Donald Trump and "Fake News"

Whenever Donald Trump is criticized, he lashes out in retaliation. When he is criticized in the media in any way, or caught out in one of his many, many lies, he responds by labeling it "fake news." What is sad is that many Americans evidently believe Trump when he suggests that the media are wrong (or maliciously lying about him, etc.). A recent poll indicates that 46% of Americans believe Trump's accusations of "fake news" coming from the media.

Manipulating or discrediting the news media is nothing new. In the administration of Richard Nixon, Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, was evidently charged with the task or attacking the media. He was part of the program to defuse criticism of Nixon, who famously said "I am not a crook." Ironically, not only was Nixon proved to be a crook (or at least a liar, who wrongly denied his involvement in the infamous Watergate scandal), but Agnew was also a crook, who had to resign the vice presidency amidst evidence that he accepted bribes when he was governor of Maryland.

And Franklin Roosevelt, reportedly, was masterful in manipulating the media.

I submit that when the media is wrong, it usually is because they were fed incorrect information by the White House or the Pentagon. This became apparent during the Vietnam War, when the public was misled, many times, because the media were lied to by the government.

A free press is vital to a democracy, and it's important that citizens be able to trust the media. It does not help that cause when the President systematically attempts to discredit them with his accusations of "fake news." I think the public should be more inclined to believe the media than Mr. Trump.

It's getting off the subject, but mentioning Spiro Agnew and the Nixon administration suggests this thought to me: When there are crooks in a government (as Agnew in the Nixon Administration), should the President be guilty by association? That proved to be the case with Agnew and Nixon. Now, with scandals in the Trump administration--several of his nominees for government positions withdrawing because of adverse news, and at least five of Trump's appointees being accused of taking trips on private and luxury flights, thus incurring unnecessary expense to taxpayers--we need to ask ourselves whether this casts any pall on Trump himself. Will we believe him when he tells us, "I am not a crook," as Nixon did?

Copyright © 2017.

How Three Republican Presidents Got Elected

Perhaps arguably, three of the last four Republican presidents to be elected--Nixon, Reagan, and G. W. Bush--stole their elections.

First, Richard Nixon. A week before the presidential election of 1968, Hubert Humphrey achieved a big lead over his opponent, Nixon, by finally distancing himself from President Lyndon Johnson and his Vietnam War policies. Peace talks between the North Vietnamese and the Americans were underway in Paris at the time.

Then, on the very eve of the election, Richard Nixon persuaded the premier of South Vietnam to withdraw from the peace talks by promising him a better deal if he, Nixon, got elected.

This act on Nixon's part might have constituted treason, and Nixon had no standing to interfere in such talks. As a result, Nixon won, very narrowly--by half a percentage of the vote, the smallest margin of victory ever.

And, as a result of Nixon winning and the peace talks having come to an end, the war went on for another seven years and thousands more Americans were killed.

Of course that is not the only wrongdoing that Nixon ever did. Much earlier, when he was running for Congress, he accused his opponent of being a Communist. When a journalist said to him, "But Mr. Nixon, you know that [your opponent] is not a Communist," Nixon said, "Yes, but I wanted to win." That should speak for itself.

And, for those who know history or can remember back 40 years, Nixon gave us the Watergate scandal, which would have gotten him impeached if he had not resigned to avoid it. Mr. "I Am Not a Crook" was indeed a crook.

Okay, now Reagan, who did something similar. University students in Iran, during that country's revolution which ousted the Shah and brought in the current "Islamic Republic," had captured a number of Americans from the US embassy and were holding them hostage. Then US President Jimmy Carter had been powerless to get those hostages released.

Behind the scenes, and again illegally, Reagan (then candidate for US President) got the Iranians to promise NOT to release the American hostages until after the US presidential election was over. That helped continue the image of Carter as helpless in the face of the hostage "crisis" and helped Reagan get elected. Not coincidentally, the hostages were released on the very day that Reagan was inaugurated.

And--again parallel with Nixon--once in office Reagan continued his illegal acts. In the scandal called "Irangate," Reagan's staffers were illegally selling arms to Iran in order to get money to aid the so-called Contras in Nicaragua, in defiance of the US Congress, which had voted that no aid should be given to the Contras. (The Contras were right-wing forces trying to overthrow the Leftist government in Nicaragua. Seems that rebels whom our government wants to support are "freedom fighters," but when we are not on their side, they're rebels or some such.)

And last but not least, George W. Bush. (Hopefully you remember this one.) In the election of 2000, the results of voting were very close and the outcome depended on the vote count in Florida. There were a lot of ambiguous ballots, which were being manually examined. (Remember "hanging chads"?)

The matter at one point was under the control of the (Republican) Florida Secretary of State. Plus, the governor of Florida just happened to be George W. Bush's brother!

Many ballots--from areas which might have favored Gore--were not recounted because the recount was halted by the Secretary of State. And then, the US Supreme Court, with a Conservative majority, ruled that Bush should be President. Many Americans were very angry at that, and considered that Bush had stolen the election.

Update, October 11, 2011
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says this, in a recently published memoir, about the Bush campaign's petition to the Supreme Court to stop the Florida vote recount:

By a five-to-four vote, the court granted the stay [that is, stopping the recount]. "What I still regard as a frivolous stay application kept the court extremely busy for four days," he writes. He adds that no justice has ever cited the opinions that provided the basis for their ruling.

Kinda of makes it sound like it was politically and partisanly motivated, doesn't it?

Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein