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Making Acosta a Federal Case
Question: What does CNN’s Jim Acosta crave more than anything? If you said “attention,” go to the head of the class. It’s a mystery why the White House has given Acosta way more than that. By yanking his “hard pass,” after last week’s press conference (don’t ask who was obnoxious, they ALL were), Acosta has literally become a federal case. CNN filed suit claiming that their reporter’s First and Fifth amendment rights were violated. More than a dozen news organizations, including Fox, have filed amicus briefs supporting CNN, and even the Trump-friendly FoxNews judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano has opined that Acosta has a strong case. Mr. Showboat is just where he wants to be – the center of attention – but thanks to President Trump’s gratuitous swipe, he is also a free press martyr.
Acosta’s technique has been honed for many months – asking questions not to receive answers but to shame. At the November 7 press conference, Acosta rose to “challenge” the president on what he had said about the caravan during the closing days of the campaign. “As you know Mr. President, the caravan was not an invasion. It’s a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the U.S.”
It’s not Acosta’s job to joust with the president over interpretations of words. Leave that to commentators or politicians. He could have asked the president where he got his information about Middle Eastern terrorists infiltrating into the caravan, or what his evidence was that there were many criminals in its ranks. He might have asked what purpose U.S. troops would serve at the border in light of the Posse Comitatus Act. He could have asked whether the president thought any of the migrants might have colorable asylum claims. Instead, he demanded “Do you think you demonized immigrants?”
Frankly, if Acosta thinks the president demonized immigrants, let him write an op-ed. A press conference is supposed to be about eliciting information. Acosta doesn’t practice journalism so much as performance art.
The White House handled this mosquito in about the worst possible way. The president could have declined to call on him. Having called on him and been offended by his tone, the president could have refused to take the bait, saying “You might want to run for office yourself. In the meantime, I’ll call on someone who wants to ask a question, not stage a debate.”
Instead, in a fit of petulance, the White House revoked Acosta’s press pass. This is Trump not understanding the import of the office he holds. When Trump the businessman took swipes at press coverage he disliked, it was pique. When the president of the United States does it, it smacks of authoritarianism. Admittedly, the press corps are a high-strung bunch, but this White House flirts with intimidation, calling down contempt for them at rallies, deriding them as the “enemy of the people,” (which is an echo of Stalin, whether Trump recognizes it or not), threatening to sic the FTC on the owner of the Washington Post, and elevating the likes of Gateway Pundit.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who cannot be much more honest than her boss and hope to keep her job, issued a tweet explaining that Acosta was exiled because he had accosted the intern who attempted to remove the mic from his hands. “President Trump believes in a free press and expects and welcomes tough questions of him and his Administration. We will, however, never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern…”
Anyone who watched the exchange – or looked it up on YouTube — knew that this was risible. Yet Sanders said it anyway and even released a video that had been slightly doctored (by speeding it up) to make it seem that Acosta had been physically swatting at the intern.
Within a few days, Sanders changed her tune, claiming instead that the White House cannot run a smooth press conference if reporters hog the mic. But let’s pause to consider where this White House has settled. Covering up for an intemperate retaliation against a journalist, the spokesman for the president of the United States attempted to rewrite the history that we had all seen with our own eyes just days before.
Ms. Sanders would be a great fit in the Ministry of Truth.
Published in General
No honest debate is stifled on this site. Given the infinitesimally small number of edits and redactions, let alone suspensions and bannings that take place, I suggest you not make that subject the focus of this thread, and that you return to a discussion of the issues, pro and con as you see them, that are presented in the OP. @fredcole, please flag any comments that you perceive as in violation of the Code of Conduct, rather than lecturing your fellow members on the subject.
CNN’s LOLsuit arguably made it worse for the press.
Yes. Speaking for myself, I think that’s probably true. I’ve noticed that Trump has frequently managed to thread a needle such that, what starts out looking like a boneheaded and reflexive move on his part, ultimately ends up accruing to his benefit.
