ve got another question. Isn’t he past his expiration date?
“McCain was not elected president, which is why we had eight years of Obama, in the Oval Office.”
++++++++++++++++++++
Hmmm................
Really difficult to consider making a choice between those two!!!!!!!!!!!
abstain
Semper President TRUMP!
Gunny G (RED)
Retired, Extreme, Deplorable!
***********************
McCain is a subversive and always has been.
[”. . . if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. . .”]
“The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.”
—HUNTER S. THOMPSON, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Trump should adopt “Dirty Laundry” as a theme song.
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