SCOOPS?
In a way, you have to take pity on contemporary American media. Their obsession with slinging mud at our President has become increasingly difficult for them. Because Mr. Trump has done such a good job with our nation’s economy, its military standing, international affairs and security, they have been forced to SCROUNGE for mud to sling. They’ve had to make due, for example, with the declarations of an aging porn star about her laison with Mr. Trump ELEVEN years past. They are currently so flustered with President Trump’s success that they no longer know what is or isn’t “sling worthy” mud.
The traditional term in news media for a high profile and timely story is “SCOOP”. Getting a SCOOP was, and is, the holy grail of any successful news person. But because of Mr. Trump’s continuing successes, today’s newscasters have to really STRETCH these days to come up with anything that might be worthy of the traditional SCOOP title. But stretch they do!
Consider the recent big “SCOOP” on Sean Hannity! This “SCOOP” occurred when investigations into Mr. Trump’s private attorney, Michael Cohen, revealed that Fox News Star Sean Hannity had…(wait!…reader discretion advised: make sure you can handle this)…CONSULTED WITH MR. COHEN! OMG! A CONSULTATION!…THE HORROR OF IT!!! Was this a SCOOP?…Please!…
Consider the next the big “SCOOP”, this one on current CIA Director and Secretary of State nominee, Michael Pompeo. Over the Easter weekend Director Pompeo paid a visit to North Korea’s President Kim Jong-un. The visit was conducted in secret, of course, to give both sides maximum flexibility by avoiding outside scrutiny during the sensitive “getting to know you” phase of talks. When news of the meeting came out, the media went CRAZY, as if they had discovered another Watergate! It was as if talks with a nuclear armed adversary for the purpose of controlling nuclear proliferation was some kind of nefarious conspiracy. Or, worse yet, some type of COLLUSION! What WAS the media narrative on this? What could their objection possibly be? POMPEO COLLUDES WITH KIM JONG-UN TO WORK TOWARD PEACE??? Is THAT a “SCOOP”?… Please!…
Then there was the recent “SCOOP” on Nikki Haley. Following a cabinet meeting on Syria, U. S. Representative to the U.N., Nikki Halley, announced at the United Nations that she had spoken with Mr. Trump who said that if Assad used chemical weapons again, we were “locked and loaded,” The next day the White House announced that they were not planning new SANCTIONS, however. But the media, in their frenzy to sling mud, confused sanctions (which we were NOT planning to increase) with additional MILITARY strikes (which were still a possibility). An interviewer subsequently goaded a White House Economic Adviser, Larry Kudlow, to surmise that there may have been some “MOMENTARY confusion”. Then the media jumped up and down. To which Representative Haley calmly replied that she “doesn’t get confused”. The confusion, in this circumstance, was manufactured by the media. And it certainly wasn’t a “SCOOP”!
The last, and most absurd “SCOOP” I’ll mention is from yesterday. It occurred at the funeral for past First Lady Barbara Bush. The headlines read… (are you ready for this?)… “Melania SMILES AT BARACK OBAMA”! That’s it! Melania Trump SMILED at Barack Obama! Oh, the horror of it!!! What was she SUPPOSED to do, spit in his eye??? Amazingly, though, our desperate media ran with it, as did social media. Incomprehensibly, a Hillary Clinton aide by the name of Philippe Reines remarked, get this: “Melania was craving distance from a MONSTER being reminded what dignity looks like.”!!! What the HECK??? Reines’s remark clearly shows that HE doesn’t know what dignity looks like! And THIS is supposed to be a “SCOOP”???… Please!!!…