We have congratulations and trophies to pass along today.
Margaret Sullivan writes about how the media continues to fail our democracy, most recently in its coverage of the Singapore "summit":
All the problems the media has in conveying a true picture of Donald Trump’s presidency were on display in Singapore on Monday night.
They were just writ larger than usual.
And the stakes, never low with this president, were higher than ever.
Although every legitimate news organization made efforts, some better than others, to bring context and even a measure of skepticism into their mix of stories, the event overall was a triumph of Trumpian stagecraft.
And the media played its accustomed role.That is: bending over backwards to normalize the abnormal and aggrandize the superficial. Congratulations, defenders of democracy! (The media might want to reevaluate its position after this.)
Haaretz's David Rothkopf has a warning for panderers of malignant moron Donald "Rump" Trump in the Middle East:
A deal is only as good as it is for him as long as it is good for him. Long-standing alliances?Disposable. International agreements? Unimportant. The entire international security order and America’s investment in global peace and stability of the past century? Expendable.
Because the Trump doctrine is, "What’s in it for me?" And the events of the past couple weeks (and from all of Trump’s personal and professional endeavors throughout his life) have shown, when that calculus changes, so too can and will the actions of the president of the United States.
So, to Bibi Netanyahu and the leaders of the Gulf, ask not for whom the news from Donald Trump’s Washington tolls, because sooner or later it will toll for thee.Rump's doctrine his whole shallow and sordid life has been "What's in it for me?" For supposedly smarter people here in the U.S. and abroad who thought the office would change him, or that they could use/ control him, have been proven catastrophically wrong. Well done!
Republican strategist Rick Wilson has been repeatedly asked by knuckle- dragging Rump supporters to give Rump credit for his yuuuge achievements, so Wilson obliges in the way only he can:
Good job, Mr. President. You’ve terrified our allies with your cavalier and sloppy art-of-the-moron negotiating style. You’ve told American troops who will remain on the Korean Peninsula they’re no longer going to practice with their Korean counterparts as a deterrent to the North’s long, long history of aggression. I’m sure if the balloon goes up, they’ll thank you for stopping their exercises. [snip]
So congratulations, Mr. President. You spent the week deliberately wrecking American alliances and leadership, allied yourself with one of the most egregious enemies of freedom in the world, and abandoned the shared values of our friends like Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany.
You must be so proud.We certainly know we are! Check out all the op/ eds; they're keepers.
