Assessing the Car Crash: Trump-Biden Debate No. 1

I keep up with national politics because the decisions lawmakers make in Washington, D.C., have real-life consequences for everyone. What they say and do really matters. Political debates, on the other hand, are largely theater, and they always have been since the first one in 1960 between Kennedy and Nixon. They are about perception. They’re about how well candidates can deliver their messages. They’re about likeability, and they’re about how knowledgeable candidates are about domestic and international policy. Obviously, when people vote, they are supporting a certain political philosophy, but they are also voting on the individual they think can best run the nation.

That said, I felt like a masochist watching the debate Tuesday night between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. It was a train wreck of massive proportions, the likes of which I have never witnessed in American politics, and it was painful to watch all the way through. It really did feel like I was watching two professional wrestlers cut competing promos on each other. It lacked decorum. It lacked a sense of mutual respect between the candidates, and it lacked control.

One candidate looked angry and full of contempt the whole time. He was loud. He looked cold and distant. He never once looked at the camera. He was combative, both with his opponent and with the moderator, Chris Wallace. He was void of facts and heavy on lies and misinformation. Trump continued to make unsubstantiated claims about the mail-in voter process and refused to say he would concede the election if he lost. He gave a chilling nod to so-called “poll watchers,” who he thinks should be allowed to stand around voting sites and intimidate people. He was provided with a clear opening to once and for all denounce racists and white supremacists in his own party, and he demurred, telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” whatever that means. A day later, he claimed that he didn’t know who the Proud Boys were. His reference, then, was oddly specific for a man who isn’t familiar with the group. And perhaps, most disgusting of all, he attacked Biden’s son, Hunter, for previous substance abuse issues that Biden said his son had subsequently conquered.

For his part, Biden did not give a great performance either. He stumbled over his words and looked as is he was struggling to get out what he wanted to say at times. He did provide a couple brief moments of substance when he outlined a plan to help the economy while creating jobs in the process and gave some ideas for managing the Covid-19 crisis. Trump’s answer to the environment and wildfires seemed to be limited to forest management, as if he didn’t realize that the U.S. Forest Service already has forest managers charged with proper upkeep of the national parks.

Wallace, meanwhile, lost control of the debate in the first few minutes. Trump relentlessly talked over Biden and Wallace and continually flaunted the rules allowing for uninterrupted talking segments. At several points, all three were trying to talk over each other, and it quickly became a complete boondoggle. Wallace should have had the power to cut one of their microphones mid-sentence if one of the candidates went off the rails or violated the terms of the debate. It will be interesting to see how the networks and the debate commission address the rules going forward.

I wish there was more to say from a substance perspective, but there really isn’t. There were numerous insults thrown in both directions — Biden calling Trump a “clown” and the worst president in American history and Trump claiming that he had done more in 47 months than Biden has done in 47 years in government — and the most interruptions and talk-overs than I have seen in any debate. Trump interrupted Biden an astounding 73 times.

In all, Biden had the best performance because he at least tried to offer a little substance, and for that, he’ll probably pull some votes away from Trump, whereas the president, while brash and combative the entire time, which I’m sure his supporters loved, at least didn’t trip over his words. It was more like a continuous stream of bile. I will say that the big plus for Biden was that he repeatedly talked to the camera and directly to us. Trump, by contrast, didn’t address the American people a single time.

In one of the most consequential and crucial times in American history, we needed more substance. While the theater aspect of it was certainly entertaining, this debate was a sad affair of two old white guys — make that three old white guys — bickering for 90 minutes while the nation’s collective jaw stood agape.

