When I was a reporter, I would sometimes find myself without something to do or cover, so I'd dig around the AP wire thread to see if anything showed up that could be stretched out into a story with a local angle. Or even an interesting one. Sometimes the strategy worked, and sometimes it didn't and I looked like a guy who was desperate for something to throw my byline over in order to justify my paycheck.
Over at Business Insider, James Pasley assumes that role with his photographic essay on how President Trump has bigger salt and pepper shakers than does anyone else eating at the table with him, and how his three predecessors were content with condiment dispenser equality.
Every time I see a story like this I both groan and roll my eyes. The eyeroll comes from the obsession of the majority of media outlets in finding any possible way to make the President look bad, especially compared with other presidents and doubly especially with former President Obama. And some of it comes from the fact that President Trump is a twerp. The groan comes from the realization that these idiots will not stop doing stuff like this until the president is re-elected in 2020, based at least partly on the belief of his supporters that if the mistrusted media are against him this much, he must be doing something right.
We're in for four more years of this crud and the best hope the Democrats have of defeating the president challenged an 83-year-old man to pushups the other day because he didn't like the question he was asked.
It's all surface, no substance. I mean, yes, some of the stuff that gets talked about makes me go "why exactly is he doing that?" but maybe if they didn't talk about it, he wouldn't?
ReplyDeleteThe only other thing I have to say? If I were President (perish the thought), I'd not want to do ANYTHING that suggested I was elevating myself above my guests or, for that matter, ordinary citizens. Because....that's kind of what the IDEA of President was, no?
Some days I think we'd be better off ending elections and just drawing a name out of a hat. You get four years to serve, then you're done. Try to do as little damage as possible...