Update:
Today, even the Conservative Wall Street Journal was critical of Trump’s most recent lies about watching “thousands and thousands” of people cheering as the World Trade Center came tumbling down.
No, the Journal did not call Trump’s statement a lie — as the New York Times had the guts and integrity to do so (below) — rather it called it a “controversy” and danced around it as follows:
The latest Trump controversy came over the weekend, when he told a rally in Alabama that he saw “thousands and thousands” of New Jersey residents celebrating when the World Trade Center towers went down in the 9/11 terror attacks. The implication was that Muslim-Americans across the river cheered terror strikes.
.
A few news reports at the time said there were rumors of celebrations in New Jersey, but there was no substantiation, and certainly no television images of anything like the scene Mr. Trump recalled seeing.
But we have come to expect such of Trump apologizers.
What is really shameful, however, is how the Journal attempts to explain why a candidate such as Trump who “regularly makes statements so incendiary that, spoken in other times, they likely would have driven another candidate to the sidelines… merely rolls on, still the Republican front-runner.”
How does that happen, the Journal asks and blames it on two long and unsatisfying wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; on the deep recession of 2007-09; on “cultural changes, such as the spread of gay marriage” and of course on Barack Obama and — almost as an afterthought — on the Republican Party for “failing to reverse such trends.”
The Journal concludes:
As a result, the unfolding Republican primary sometimes seems to be a contest to see who can be most derogatory of current political leadership—and that’s a contest Mr. Trump figures to win every time. His supporters seem less interested in the details of his pronouncements than in his attitude.
To that I say, if in fact Republicans want to nominate a liar, a demagogue and a bigot as their Party’s presidential candidate because things are “so bad,” go right ahead. Democrats will reward your myopia and folly next November.
Original Post:
The Politically Correct media and others have called them “inaccurate,” “questionable,” “exaggerations,” “outrageous,” “flying in the face of all evidence,” “fabrications,” even “false statements.”
Fact-checking sites have rated his statements as “Pants on Fire,” worth “four “Pinocchios,” etc.
Of course we are talking about Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.
But, finally, some news organizations are getting the backbone and the integrity to call a lie a lie.
The New York Times Editorial Board has just done that.
In a scathing yet honest editorial the Board writes:
America has just lived through another presidential campaign week dominated by Donald Trump’s racist lies. Here’s a partial list of false statements: The United States is about to take in 250,000 Syrian refugees; African-Americans are responsible for most white homicides; and during the 9/11 attacks, “thousands and thousands” of people in an unnamed “Arab” community in New Jersey “were cheering as that building was coming down.”
.
In the Republican field, Mr. Trump has distinguished himself as fastest to dive to the bottom. If it’s a lie too vile to utter aloud, count on Mr. Trump to say it, often. It wins him airtime, and retweets through the roof.
The Times expands on a couple of recent examples of such lies and compares them to other politicians who have targeted minorities, foreigners or women in the past and concludes by bemoaning how such a person “stays at the top of the Republican field” and “is regularly rewarded with free TV time, where he talks right over anyone challenging him, and doubles down when called out on his lies.”
This isn’t about shutting off Mr. Trump’s bullhorn. His right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution, but the public doesn’t need to swallow it. History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act. It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one.
Thank you, New York Times. Please continue to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts and without fear. America needs such a champion.
Lead image: www.shutterstock.com