CNN and the limits of presidential power

When I worked in newspapers, we had a saying: Just report what’s happening; the newspaper should not become part of the story. In filing periodic open records requests, we would sometimes have to mention the name of the newspaper in stories or editorials in order to let readers know how challenging it was, in certain cases, to get information that should have been made readily available to anyone off the street. If it is difficult for a newspaper to obtain information, how much more challenging is it for members of the public? Elected officials often take the position that information is somehow privileged or protected and needlessly require the media and residents to navigate a labyrinthine process before handing over public documents. Information that is not sensitive or part of a criminal investigation is and should always be freely available to anyone for any reason. When it is not and when public officials redact information that doesn’t need to be redacted or causes egregious delays in handing over information, the public has a right to know. It is in these rare times that newspaper editors and publishers are justified in mentioning the newspaper as part of the story, but even then, articles should remain focused on what information was uncovered and not get bogged down in the plight of the newspaper or reporter. While it may make for some interesting reading, how media outlets struggle to get information is, perhaps, worth mentioning, but shouldn’t be the main focus of a story. The point is to reveal how elected officials are managing or mismanaging public resources.

During most typical presidencies — the current one is far from typical — members of the press get to ask the president or the press secretary questions about how the administration is managing taxpayer resources. While no one is deluded enough to think that every word uttered at a press conference is true or that the administration is going to freely offer information that runs counter to whatever narrative it wants to put forward, press conferences are important in holding presidents accountable for how they handle those resources. As we have now seen, Trump, during rare times when he actually holds a press conference — once going for more than a year without one — often has a caustic relationship with journalists who make him angry or do not toe the line. CNN and The New York Times have been two of Trump’s main targets, going back to before Trump took office.

The stage was set, then, for CNN and Trump’s most recent spat when, clearly frustrated about how GOP losses during the midterms potentially served as an indictment on his presidency, Trump attempted to shut down questions from CNN’s Jim Acosta, and when Acosta refused to give up his microphone to an aide, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders erroneously claimed, using doctored video footage to “prove” her case, that Acosta inappropriately put his hands on the intern. The administration then revoked Acosta’s press pass, and CNN proceeded to file a lawsuit, seeking “emergency relief” to restore the reporter’s access to the White House and claiming Trump violated the First and Fifth amendments. Federal judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee no less, ordered the administration to temporarily restore Acosta’s press pass on Friday, but did not rule on the main part of the case. A final decision is apparently coming at a later time. Commentators on CNN have called the ruling a “win for CNN” and for the First Amendment.

All of this is unprecedented, of course, and certainly warranted news coverage, but I am uncomfortable with how CNN has blanketed this story, its own story, on their network and all over its website. I don’t know how a more traditional news outlet like The New York Times would have handled a similar situation, but my hunch is that the newspaper would simply have had one story and updated it accordingly as new information came in. In other words, a media outlet can’t exactly ignore the fact that a sitting president of the United States took away a reporter’s press pass, but to feature at least seven articles on its website related to various angles of the lawsuit, as CNN did earlier this week, and to give the story prominent air time is a bit overboard, especially given that supposedly objective anchors like Brooke Baldwin, among others, could be seen on the air nodding in agreement as CNN lawyer Ted Olson talked about Trump’s overreach in the case.

In a joint statement, USA Today, Fox News and other media outlets have voiced their support for CNN and the First Amendment in the case. It will be interesting to see how Brian Stelter, CNN chief media correspondent, covers the case on his show, “Reliable Sources,” which investigates how the media covers the news. Is Stelter going to analyze how CNN covered its own story or focus on other matters? CNN will probably not be able to help itself and once again mention the case, along with its much-heralded win, on Stelter’s show.

Make no mistake. This was, indeed, an important case for the preservation of the First Amendment against the misuse of presidential power, but that CNN and Acosta were the alleged “victims” is of little consequence. Any other reporter in the room could have just as well taken the brunt of Trump’s ire, so CNN’s specific role in this is unimportant and irrelevant. The important point is the First Amendment must be upheld and that the president can’t capriciously and without cause take away a reporter’s press pass. The media, and by extension, the public, needs to have access to the White House.

I would hope that from here on out CNN treads lightly on trumpeting its own cause and focus, instead, on exposing the administration’s hypocrisies, lies and half-truths. God knows there’s plenty to talk about.

Trump vs. Kelly: ‘Couples therapy’

After finally getting around to watching Megyn Kelly’s interview with Donald Trump — it’s surprisingly hard to find the full video, and most copies online appear to be edited hack jobs for either supporters or haters of Trump  — I can say that, despite Kelly’s assertion that “it’s not about me” when asking Trump about his nasty retweets in which he called her a “bimbo,” that statement certainly seems like a microcosm of the entire interview: It was absolutely, 100 percent about her.

Kelly obviously has no shortage of talent. She hit the ground running at Fox News in 2004 and her celebrity has been on the rise and growing ever since, arguably reaching or eclipsing that of her long-time associates Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.

To her credit, she claims to be an independent on a conservative network that doesn’t even pretend to be “fair and balanced” anymore, and she hit Donald Trump as hard as anyone during the August 2015 debate when she questioned his character in making numerous “disparaging” comments about women:

But that Megyn Kelly — detached, steely eyed, uncowed — was far from the person who sat across from Trump earlier this week. This Megyn Kelly was soft, amicable, introspective and almost psychoanalytical in her attempts, mostly unsuccessful, to unearth the inner crust of Donald Trump. She asked him about his alcoholic and now dead brother, his perceived mistakes on the campaign trail, his regrets and his emotional wounds. Watch the interview with closed eyes and you may, for a second, forget this is a conservation between two highly privileged celebrities and imagine a psychiatry patient laying on the couch talking to his shrink.

megyn kelly donald trump

Fox

There is no psychoanalyzing Donald Trump. Donald Trump gets out of bed every morning based on the strength of three simple things: his wealth, his power and his own aura. That’s it. Yet, in this interview, Kelly, in pure Barbara Walters wannabe form and not half as probing, asked few follow-up questions and even minimized moments when Trump, seemingly unapologetic and unrepentant as ever, was at his most obnoxious.

During what was probably the most memorable part of the interview, Kelly alerted Trump to the fact that he had called her a bimbo multiple times on social media, to which Trump just donned a boyish grin, leaned in and issued an almost mocking “excuse me,” as if he had just cut her off at the checkout line. Kelly, failing to use that opportunity to reclaim some of her earlier fire and ask a tough question, just recoiled and smiled. After an awkward pause and a creepy, sustained grin from Trump, he continued, noting that he, using ethical discretion like a true gentleman, did not retweet some of the harsher comments on Twitter.

Indeed, the only time Trump revealed anything interesting about himself was when he commended Kelly for coming to him and seeking reconciliation after the imbroglio last year. “I have great respect for you that you were able to call me and say let’s get together and lets talk,” Trump said. “For me, I would not have done that. I don’t say that as a positive. I think it’s a negative for me.”

Aside from that admission, this was, as Poynter Institute’s James Warren noted, far from Frost-Nixon. Here is Warren:

Why might a cynic have wondered if Megyn Kelly’s primetime Fox network interview with Donald Trump would fall short of David Frost’s evisceration of former President Richard Nixon? Might it have been the afternoon tweet and photo from a beaming Trump himself, his arm around a grinning Kelly, her arm around his back, and the declaration, “I will be live tweeting my interview with ‪@megynkelly on the Fox Network tonight at 8! Enjoy!” (@realDonaldTrump) Or was it the night before, on the Bravo cable channel, when she conceded that she’d once not just touched his hair but “run my fingers through it” to see if he wore a wig.

So no, despite the “big fight feel” implied by advertisements leading up to the interview, this was not Kelly’s breakout moment as a long-form interviewer.

This was simply theater masquerading as a hard-hitting interview. I don’t know if Trump and Kelly went over some of the questions she was going to ask beforehand, but did anyone really think that she was going to walk into Trump Tower, recreate a working relationship with the real estate mogul just to pepper him with a relent barrage of questions a la the August 2015 debate? They both realized that to make the interview seem genuine, Kelly was going to have to ask an uncomfortable question or two, but this was never going to be a whole-cloth take-down of Trump.

