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The Screaming Moderate

Trump puts American journalists at great risk

11/28/2017

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President Trump, whose job it is to protect Americans, has put American lives at huge risk.

It isn’t enough that he has yelled “fake news” and denounced reporters whenever he has a free moment. The other day he tweeted:

“@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!”
This puts the gunsights on journalists around the world."

It has never been the media’s role to “represent our Nation to the WORLD” well. Their role is to report the news. It is, though, the President's job to represent our nation to the world well. And he is failing in that responsibility.

I have always been in awe of journalists who cover wars, risking their lives so we know what’s going on. I’ve always admired journalists who literally risk their lives in countries that have no free press and where they can at any moment be attacked or arrested.

Now I am in awe of journalists who risk their lives and freedom and no longer can count on the President of the United States having their backs. And to be in fear.as despots around the world watch the President of the United States dub journalists “fake news” which is like waving a red cape at these dictators who can  feel freer to harass and possibly harm the journalists.

College basketball players arrested for shoplifting? Imagine American journalists being arrested because they are American journalists? And can the President be relied on to come to their aid?

The President of the United States isn’t content enough to be the President of the United States, with all the power and responsibility that goes with that job, but he still needs to punish those he perceives to be his enemies. He still needs to be petty.

It is beyond obnoxious and beyond politics. He is putting at risk the lives of American journalists overseas and their families.  And in my view therefore is violating his oath.

Trump’s supporters may get a kick out of him kicking his perceived enemies but he is endangering lives, threatening freedom of the press in this country and being a  petty, spoiled, little boy whose only aim is to punish anyone who dares to criticize or disagree with him or report on that criticism or disagreement.

He also is giving a green light to those countries who do not have a free press to continue to not have a free press. He gives up his moral authority as President.

I have no “therefore” to this piece other than to say I fear for those journalists who weren’t getting paid enough to risk their lives to cover war zones and now who risk their lives with no guarantee that their country will come to their aid.

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Sanders to the press corps: Say pretty please

11/22/2017

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At Monday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said that before a reporter could ask a question he must state something he is thankful for in honor of the holiday this week. I shuddered when I heard this, which was more than a request but more like a conductor tapping her baton.

Then Ms. Sanders went on to say what she was thankful for before calling on the first reporter. I anxiously awaited a smart-ass response or his ignoring her command.  Then, that reporter actually said things he was thankful for. All the reporters called on did the same ranging from being thankful for their spouse and children to being thankful for whatever. They took her “request” seriously.

Until, she called on an ABC reporter who said what I hope I would have said: she was thankful for the First Amendment. I wish every one of those reporters called on said the same thing to use Sanders' condescending request to send a clear message to her and her boss. 

I said to a friend at the time, can you imagine Sam Donaldson, Helen Thomas or Chris Wallace going along with such a charge from a White House staffer?

I was embarrassed for the reporters as I watched. But, they did not seem embarrassed at all, one even using the opportunity to announce on national TV that he was thankful that his wife is pregnant.

Really, folks? Are you going to snap to when the press secretary makes other such requests? What if she next says, “Before you can ask a question, you must name a trait in President Trump that you admire?” or “Before you can ask a question, you must name your next born child The Donald?” or, “Can you tell me the best thing about the Fuhrer, I mean the President?”

 It might have been fun if this was a fun White House. It is not.

This morning, as the President awoke at his Florida palace, he tweeted about a college basketball player’s dad still not properly demonstrating  his thanks for the President asking the Chinese president to release his son from jail on a shoplifting charge.  Really? Did you think that if you mentioned it the Chinese president would not grant it?

And really, was it so hard a lift to ask that an American citizen be released from jail on such a minor charge that could lead to a major jail sentence, in a Chinese prison? I guess you couldn't because this was the closest you came to mentioning human rights on your swing through a bunch of countries who have little such respect for human rights. I mean, Mr. President, you do work for us. Even if the kid was guilty, which he apparently was, he didn’t deserve to be meted out Chinese justice.

And my cynical side wonders if the arrest and imprisonment didn’t happen because the American president was visiting.

But back to Ms Sanders, I was appalled first by her request and second by reporters playing along.

She played you, folks. And you let her.


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Trump trip a failure

11/13/2017

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 President Trump’s 12-day overseas trip has been a failure.  Let me count the ways:

  • He said during the campaign he knew Russian President Vladimir Putin. On this trip he admitted he barely knows him and obviously never met him until he became President.
  • He announced billions of dollars of “deals” while in China. China experts note that none of them were “deals” but nearly- almost-but-not-quite promises that maybe, some day, there might be a deal, but probably not. You will not see many, if any, of his announced deals come to fruition. They just rounded up a lot of proposed projects and announced them as done.
  • He talked about the great relationships he built with leaders on his trip like Xi of China and Duterte of Philippines. Xi said all the right things, apparently, when with the President, on North Korea and trade but, when Trump left China, the situation on both appear to be the same – China isn’t helping solve the North Korea issue and the trade balance remains the same (not that the matter of trade balances bothers me as much as it bothers Trump). And, in Philippines, while Trump’s spokesman said the President did raise human rights with Duterte (who kills drug sellers and users to solve his country’s drug problem) but Duterte’s spokesman said human rights didn’t come up.
  • The White House and Kremlin announced a deal on Syria, but when you read it, it basically reinforces everything already agreed to.
  • The President said he built “great relationships” on this trip. If you ask experienced diplomats, though, how much “great relationship[s” matter in diplomacy, they likely will tell you that the personal relationship is not as important as the policy each side brings to the table. In other words, I may like you but that doesn’t mean we agree.
 
All of that is without mentioning the domestic issue of his trip – Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore’s sexual abuse of minors when he was in his 30s. Trump can side step that one until he’s back on U.S. shores but he likely will stick with his “if it’s true, he should step aside” construct because even Trump (I hope) knows he has no credibility on sexual harassment matters. Then again, who knows.
 
Moore is threatening, among other things, to sue the Washington Post for publishing what he says is fake news. Moore is employing Trump Playbook Chapter 1: saying he will sue the Post (we’re still waiting for Trump’s suits to be filed against his female accusers during the campaign, something he promised to do) and saying it’s fake news, which it surely isn’t.

Like Mitt Romney, I believe that Moore is a candidate, not a criminally accused and the standard for guilt is much lower. In this case, women who have nothing at all to gain from making their claims and do it the current environment of the #metoo trend and speaking out. I believe them.
 
And former White House chief strategist and publisher again of Breitbart News Steve Bannon is threatening to publish the goods on Moore’s accusers. Those will be taken with many grains of salt but the audiences of Breitbart and Trump’s base buy it. The lead story on Breitbart right now is about a woman accusing President Bush 41 groping a woman 15 years ago, for example. The Bannon-Trump playbook is: get accused of something, distract and accuse someone else of the same thing.

For the half of the country that did not vote for Trump, his credibility was and remains an issue. The half that voted for him seem to believe most everything he says or discount for his exaggerations and lies, saying they still like a guy who speaks his mind and ignores political correctness.

The damage done on this trip, though, is largely with the countries and demagogues he visited, the leaders whose egos he stroked. Some of them are autocrats who literally kill their own people for little if any reason other than they don’t agree with the throne. The abuse the human rights of their citizens.

Past presidents consistently held their feet to the fire on human rights.

This President prefers getting them to like him than getting them to respect human rights.


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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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