Reporting on the L word
I mentioned that newspapers like the Times don’t call people liars lightly. For corroboration, here’s the Independent reporting on the very fact that the Times called Trump a liar.
The headline is: New York Times brands Donald Trump a liar
The New York Times has publicly accused Donald Trump of lying after he claimed millions of people had voted illegally in the US presidential election.
…
The New York Times used an editorial on Monday to attack Mr Trump’s claims.
In the piece, published under the byline of the paper’s Editorial Board, it said: “This is a lie, part of Mr. Trump’s pattern, stretching back many years, of disregard for indisputable facts.
“There is no evidence of illegal voting on even a small scale anywhere in the country, let alone a systematic conspiracy involving ‘millions’.
“In addition to insulting law-abiding voters everywhere, these lies about fraud threaten the foundations of American democracy. They have provided the justification for state voter-suppression laws around the country, and they could give the Trump administration a pretext to roll back voting rights on a national scale.”
Just a week ago Trump told Sulzberger to phone him when he got something wrong. Sulzberger of course did not agree to do that, because it would be grotesquely inappropriate. The Times – the whole Times, not a single commentator – is making it clear that it will report on his lies rather than coaxing him like a wayward child.
Mr Trump has repeatedly attacked the New York Times, which endorsed Mrs Clinton for President. A week after his election he claimed the newspaper was “failing” and said its writers “looked like fools”.
He had earlier said it was “losing thousands of subscribers because of [its] very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the ‘Trump phenomena’”. The paper responded saying it had actually seen a rise in subscriptions.
The row is the latest of Mr Trump’s attacks on US media outlets. On Tuesday he criticised news station CNN, tweeting: “I thought that CNN would get better after they failed so badly in their support of Hillary Clinton however, since election, they are worse!”
“CNN is so embarrassed by their total (100%) support of Hillary Clinton, and yet her loss in a landslide, that they don’t know what to do.”
Our own little Hitler.
But…but…there is LOTS of evidence of illegal voting. After all, anyone voting for Hillary Clinton was voting illegally, because only Trump voters are actually bona-fide US citizens…didn’t you get the memo?
Yes, a landslide in which she got about 2 million more votes than he did. Trump truth…a strange distortion of true truth.
Here’s another newspaper columnist who not only uses the “L-word”, but also calls out the likely real reason for him to tell such outrageous and obvious lies:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-trump-illegal-voters-huppke-20161128-story.html
(Huppke is an excellent writer and reporter, and has had a sharp insight during this election cycle. I highly recommend him.)
That’s a great article, and it highlights what is great about Ophelia. She can notice and call out the tweets without distracting her from all the other nasty business. She’s covering it all…indefatigable, and unstoppable.
Aww. *blushes puce*
I didn’t get to all of the big NYT piece on his conflicts of interest though. I have to go back to it.