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Meghan McCain Brings Michael Wolff to the Woodshed
We’re not supposed to do this anymore, but sometimes I like to imagine how the media would react if we lived in an alternate timeline, and Hillary Clinton is President of the United States instead of Donald Trump. The new book Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff is one of my favorite examples of practicing “what aboutism” — as it’s called with Donald Trump occupying the White House.
Can you imagine for one moment the political press fawning over a book full of factual errors and interviews conducted off the record? Would they lend their platform to an author to sell a book that is filled with untruths, yet it “rings true?” Why, exactly, does it “ring true” to them anyway? Because Wolff’s narrative about the President being oafish is precisely what those who want to exercise the 25th Amendment and remove the President from office want to hear. And so, they refuse to ask the hard questions and grill Wolff in the way they would have had the subject of the book been President Obama or a Clinton.
On “The View” Wednesday, a talk show host on a daytime women’s show had the best interview of this author by a mile. We once had an entire press who would have taken Wolff on in such a way, but now we’re left with just Meghan McCain of “The View” (a friend of mine, but not the only journalist in America). She started off her grilling as soon as the interview started by asking, “You know Michael, your credibility is being questioned.”
Michael responded, “Let’s explain who my credibility is being questioned by.” McCain then began to rattle off names of members of the media who called into question parts of Wolff’s narrative: from who their sources were, to if they were present at meetings Wolff discusses, the quotes attributed to them, and more. The reaction on Wolff’s face is reason enough to watch the clip.
McCain then explains how problematic it is for the narrative of an entire administration to be shaped by disgruntled staffers, who are usually the only ones willing to speak to individuals like Michael Wolff in the first place.
What is perhaps most remarkable about the Wolff book isn’t what is in it; we have no way of knowing what is true, what is a fabrication, and which stories lie somewhere in between. How can we trust the narrative of a man whose scruples are in such limited quantity that the entire premise of the book was taken from an off-the-record meeting? The most remarkable bit is that it exists in the first place, which McCain points out. Why was he given access at all?
Many are blaming Steve Bannon for allowing Wolff in and setting up interviews which littered the book. The problem in the White House wasn’t just Bannon. In the Daily Beast in November, Elaina Plott shadowed Omarosa (who has since left) for an entire day; and walked away unsure of what the communications director for the Office of Public Liaison did every day. Plott wrote,
After the abrupt end to our day in March, I called a Republican source in constant contact with the White House and asked what they thought Omarosa’s job entailed. “No clue,” the source said. I told the source about our whirlwind of a morning.
“Wait, Hope [Hicks] let you follow [Omarosa] around?” the source asked. No, I hadn’t spoken with Hope, who now serves formally as the White House communications director. “So Sean [Spicer] let you?” Ditto. “Christ,” the source said. “No one in the comms department knew a random reporter was walking around the West Wing. This is why people think we’re a [expletive] show.”
The furor over Fire and Fury will eventually dissipate; it won’t bring down the Trump administration as Wolff hoped it would, but it will make him a great deal of money. But the Trumpization of American culture continues apace; a man can write an entire book of lies and find himself able to promote it on every major show in the country, whose hosts and producers are more than happy to accept a narrative as flawed as Wolff’s not because it’s true, but because they want it to be. You don’t have to like Trump (McCain certainly doesn’t) to understand how the press’s refusal to grill Wolff, or at least ignore him, further erodes public trust in the media.
Published in General
I’m not sure how the Omarosa anecdote applies to the main point.
Just another example of how crazy this White House is – that reporters can wander around.
What did you consider the main point to be? I thought there were two: the media isn’t living up to its own standards and the Trump White House is incompetent. Both things had to be true for there to be such a sensation over Trump’s book.
Who did authorize the visit? Not Omarosa herself I hope.
He wanted to reuse his line from the Today show (“ever walked on earth”), and she wasn’t going to let him. Good for her. It’s a silly thing to say anyway. This isn’t Epimenides Paradox. If someone who isn’t honest calls you a liar, that’s not evidence that you’re honest.
I see the point. I think you by is, you mean was. I think these days are over, the number of white house leaks has slowed. I think enough people had been fired, that those who still have a job, know not say.
Its pretty sad, that at first everyone climbed over the president to get to the press, to salvage their reputations or to build one. Not realizing they should keep notes, and write the memoir once they’re out. (has Reince Priebus announced his book deal yet?)
Listening to the GLOP podcast, it appears the book rings true to not just liberals. ?
Also I don’t think it is fair to call it the “Trumpanization” of America. The forces at work are far beyond Trump. He is far more a symptom than the cause.
The media is part of the corporation that is Government, Inc. (GI) owns the Democrats (or vice versa), and the major companies. Too many conservatives and Republicans are seen as part of the outer party of GI. Americans of both parties are tired of GI. Trump and Sanders, despite all their GI connections, are seen as not GI.
Where we are us the fault of a ruling class who won’t lead, and a people who don’t want to face the impending financial collapse. It is the result of two generations of leftist advance, and conservatives out to conserve the status quo of the last decade, whatever that decade was.
Re: The Plott quote in the original post.
This is a problem I have with the way we have chosen to judge our government and the people in it. We are so focused on the performance art rather than the substance of government performance.
We admire control, message discipline, ruthlessness and skill in playing The Game as it has evolved in modern politics. Under those criteria we could admire the Nazis who were damned good in all four with an almost admirable ability to keep detailed books on their crimes against humanity.
Trump has brought chaos to Washington, or delivering the “[explitive] show” if you prefer. I’ll take that and less government and more freedom over the competence of an authoritarian socialist administration any day of the week.
I’ve heard interviews with Wolff where he’s quite up-front about how much faith readers should have in the anecdotes he writes about. He seems to fully admit (and I’m paraphrasing here), “look, I’m reporting what people told me. The trust-worthiness of those people is up to the reader to decide, but I ain’t lying about what they told me.”
That, I can live with.
The problem, however, is when he gets his back up and starts to compare himself to Bob Woodward. At that point he just starts to sound pompous.
…
Also, the bit in the View clip from the OP, where he talks about the NYT being jealous because he scooped them. He doesn’t do his credibility any favours by being so pompous, but still I think he handles McCain’s questions competently.
Gee, just when it was getting good, when the conventional wisdom turned to declare the book helpful to Trump and damaging to his enemies, another McCain comes along to spoil the party.
The return address on packages sent by Democrats to disguise partisan suspicions:
The McCain Family
102 Patriot Drive
Republicsburg, AZ
Ah, that sweet song. You’re on stage singing it, and we are out here with lighters raised, singing along.
Indeed. That being said, it would not be healthy for journalists to avoid reporting about the chaos just because they like the results. That would smack of cover-up.
From what I’ve read and heard, Wolff does not come across as a journalistic hit-man with an axe to grind. He comes across to me as a reporter who was really lucky to get the level of access he did, and wrote about the experience.
I’ve read more than a couple reviewers say of the book that the narrative it creates isn’t nearly as bad as what one would expect from an anti-Trump hit-piece. In fact, quite a few reviewers have said that it’s a pretty standard book of political gossip.
I think it may seem more egregious that it actually is for two reasons: 1) Lots of anti-trumpers are reading way more into it than what he actually reports, hyping it as a “devastating tell-all”, and claiming that Wolff makes arguments in the book that aren’t there. 2) We’ve become so used to the fawning hagiography of Barack Obama that normal political journalism seems hyper-critical by comparison.
From the interviews and the reviews I’ve read of Wolff’s book (which I admit, I haven’t read), it sorta kinda reminds me of Oliver Stone’s movie about George W. Bush, which everybody expected to be a complete hit-piece, but in the end was surprisingly middle-of-the-road.
“And so, they refuse to ask the hard questions and grill Wolff in the way they would have had the subject of the book been President Obama or a Clinton.”
Had such a book been written about a Democrat President, they would not have been interviewed at all. Even- especially– factual well-documented books were given minimal coverage. Clinton Cash for example.
This book seems to have ended Steve Bannon’s political maneuverings, and that’s a good things. I’m not going to read it. I already know the first year of the Trump administration was whacko. I watched it in the news everyday. Hopefully, from now forward the chaos will run more efficiently.
I am also glad someone went after him on it. T
Of all the example of how last year’s insanity doesn’t seem to want to stop, I think, “Meghan McCain does something useful,” definitely belongs on the list.
We don’t need to speculate on how the media would have handled a book like Wolff’s if it had been about Hillary since we already saw this play out a few years ago. In 2004 Ron Suskind wrote a book full of embarrassing revelations about the Bush Administration. In 2012 he did the same regarding the Obama Administration. Both books contained many claims disputed by the administrations. The Obama book got fewer reviews and he was able to get much less media attention for it than for the Bush book. And when he did get interviews? The Today Show interviewed him both times. For the Bush book their approach was just to ask them to tell what he found out. There were no challenges to his claims and everything was treated as if it were true. When he was interviewed regarding the Obama book, the interviewers were armed with White House talking points and he was challenged on every claim.
And that, my friends, is how the game is played.
I don’t know much about journalistic ethics – something I have in common with a lot of journalists it seems – but is there some kind of principle wherein an off-the-record conversation/meeting magically becomes on-the-record?
So one of the people present is dead and another person that was present says ‘OMFG PUBLISHHHHH!’ Were there other people present? What of their wishes? And for that matter, what about the dead guy’s wishes – he could have defended himself if he lived, but now that he is dead, he can’t set the record straight and can’t sue for libel.
This technique is also used on the right, btw. Bozell trashed David Bowie shortly after he died, claiming that he liked to sleep with underaged girls.
We have laws against desecrating corpses and we have laws against tarnishing reputations. Perhaps there is nothing to protect the reputations of the dead.