And CNNs making a fuss about the fact that, among other things, there weren’t terribly clear procedures in place about how to act and what to do, has just given the White House the opportunity to write a new set of watertight, and much more restrictive, rules. A case of “careful what you wish for,” as it were.
Ultimately, I think this will lead to more orderly and better-managed press conferences. But I don’t expect the reporters will like it much, and many of them will probably wish that Acosta had just left the toothpaste in the tube.
I’m assuming that this is your opinion.
TFW one kid wrecks it for the whole class.
Bartender! A double-shot of schadenfreude for everyone in the bar!
The Acosta blanket party should be fun.
I’ve heard they put microphones in their socks.
They tried notebooks, but they didn’t work.
If you’re implying something say it straight.
Who decides whether a debate is honest? I think that’s what’s implicit in the comment. Answer?
Then the exact same statement appeared in the NY Post.
This is false. Simon knows this is false because the reason Simon was suspended the first time was made known to him at the time that he was suspended (in May of 2015 ). He was suspended because he repeatedly (3 times) republished a post that had been removed by the editors for being inappropriate (In the post, Simon asserted that Barack Obama traded oral sex to old white men for cocaine.)
This is true. Simon knows this is true because the reason for his suspension was made clear to him at the time (about a month ago).
This is false. Simon knows this is false because the reasons for this suspension were made clear to him at the time (in about August).
This is accurate. Read the Terms & Conditions.
It is not possible to be banned for life more than once, for reasons that I don’t think I need to explain. Simon often says that he was banned for life in 2015, but this is false. Again, I don’t think I really need to explain why it’s false that he was ever banned for life. Since he’s here. Commenting. 😒
That’s a very Bernardy comment (I’ve been watching Yes Prime Minister)
This is categorically false, by the way. He always says “the fake news is the enemy of the people.” And then the fake news says that he says “the media is the enemy of the people.”
Yep.
You go Max.
Wow Dude, I leave you for a quick minute to watch the KC-LA game and things go sidewise?
Virgin Mary scene from Full Metal Jacket. (1:44) Viewer discretion/ NSFW: Language, violence, etc. Private Joker gets slapped at 0:41
Happy Thanksgiving!
Right. You get that by “fake news” he means the skeptical press, right? Or anyone who says anything that’s inconvenient in any way to whatever con he’s running on a particular day.
So you can read his mind to find out what he really means.
Can you list these daily cons? Please be specific.
You don’t need to be a mind reader. You just need to look at the man’s history.
I don’t understand why so man people extend Donald Trump, a proven habitual liar, a low-rent conman, any benefit of the doubt.
Because we are rational people who attempt to weigh evidence in an effort to get at the truth in a given situation.
The truth is that Donald Trump is a habitual liar and con man. Therefore, rationally, anything he says needs to be weighed appropriately.
Maybe you could try to understand. You could start by not assuming he’s a conman. Just try it out, for like an afternoon. Where you might ordinarily say to yourself, “Trump’s a conman lying about issue A,” you might instead say to yourself, “I have a difference of opinion with Trump on issue A.” You don’t even have to concede that Trump is ever correct about anything. Just try giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Take the exchange with Acosta as a guide. Acosta said, “Why are you calling the migrant caravan an invasion when you know it’s not?” And Trump said, “Because I think it is. We have a difference of opinion.”
Do you see the difference between “Trump is lying about the caravan being an invasion” and “I disagree with Trump about the caravan being an invasion”?
This is called begging the question. It’s a rhetorical failure in which the speaker or writer asserts something as a given which in fact remains to be proven.
Actually, I can’t do that.
Would you start a discussion about Jeffrey Dahmer by saying “Assume he’s not a cannibalistic serial killer”? No, you wouldn’t. Because Jeffrey Dahmer was, in fact, a cannibalistic serial killer.
You’re suggesting that an honest analysis starts with a blank slate and doesn’t takes a man’s established behaviors into consideration. Sorry, I just can’t do that.
Max, you can’t reason someone out of a position he never arrived at through reason.