It was not even about policy or Trump’s character. It was almost exclusively about Trump and Kelly, and as Trevor Noah brilliantly summarized recently, amounted to little more than high-profile “couples therapy” after a breakup. Frankly, if people Connie Chung, Katie Couric and Barbara Walters are the benchmarks, Kelly’s interview looked rather pedestrian by comparison.

Kennedy: ‘Everyone looked like a terrorist to me’

I long-since came to the conclusion that I simply can’t watch much Fox News because if I did, just because of the sheer volume of stupidity, I would spend my time writing about little else than Fox’s limitless potential for vomiting up heavy doses of sophistry, distortions and half-truths, served up drip-feed style to its loyal and dumb-downed viewed base.

Some media outlets latched on to the fact that Fox analyst Lt. Col. Ralph Peters and contributor Stacey Dash had some unflattering things to say about Obama — what a shock — as Peters called Obama a “total pussy,” and Dash said the president doesn’t “give a shit” about terrorism.

But I didn’t even think the latter barb from Dash was the most obnoxious part of the video below:

https://youtu.be/8MvFkc5Xdyk

I thought Kennedy’s — yes, that Kennedy — comments were actually the most repellent. She had this to say after contemplating Obama’s recent speech on the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting:

What I was watching for is I want to feel better. I want to feel better about my friends and neighbors, and this morning as I rode the subway to work, I was looking around — and you know, I feel kind of bad saying this — but everyone looked like a terrorist to me. And I don’t want to feel that way in my city and in my country, and I want the president — no matter what my party is — I want the president to make me feel better when something so horrific has just happened. I don’t think he gave it the proper context. I don’t he gave proper domestic strategy, and he certainly didn’t give me the peace of mind.

A privileged white female who gets to rant on television for a living just wants to “feel better” about herself and the people for whom she cares. Seriously? What about the families of the victims? What about peaceful believers of Islam whose lives get more difficult and complicated every time a fresh batch of terrorists cause chaos in the States or harm their fellow believers in Europe and the Middle East? What about the plight of closeted gays or nonbelievers living in the shadows in places like Saudi Arabia and Syria? What about oppressed women?

Even worse, Kennedy’s line, “everyone looked like a terrorist to me,” in true Fox fashion, needlessly stirs up anxiety among the network’s already panicky viewers, and Fox and its cronies then use that fear to prop up their shallow political message that stigmatizes nearly every outgroup except, of course, the privileged and affluent. Indeed, people like Donald Trump and Ben Carson are byproducts of this sinister strategy. You get what you pay for, but you also eventually wind up paying for what you get, and the American public is complicit in allowing this echo chamber of distortions and hysteria to fester and metastasize these last 20 years.

One has to wonder, then, what exactly could Obama have said to protect Kennedy’s precious feelings about the real or imagined threat of terrorism along her path to work on the subway? Since his name is Obama, after all, and since Fox analysts would find something for which to castigate him even if the government’s budget was perfectly balanced, health care and immigration were finally resolved, the world was a peaceful place and the sky rained down Skittles and unfiltered joy, I’m guessing the answer is nothing.

[Graphic credit: https://hipiseverything.wordpress.com]

More of the same from Fox News on Benghazi report

The following “exclusive” report from Fox News claims that officials within the Obama administration were “fully aware” about a weapons transport between a terrorist post in Libya and Syria before the attack in Benghazi and the subsequent death of four Americans:

And what is Fox News’ source for this claim, that implies the administration seemed to turn the other way as one terrorist group in Libya fed weapons to another potential threat in Syria? You guessed it. The documentation comes secondhand from a right-wing group named Judicial Watch, which tells us — we have no way to verify this, other than taking their word for it — that the filed substantiating this claim came from the Department of Defense and the State Department via a court order related to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from May 2014. The documents are on Judicial Watch’s website, of course, and the lawsuit is public record, but we have no way of knowing if the items posted on JW’s website are complete and authentic.

