I trust you saw this. If you haven't, and you can get into the piece at WSJ.com, it's worth your time. Gerald Baker, Editor in Chief goes to great lengths to make this point: Journalism isn't supposed to tell you if a candidate is a liar, it's only supposed to give you the facts and let you decide if the candidate is a liar. Baker says:
"To refrain from labeling leaders’ statements as lies is to support an unrelenting but not omniscient press, one that trusts readers’ judgments rather than presenting judgments to them. If we routinely make these kinds of judgments, readers would start to see our inevitably selective use of a moral censure as partisanship. We must not only be objective. We must be seen to be objective to continue to earn our readers’ trust."
Here's the problem with Baker's argument: because he and the leading conservative press think they're only writing for their primary reader -- people who actually can make sound judgements about the character of guys like Trump-- the WSJ and their ilk allowed Trump's ascension by not branding him a lying BS artist in month 1 of his campaign. Their assumption about their audience is dead wrong: they're not just writing for their primary reader. Rather they are setting the standard, the tone, and the agenda for the conservative press. If a scion like the WSJ had called Trump what he really is -- a liar -- Fox and other outlets likely would've followed suit.
WSJ's primary readers generally don't buy DJT's BS. We knew he didn't believe it when he said Mexico is sending us rapists and drug dealers; he was merely playing to the crowd to get their ire up and grab headlines. He was deceiving his base to achieve an objective. This BS became the core of his campaign.
He said we should kill the families of terrorists....and on and on. When he said during his debate with HRC that he'd hire a special prosecutor to put her in jail, he was lying -- speaking a falsehood in order to deceive and achieve his result. Last month at a rally when "Lock her up" broke out he said, "That played well before the election but now we don't really care, right?"
Unlike the WSJ's primary readers, Trumpeters -- the 40 million or so yahoos who generated the momentum that got him the nomination and scared the GOP into full support that gave him the platform for victory -- can't make that same sound judgement.
- They think The Apprentice is really how businesses run.
- They think Trump's a bona fide billionaire who made it on his own. They don't know (or care) that the $2MM stake from his Dad would've been worth more than he is now had he put it in an index fund instead of losing untold millions on horrible business decisions.
- They think he really was just engaging in locker-room banter when he said he can grab a women's p---y anytime he wants. Calling it "locker-room banter" was a falsehood intended to deceive.
- They REALLY THINK a guy who builds casinos and hotels has the acumen, the judgement, the temperment, the experience, and the education to be POTUS
Had the WSJ, The National Review, The Washington Examiner, FoxNews, and the rest of the true conservative media called Trump what he is -- a serial liar -- from month 1 instead of sucking on the teet of the ratings bonanza he drove, we'd be inaugurating Ted, or Jeb, or Marco in 15 days instead of the most dangerous person to move into the White House in the history of the American Experiment.
Sadly, Baker has doubled down on the WSJ policy to let readers judge who the liars are. And sadly, 40-50 million angry yahoos will continue to cheer for the reality show premiering Jan 20 at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Let's hope the ratings tank and the show gets cancelled. Soon.
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