The response from the liberal media to a video the president tweeted out earlier this morning is predictably over-the-top. That may have been his intention in posting the message, but why he would want to poke the beast at a time when emotions are already running high? It strikes me as pretty ill-advised.
Feel free to make up your own mind after watching the clip, which shows a Trump look-alike crashing headlong into a man over whose face the CNN logo has been crudely photoshopped. The scene is repeated several times before a CNN-style logo appears on the screen, with the “C” replaced by an “F,” for “Fraud News Network”:
#FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2017
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
So far, the tweet has received 118,000 likes, but more importantly it has provided CNN and its allies with a fresh opportunity to express self-righteous indignation.
CNN released a statement embedded in a tweet:
CNN statement responding to the president: "We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his." pic.twitter.com/Gn1YRA2DRG
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 2, 2017
The claim that Trump is inciting violence against the media is of course absurd, but absurd is the media’s middle name. Other sources that have chimed in with similar claims include ABC News’s chief political analyst Matthew Down, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Kyle Griffin, who produces MSNBC’s “The Last Word” tweeted what he must have thought was a clever gotcha:
Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday: "The president in no way, form, or fashion has ever encouraged any form of violence."
Fact check: https://t.co/JRSDJJdOtE
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 2, 2017
The joke is really on Griffin, considering that the show’s host, the hot-tempered Lawrence O’Donnell, is famous for having challenged Mitt Romney’s son to a fist fight on air.
There were the de rigueur pronouncements on Donald Trump’s mental health, by long-time New York Times drama critic turned pundit Frank Rich, who called the tweet “insane,” and Mother Jones’s David Corn, who accused Trump of being “sick.”
There is more, but it goes on in pretty much the same vein. The one question I would ask the president if I had his ear right now is whether he doesn’t agree that there are better things he could be doing with his time.
(h/t Peter Hasson, Daily Caller)