As a side note before I get into a couple points on JW’s claims and the documents themselves, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the little journalistic games Fox News plays on a routine basis. A reporter named Catherine Herridge is introduced as a “chief intelligence correspondent” coming to the show “live in D.C.,” as if Herridge had spent the whole day using her journalistic prowess and combing the earth for these documents when, in fact, all she (or a writer or producer) did was go on JW’s website and summarize her version of the findings with as much access to the documents as I have sitting here in my living room.

In any case, I’ll assume that the documents posted on JW’s website are authentic and complete and came straight from the DOD and State Department. Judicial Watch’s main points are that the Obama administration knew back in August 2012 that ISIS, far from the “JV team” as the president previously claimed, planned to establish a caliphate in Iraq and that the administration was aware that weapons were being shipped from Libya to Syria. The first document JW linked to does indeed say that a group that subscribed to “AQ (Al-Queda) ideologies” “claimed ultimate responsibility” for the attack in Benghazi and that the hit was planned 10 days before Sept. 11, 2012. The government file, which was produced on either Sept. 12, 2012, or Sept. 16, 2012 — it makes little difference which date is correct — says nothing about the United States or officials within the administration knowing before Sept. 11, 2012, that the attack was going to occur, as implied by Judicial Watch and presented as more or less fact in Fox News’ report.

The second document from October 2012 just confirms that the U.S. was aware by that time in October that weapons had been shipped from Libya to Syria in late-August of that year, not that the U.S. was aware of this activity all along. Yet, JW seems to make this rather large leap in logic when, further down in its report, the organization claims the U.S. was “monitoring” the shipment of weapons all the while:

Another DIA report, written in August 2012 (the same time period the U.S. was monitoring weapons flows from Libya to Syria), said that the opposition in Syria was driven by al Qaeda and other extremist Muslim groups …

But I’ll give Judicial Watch a little credit in its carefully worded report; part of the news release at least attempted to imply some kind of coverup in the Obama administration rather than, in Fox’s case, making ball-faced accusations of malfeasance, an attempt that nonetheless unraveled once JW inserted a quote from its president, Tom Fitton:

These documents are jaw-dropping. No wonder we had to file more FOIA lawsuits and wait over two years for them. If the American people had known the truth – that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top administration officials knew that the Benghazi attack was an al-Qaeda terrorist attack from the get-go – and yet lied and covered this fact up – Mitt Romney might very well be president. … These documents show that the Benghazi cover-up has continued for years and is only unraveling through our independent lawsuits. The Benghazi scandal just got a whole lot worse for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

Judicial Watch’s supposed smoking gun was a report from August 2012 that was seemingly supposed to establish a connection between terrorists in Libya and Syria, but the report, while it does contain a reference to ISIS, possibly exposing Obama’s attempt to downplay the group’s influence in the region, the document says nothing about terrorist groups operating in northern Africa or any connection they might have to insurgents in Syria and Iraq, which belies JW’s and Fox News’ claim that the Obama administration had detailed knowledge about developments in Libya all along.

Fox pack of faux pas

PolitiFact has provided links to fact-checks for The Daily Show’s “50 Fox News lies in 6 seconds” Vine video. I wish PolitiFact had provided some analysis as it usually does, but by my count, the video includes 49 outright mistruths — blatant or otherwise — one incorrectly aired video and an admission of error from Sean Hannity and a gaffe and clarification.

Fox News embarrasses itself; what else is new

You mean Fox News invited a guest to go on national TV and let him spill some unchallenged, baseless claims about how Muslims are supposedly taking over a fair city in merry old England? Say it ain’t so?

