There is much that can be said about the compliant, lapdog media in the United States. One thing they should not and probably will not stand for is being punked by a major party presidential candidate.
All three major news networks breathlessly announced that Donald Trump was gonna take the stage. Oh, yes! He’s gonna make a definitive statement on birtherism. Hot Damn Doggies! This is news! This requires coverage that will be wall-to-wall and treetop tall.
After all, the Trump campaign released a press release saying that the would-be Oompa Loompa in Chief no longer believed that Barack Obama was born anywhere but Hawaii. So this was going to be a big deal, a major television event. Polish up those Edward R. Murrow Awards, kids. We’re ready to cover HISTORY.
As beads of sweat formed on the upper lips of the correspondents, the viewers were treated to a 20-minute commercial about the brand new Trump hotel in Washington, DC. Then a parade of old, white, Medal of Honor winners — including one noted birther, Lt. General Thomas G. McInerney, USAF (Ret.), — heaped praise on a man who avoided military service because of bone spurs in his foot that miraculously vanished at the end of the war, a man who said, “It is a dangerous world out there — it’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my personal Vietnam, I feel like a great and very brave soldier.” These MoH winners, old, white, bitter, spoke of Trump like a conquering Caesar. (Just now, Roland Martin told MSNBC that the media got “pimped and played” by Donald Trump.)
When the awardees were done “polishing Trump’s brass” for him, the Walking Cheese Puff took the microphone and said these words.
“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it.”
A commercial for his new hotel, some reflected glory from actual old white heroes, and a lie.
After Trump gave his very brief statement, the reporters (realizing they had been punked) stood on chairs for for five minutes yelled at Trump to take questions. He smiled that insufferably smug smile and walked from the ballroom.
There’s a whole lot of things you can do to the media that they will roll over and accept. They make themselves look compliant and foolish more often than not.
Still, we have to believe that the media will not stand for being deliberately abused by this neofascist, racist, xenophobic, misogynist comic cartoon of a presidential candidate. This may be “a thing”. This may be Trump taking what has been a very good week for him and flushing it down the toilet.
