Posted on 03/22/2020 5:34:16 AM PDT by Kaslin
In the height of the Great Depression, the stock market had crashed. Farmlands across the U.S. and Canada were destroyed by the ravages of severe dust storms known as the Dust Bowl. And many once-proud citizens were forced to eke out a meager living selling apples or pencils on street corners in our major cities.
With that as his backdrop, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered the nation both hope and a warning when he declared in his 1933 Inaugural address: “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Although he was dead before I was born, I am thinking about FDR a lot this week because of events that continue to unfold on the linear equivalent of professional wrestling: cable TV news.
First, President Trump was asked by a reporter at the White House if we are “at war” with the Wuhan coronavirus and he responded that he felt like a wartime president as his administration battles to reduce the spread of the virus and ease its economic impact.
He didn't declare himself a “wartime president”… but just his observation of feeling like one set off torrents of criticism from the usual suspects: CNN, The New York Times, MSNBC and other media miscreants yowled about the idea that Trump was “comparing himself to FDR.” Um, he wasn’t. And it reminded me that despite the monumental challenges he faced pulling America back from the economic brink, FDR didn’t face 24/7 sniping from jackals on cable news trying to undermine everything he did. (If CNN had existed in 1933, chances are pretty good that the WPA, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and dozens of other FDR initiatives might never have seen the light of day).
Secondly, when MSNBC’s Peter Alexander suggested at another White House briefing that the president “may be giving Americans a false sense of hope” by offering upbeat assessments of a potential use of an anti-malaria drug to treat coronavirus, the president asked, “What the hell have we got to lose?” by trying it. Alexander—whose network is populated by such giants of journalism as Rachel Maddow and the Rev. Al Sharpton—wouldn’t quit, asking in a follow-up what Trump had to offer to millions of Americans “watching you right now and are scared.”
The president replied: “I’d say that you’re a terrible reporter, that’s what I’d say. ... I think it’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people. [They] are looking for answers, and they’re looking for hope. And you’re doing sensationalism. And the same with NBC and Concast — I don’t call it Comcast, I call it Concast.”
Point. Match. Trump.
But naturally, in the editorial newsrooms of America and on the cable networks Trump was excoriated for “attacking” a “respected journalist”—insert laugh-track here—“just doing his job.” The Washington Post deemed Trump’s remarks “a jarring moment as the nation grapples with uncertainty.” Talking heads on cable from CNN’s John King (who journalistically referred to the president as having leveled a “bulls**t attack”) to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell (who was literally trembling as she debriefed Alexander and telling him she couldn’t believe he “was able to maintain your composure”) did what they always do and immediately made the story about themselves. Orange Mad Bad. There’s no “fake news,” etc.
Helpful consumer tip for snowflakes in the Beltway press corps: if you keep playing your dopey game of “Poke the Bear” with this president, don’t be surprised if you get a few claw marks when he stands up to you.
As vice president of news for a major national radio network, I can safely say that we are perfectly able to serve our thousands of affiliates with breaking news twice each hour, 24/7, without dispatching our White House correspondent or Capitol Hill reporters to news conferences with marching orders to find ways to make President Trump look bad or to belittle his administration’s efforts in the current health crisis.
Or by beaming daily “updates” on the coronavirus from Lilliputians like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (who cable TV has apparently knighted as a “President in Absentia,” fawning over his every word.) Did IQs suddenly drop in network newsrooms? The virus is now in all 50 states, each of which has its own governor. Is there any reason—other than the MSMs ongoing anti-Trump agenda—that Cuomo is the only one featured daily in live updates?
To paraphrase FDR’s 1933 observation: “It is my firm belief that we have nothing to fear but biased media itself.”
The liberal media is addicted to saying negative things about Trump, because they know he is gaining popularity all the time.
Looking at the media is akin to taking a bodacious smelly loose dump and putting your nose one inch from it and enjoying the putrescence.
I have no respect for anyone who regards that group with anything but contempt and revulsion.
One of the things that I hope will occur during our recovery from the corona virus is that we do a wholesale revision of how we get our news. The first step is to require that “reporters” get a real education. In real subjects. With actual standards. Oh, they must live on the right side of the Bell Curve (which will do a lot to improve things).
The US media is a cancer in America.
And why are “they” this way?
Because Trump might take their Chinese money away.
Because what he stands for and who he stands with, might take away their “right” to their perversions. “Questioning” children, sexual hedonism now elevated to a “superior” “lifestyle” in public thought, selfishness masking as public “service”.
If you’re asking what motivates these people it’s this. No sinner wants his sin taken away. An alcoholic fights for his bottle.
They wouldn’t be doing this, if they didn’t care so much. You have to ask yourself what it is that they care about.
I nominate that for quote of the day!
One of my favourite scenes in the movie 1984 was when Winston Smith (John Hurt) and O’Brien (Richard Burton) went into O’Brien’s office for the first interview, IIRC, after Smith had been apprehended by the police. The telescreen went on for a moment or so, but then O’Brien casually walked over and turned it off. And Smith was in amazement over O’Brien doing this and O’Brien confirmed that this was a privilege for members at his level.
Basically, I feel this sense of privilege when I vote with my remote as far as the news channels and broadcasts are concerned.
“ (If CNN had existed in 1933, chances are pretty good that the WPA, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and dozens of other FDR initiatives might never have seen the light of day).”
Actually, all of that never happening (at least without amending the Constitution to make them lawful) would have been a very good thing. Those were the early stages of the cancer, now metastasized, which is killing our country.
But the comment is wrong: CNN is full of the lovers of Arbitrary government, people for whom FDR was the great hero rather than the lawless subverter of constitutional governance as he ought to be seen as.
Not only would they have embraced his arrogation of the very Law he swore an oath in vain to uphold they would have championed his rampant quid pro quo, among other things.
Re: Cuomo. It’s all about New York City to the media. The rest of the country can go to hell for all they care.
The media is the enemy within.
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Litany_Against_Fear
“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
New York City is not America and hasn’t been for a long while
The MSM is fawning over opportunistic Cuomo.......and his interminable, unintelligible briefings.
They’ll never admit Cuomo is desperate for higher office and takes ever opportunity to show himelf off in front of the cameras.
Trump in England.......in Churchill's armchair.
So according to the media, Trump should have started his presser with, We are doomed! Then they could have blasted him for being negative. It’s a no win situation for him except he is winning on all fronts and they hate that even more.
CONcast.
The name sticks...
If he can’t save New York, and he can’t, how can he save America?
He can’t.
The best thing Cuomo can do for America is to die.
Comcast is an American enemy. Comcast is more dangerous to America than Russia or Iran
Comcast must be destroyed
Cuomo is also putting the screws to wannabe DeBlobbio.......not a bad thing.
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