Perfect message
Apparently Mike Pompeo is in Kazakhstan saying it’s great to punish journalists for doing their job. Way to represent, Mike!
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the State Department’s decision to deny NPR press credentials for his trip to Europe following his confrontation with reporter Mary Louise Kelly, stating in an interview in Kazakhstan Sunday that it sends “a perfect message about press freedoms” to the world.
What perfect message is that? “You can’t have them”?
It sends a great message, and he hopes the rest of the world will follow our press freedoms – the ones where the State Department punishes a network because a reporter from that network asked questions the boss didn’t like. I’m not sure “our press freedoms” is the right label for that behavior.
During an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Pompeo denied that he had a confrontational interview with Kelly and said the State Department only grants press credentials when it believes reporters are “telling the truth and being honest,” according to a transcript.
And (under Pompeo) it only believes reporters are “telling the truth and being honest” when they don’t report on Pompeo’s actions.
“I always bring a big press contingent, but we ask for certain sets of behaviors, and that’s simply telling the truth and being honest. And when they’ll do that, they get to participate, and if they don’t, it’s just not appropriate — frankly, it’s not fair to the rest of the journalists who are participating alongside them,” Pompeo said.
Which is ironic because in fact he’s the one who is not telling the truth and being honest here.
What a sack of shit he is.
A lying sack at that, Mary Louise Kelly merely asked a question, there was no dishonesty on her part, but the Usurper approves and that’s what matters to this guy.
I think I’m just reiterating, let me try again. What bothers me is now that they are kicking out the people who ask the wrong questions, how do they determine the other reporters are being truthful and honest? Is the material they are producing being screened and edited, or worse censored altogether? If they are doing this according to what they accept as “truth and honesty” then it’s just reduced to more of the “fake news” they profess to hate so much. If not, is it simply a vetting process? For example Kelly just asked a wrong question, so the result is no NPR reporters because they ask the wrong questions? It all seems highly manipulated.
Funny, I didn’t think it was 1984. I thought…I guess I was listening to fake news.
Isn’t there a certain set of behaviours required for being President, or say, Secretary of State? Something about an oath, I think. I could be wrong.
He might not have any sort of strategy or plan in mind, but this sort of behaviour could lead the remaining reporters to think twice about asking any question that would diminish or remove their “access.” If they self-censor, then Trump and his goons don’t actually have to go to the bother to regulate what’s reported, the “reporters” following the rules will do it for them. Pompeo is attacking NPR “pour encourager les autres”, or to quote an (apparently) Chinese saying, “killing the chicken to scare the monkeys.”