It’s interesting how the various news media approach the
task of holding up Donald Trump as if he were a boxer who the other fighter has
to keep standing for two more rounds to complete the fix.
Setting a low bar for Trump, quoting Trump in stories on news
developments without mentioning Hillary’s view, creating a double standard for
Hillary, blaming her for mistakes also committed by her peers, ignoring the
harmless contents of her emails, covering his rallies but not hers, not calling
him on obvious lies—these are some of the many ways the mainstream news media
has subtly helped the Republican candidate since the race began. One of the
most frequently utilized techniques has been conflation, which in the 2016
presidential election consists of equating a minor fault of Hillary’s to a
massive history of bad behavior by Trumpty-Dumpty.
CNN provided a seminal example of conflation in its coverage
of the annual Al Smith Dinner, which supports charitable work by the New York
Catholic Diocese and is typically attended by all the New York City movers and
shakers. It’s a tradition to invite both presidential candidates to the dinner
to give funny speeches that mildly roast themselves and their opponent.
This year, Donald Trump spoke first and he was heavily booed
throughout the speech, and for good reason. After starting with a few excellent
zingers, his remarks quickly devolved into insults, lies and accusations, none
of which approached wit, satire or any other kind of humor. His one success at self-deprecation really
was a joke about his wife. Another time, his joke was to compare himself to
Christ. You could see the uncomfortably ashen faces of the people sitting near
the podium, aghast at Trump’s ugly transgressions against a convivial
tradition.
By contrast, the audience loved what Hillary had to say. As
everyone who watched on TV saw, she peppered her remarks with a number of self-deprecating jokes. She
seemed to enjoy making fun of herself, the image the public has of her and even
the false image of her created by lies that Republicans have spread about her
for years. When she turned to Trump, her cracks were the essence of roast
humor—always funny, and always hitting their mark, jokes that cut deep in the
truth they revealed, but that always stayed on the side of humor. She delivered
them with a good-natured warmth that made me think that she took time out from
debate preparation to study the master of the roast, Dean Martin.
The audience loved it, applauding
frequently. Some of the applause was at the humor, but sometimes it was because
they agreed with the truth behind the humor. Her best moment was when she
talked about the debates. “Sharing a stage with
Donald Trump is like, well, nothing really comes to mind. Donald wanted me drug
tested before last night's debate. I am so flattered that Donald thought I used
some sort of performance enhancer. Now, actually, I did. It's called
preparation.” After hearty laughter from the audience, Clinton did what every
great comedian does: go for a topper. She said, “And looking back, I've had to
listen to Donald for three full debates, and he says I don't have any stamina!”
The audience roared.
How surprised was I then to wake up to CNN equating the performances
at the dinner by the two candidates. “They struggled to disguise the anger, bitterness and
sheer open dislike that has pulsed through their recriminatory White House
race, perhaps not surprisingly since he has threatened to throw her in jail and
she says he's a threat to the republic.”
CNN hits the daily double with this sentence, two conflations in one: 1)
The conflation of Clinton’s good-natured ribbing which the audience ate up like
grandma’s cannoli with Trump’s boorish ill-humor that the audience widely
booed. 2) The conflation of Trump’s false and unsubstantiated accusations
against a woman who has withstood decades of investigations with Hillary’s
legitimate concern about Trump’s refusal to say he’ll agree
to the election results, a concern also voiced by virtually the entire
mainstream news media and many if not most Republicans. The CNN coverage
ignores the applause and minimizes the humor that distinguished Hillary’s
appropriate remarks with Trump’s transgressions.
I understand the
craven Jimmy Fallon sucking up to a former star of the network that writes his
paychecks, but what does CNN have to gain by its inaccurate portrayal of what
happened? What does it gain from ignoring what was obvious to all? That we
cannot compare Donald Trump’s boorishness in any way with anyone else who has
run for president, at least since World War I. My guess is that CNN’s editorial
board is still hell bent in denying Hillary the landslide that will produce
Democratic majorities in the Senate, and maybe even the House.
Most of the other
mainstream media outlets, like NBC, the New
York Times and National Public Radio focused their coverage much more on
the boos given to Trump’s mean-spirited remarks than on the applause and laughs
Hillary got. In this regard, their approach resembled how they portrayed the
debates and the commander-in-chief forum. In all instances, they focused on
Trump’s bad performance, mentioning that he fell for many traps Hillary set for
him, but often forget to note that Hillary was superb in her own right.
Hillary and
Trumpty-Dumpty have now gone mano a mano
five times, and all five times Hillary has defeated her adversary with ease,
all after defeating the far more competent and visionary Bernie Sanders. If it
weren’t Hillary Clinton, if she weren’t a woman, if the mainstream news media
didn’t list Republican, maybe they would realize that we are seeing the
political equivalent of the 1998 Yankees or American Pharoah’s run to horse
racing’s Triple Crown.