A commentator named Steven Emerson apparently went on the air and said that Birmingham, England, was a “totally Muslim city,” and anchor Jeanine Pirro, apparently not one to be one-upped in the conspiracy theory category, said, “It sounds like a caliphate within a particular country.” Sort of like a mini-caliphate corroding free British society from within, I guess:

Notice how Pirro disingenuously just breezes through reading the lines like a spoiler child having to admit failure. Bad acting can’t mask insincerity.

Dish to drop FOX News?

I highly doubt a TV carrier provider would drop a cable news channel based solely on ideology, unless Rupert Murdoch got into the satellite business, but if Dish Network doesn’t come to terms with FOX News — this website contends the two sides are in some kind of dispute — the national IQ should certainly stand to improve a point or two. Of course, unmaking more than a decade of obscurantism and a shameless, daily misrepresentation of facts will take more than just removing one station, given our already low expectations in national “journalism.”

DISH Network is Threatening to Block FOX News | Keep FOX News.

Outfoxed again and again

I wouldn’t care whatsoever if FOX News just came out and said to their audience that they were a biased news organization with a clear agenda of castigating President Barack Obama, the Democratic Party and all progressives at every opportunity. At least that would be honest. At least MSNBC uses the mantra “lean forward” to suggest that the network is basically a progressive mouthpiece.

hannity hypocrisy

Fair and balanced

But it’s FOX News’ constant and blatant deception and sophistry, even after being exposed, that I think puts FOX beyond the pale of anything that might resemble journalism. I have actually heard FOX News officials claim that the channel draws a clear line between commentary like Bill O’Reilly and supposed “straight-laced” anchors like Shepard Smith, but this demarcation line, and as far as I can tell, has never existed.

Here is an example of one of these “straight-laced” news segments omitting a portion of Obama’s speech to imply that Obama was “blaming the troops” for the ISIS threat, and here’s another in which another supposed “straight-laced” correspondent, Ed Henry, who is FOX’s chief White House reporter, no less, fabricated a story suggesting that Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey changed his position on ISIS.

Nonetheless, Robert Ailes from an interview in 2006 addressed criticism of FOX News when he was asked, “If you reject the conservative label, is there another way you would define yourself?:”

I think conservatives were underserved, that does not make us a conservative channel. I think a lot of conservatives watch our channel, that does not make us a conservative channel. If we’re conservative, what does that make the other channels? Liberal. Reporters are very interesting, they keep coming at me and saying aren’t you more conservative, and I say yes well, you mean they’re more liberal? The answer is you see both on our channel. In the last 25 years you CNN had Bob Novack and they thought that was balanced. One half hour they had Bob and the rest of the time they had liberals. We decided to balance all the arguments and treat the conservative view with the same respect as we have for the liberal view, and that is really irritating some people.

We’re not promoting the conservative point of view, we’re merely giving them equal time and access. Why would that offend journalists, to have another point of view? We don’t quite get that. Dragged kicking and screaming the rest of the media is now saying oh my god maybe we should be a little more balanced than the way we were doing things.

He is essentially arguing, without presenting any evidence and just on pure conjecture, of course, that before FOX came along, the national media was just a hive of liberalism, and journalists were not telling the other side of the story. First, it’s not the job of journalists to tell the other side of the story. It’s the journalist’s job to report what is happening, and more times than not, news stories do not have just two sides. They could have three or four or five sides. The suggestion that the goal of journalism is to represent all sides equally is to fail to understand journalism itself, which is, in turn, a particularly unfortunate failure for someone who claims to run a news channel.

And further, if it was true that the nation somehow had a shortage of conservative viewpoints in this period, wouldn’t we have seen nothing but Democrats in the White House and in Congress before FOX opened shop in 1996? I seem to recall some folks named Reagan, Bush Sr., Ford and Nixon. Also, in 1996 when Fox News took to the air, the Republicans had a majority in both houses of Congress.

However much top FOX News officials, reporters and anchors have failed at journalism, they have proven themselves to be professionals at clinical self-delusion.