It's one of my favorite moments in any given episode of "Law and Order".
Jack McCoy, questioning a resisting witness, pivots suddenly to a question that comes more in the form of a sucker punch that exposes the transgression, falsehood, flaw in the alibi, etc of that witness, instantly bringing the defense attorney to their feet, objecting strenuously to the inappropriateness of the question itself.
And the judge, begrudgingly, but, professionally, with an almost palpable weariness, mixed with a little tone reminiscent of a parent admonishing a child responds.
"...you opened the door, Mr (or Ms. ) Defense Attorney...objection overruled."
I always find myself doing a little quick fisted "yessss!" when that happens. Probably because I get an admittedly too gleeful enjoyment out of watching someone being hoisted on their own petard. And, along with it, most likely, an appreciation for he, or she, who has pulled off the hoisting.
I was reminded of my keenness for comeuppance today when a friend of mine forwarded me an op/ed written by a broadcasting colleague of mine.
Rick Jensen is, his syndicated column blurb reads, Delaware's award-winning conservative talk show host on WDEL, streaming live on WDEL.com from 1pm ---- 4pm EST. Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL.
I've been privileged to guest host for Rick a few times, albeit from a studio in a different part of the state. Just recently, though, circumstances had me guest hosting for another host from the WDEL studios in Wilmington, providing me the opp to meet and chat with Rick. Although the "meet/chat" actually only lasted three or four minutes of a five minute commercial break, Rick offered graciously kind words of praise for my work, coupled with the good natured snark I couldn't help but appreciate, given our pretty much polar positions on pretty much all things political. I had, and have, the feeling that he and I could have some great fun and make some great radio if fate and fortunes ever put us in the point-counterpoint position.
"Rick...you ignorant slut...."
We should both just start clearing a place on the mantle for the multiple Peabodys, ya know?
The op/ed he wrote, forwarded to me by another friend, appears on the website home of the Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
The full text can be found here:
https://www.caglecartoons.com/column.asp?columnID=%7BF1D0FF9A-1A3C-4F80-8E61-01A12443FA81%7D
For my purposes, though, here's Rick's opening salvo.
Which is worse, President Trump allegedly sharing a piece of classified intel with the Russian ambassador or insider bureaucrats leaking classified information to journalists, all hell-bent on unseating a president they just don't like? *
When asked, in the context of a live radio show, my guess would be that Rick would be asking, and expecting, literal answers to that question.
In the context of a printed piece, meanwhile, one would assume the question to be more rhetorical.
To no one's great surprise, I'm gonna forego the rhetorical and go with the literal.
After the initial gauntlet of Rick's premise has been thrown down, he goes on to elaborate on the media's treatment of Trump, taking to task a plethora of pundits for their prejudicial presentations.
"...CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, the New York Times...and all of the papers in ink and online that republish those outlets..." * are taken out back to Rick's woodshed for their "reporting of conjecture", in particular, their conjecture(s) regarding Trump's Kremlin Krisis. It should probably be mentioned, here, that, in Rick's piece, Fox News is obviously, and obviously, conspicuous by its absence from the indictment. In fairness, because it's a safe bet that Fox isn't taking Trump to task for the Kremlin Krisis.
Of course, it's an even safer bet that Fox News wouldn't take Trump to task for, say, kidnapping, even if the skeletal remains of the Lindbergh baby showed up buried in the moldy basement under Mar A Lago.
But I digress.
Rick uses up a fair chunk of his written words with an example of what I've affectionately referred to, in my own work, as "but what about(s)?". In this case, "they accuse Trump of ________, but what about when Obama________...or what about when Hillary_____?"
In Rick's piece, Obama is the what abouter du jour.
And that's okay or, at least, that's to be expected because no conservative worth their salt, or their Hannity decoder ring, would fail to take the opportunity to whip up a fresh batch of equivalency when cooking up a big ol' dish of defending the Donald.
And, again, in fairness (I was going to say in fairness and balance, but Ailes just did pass away and even smart ass libturd snowflakes like me have enough class to stay away from punch lining the newly dead), Rick does endorse comments made by Tom Brokaw, a veteran journalist of the journalistic integrity era and someone who could never be indicted for, let alone convicted of, being a conservative voice.
So, there's that.
But all of that and, I'm a thinkin', meanders away from the "ah-ha" moment in the plot of this episode of Jensen vs SEP- The Rhetorical Reckoning.
And here it comes.
Rick is absolutely right. More accurately, I couldn't agree with Rick more. At least insofar as his foundational assertion that mainstream (read: liberal) media has it in for Trump and ain't all that concerned about playing fair. As those, once upon a time, insightful political pundits Rowan and Martin would have put it....
"...you bet your sweet bippy, they want to bring Trump down....and they've got ammo belts chock full of conjecture...and they ain't afraid to use it..."
The fly in the ointment, though, the barb in the rhubarb, the kill in the buzzkill is that this is where the petard makes its dramatic appearance in our story.
The petard that comes in the shape of the notorious "but, what about_____?"
There are certain truths in this life, no matter how we bend, flex, smash, shatter and/or mutate them.
One of those truths is that two wrongs don't make a right. And, in the higher scheme of things, one lie never justifies the telling of another lie, either in support of the first lie or, worse, in retaliation or response to the first lie.
But we don't live in the higher scheme of things. We live in the America where Donald Trump lives at 1600 Pennsylvania (at least one or two days out of the week).
And there's that pesky business about where the bar is set.
Passionate partisan politics aside, policy disagreement understandable and notwithstanding, even simple, basic, primal dislike of a particular individual taken into account, in this case, an individual who, arguably, has set a standard for polarization that may not be equaled in our lifetimes, if ever, there is one irrefutable fact in play.
The 45th President of the United States is a liar. A fibber, a fabricator, an obfuscator, a deceiver, a teller of untruths, a taradiddler.
And you can put Jeffrey Lord and Kellyanne Conway and Scottie Nell Hughes and Kayleigh McEneny and Sean Hannity and throw in a newly re-furbed and re-booted edition of the Mike Curb Congregation, if you want, on 24 hour spin patrol and it will not change, alter or disprove the fact that Trump is not an honest man.
And, if the court please, the evidence submitted in support of this assessment is not rumor, nuance, obfuscation, slander, libel, interpretation or insinuation.
It is factually based truth, available to any and all who wish to confirm it, via hundreds of hours of audio and video and other "recorded live as they happened" statements by this president, himself, his own self and nothing but himself.
And let's don't even get started on the Tweets. Both old and new. But especially old. Contrasted with the new.
For that reason, if only that reason absolutely alone, that's why any discussion, debate, dissertation, disagreement, conversation or simple plain ol' chit chat about the integrity, or lack, of the purportedly villainous mainstream media (read: every single word printed or spoken in a news format in the United States of America that does not come from Fox News) is, at best, a waste of time.
And, at worst, an insult to what's left of the intelligence of the American people.
As I very intentionally pointed out a few paragraphs back, two wrongs don't make a right. And one lie is never an excuse to tell a second.
But holding media (with, of course, the exception of Fox News that has long ago broken my ex-wife's record for never, ever, ever being wrong about anything) to a "standard of truth and factual utterance" for lack of a less lofty phrase is, it turns out, not so much an exercise in futility as it is a literal impossibility.
Because...there is no standard of truth and factual utterance.
And proof about the truth is that it simply doesn't enter into the equation these days.
The 45th President of the United States has no problem ignoring it. Or objecting, complaining and/or plotting to harshly deal with anyone who deigns to call him on the fact that he ignores it.
And the media?
Well, in that higher scheme of things, they would take the high road and just be better people than that.
And it really is a damn shame that they don't take that high road more often.
But there's not a current President in sight on that high road.
Making the case that, if only by implication, truth is expendable and the lie is acceptable.
And were I representing the media and the opposing attorney leaped up and strenuously objected to the media's reporting of conjecture and rumor and, hell, let's just cut to the chase here, flat out lies, I would have merely to give the judge a glance, arch an eyebrow of expectation and wait for the ruling to come rolling right on over them.
Your President....sorry, I mean, your client, opened the door.
Objection overruled.
*© Copyright 2017 Rick Jensen, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
No comments:
Post a Comment