Well it would seem that Fox News ‘Inquisitors’ were
again in what was so very obvious, attack mode when it came to Donald Trump.
From idiotic Chris Wallace and his equally idiotic slide show to Megyn Kelly
and her flip-flop videos, Fox News came loaded for bear to what was less a
debate and more of a political broadside attack on Donald Trump last
night. This was something that I would
have expected to see on CNN or MSNBC, not on what’s supposed to be the
‘conservative alternative.’ I watched
for about 30 or 40 minutes before turning to ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’.
This time, they seemed to have vowed to one another
that Trump simply would not be permitted to get away with vagaries about cutting
waste and abuse. This time, they vowed,
he wouldn’t wriggle out of past contradictions like shedding past skins. So compete with slide shows, loaded questions
and attitude, they were going to get their man, one way or another. So on a day when Trump spent much of his time
beating back attacks from leaders of his own party’s establishment, starting
with 2012 loser Mitt Romney, he walked straight into what the Fox moderators
had waiting for him.
It was Chris Wallace who was first out of the
gate. And in what was, I guess, an
effort to make ‘Daddy Mike’ proud as he looked up from beyond the Gates of
Hell, that he said, "Your numbers don't add up, sir,” after Trump went
into a standard response about how he would cut waste and abuse from the
Education Department and EPA to cover his tax plans. But, with these three having planned a
coordinated strike, Wallace was quick to produce a graphic, that he had
standing at the ready, showing that cutting all of both agencies would barely
trim the deficit, let alone pay for huge new tax cuts.
And when Trump pivoted to another topic– how the
government loses money by not being able to negotiate lower prices with
pharmaceutical companies, you could almost see Wallace salivating. Because having already anticipated Trump’s
move, and before Trump could even finish talking, Wallace already pulled up yet
another equation. Wallace said,
"Let's put up full screen number two.”
Then he added, "You say that Medicare could save $300 billion a
year negotiating lower drug prices. But Medicare total only spends $78 billion
a year on drugs. Sir, that's the facts."
Then came the highly anticipated return engagement
between Trump and Ms. Megyn, who appeared to have had more than a little work
done. Kelly, as you may recall, was the anchor
he repeatedly scorned for having taken him on in Fox’s first debate last summer
by highlighting his comments about women over the years. Trump avoided
confronting Kelly in January by skipping that month's Fox News debate entirely. This rematch proved to be more of a throwdown
as Kelly seemed to dare Trump to go after her as she launched some of the
toughest questions of the night his way.
Kelly said, "Mr. Trump, one of the things
people love about you is they believe you tell it like it is. Time and time
again in this campaign, you've actually told the voters one thing only to
reverse yourself within weeks or even sometimes days.” And as she did she proceeded to tee up three
video clips of Trump changing his position on Afghanistan, Syrian refugees and
whether George W. Bush lied about Iraq. She then asked, "How is any of
this telling it like it is?” And then
added, “You change your tune on so many things, and that has some people
saying, what is his core?”
For many of those watching, including myself, it was
as though the ‘Fox Three’ had now chosen to officially take on the job of
taking Trump down since none of the other candidates had managed to do so with
any significant level of success. The moderators weren’t nearly as persistent
with the other candidates as they were with Trump, a decision, I suppose you
could argue, that seems justified by his standing as the likeliest
nominee. But since when is it the job of
debate moderators to head up an attack on the frontrunner? Sure, it’s Trump this time, but who might it
be next time?
It was earlier in the week that Wallace, in
explaining why certain candidates would get more questions than others, said, "I
think we certainly take note of who are the candidates that seem to have a
better chance of nomination as opposed to those who don’t." Wallace went on to say, "I think we went
out of our way early on in the process to treat everyone as much the same as
possible, but to be certain people at the center of stage will get more
questions and will get more response to attacks." But what Trump was on the receiving end was
an unusual level of hostility.
In addition to Wallace’s number crunching and
Kelly’s flip-flop videos, the moderators also highlighted quotes from a court
decision involving Trump University and showed an odd John Kasich campaign ad
that questioned whether Trump and Vladimir Putin would team up to "make
tyranny great again." Kasich chose
not to take part in the Trump melee, choosing to avoid an attack on Trump which
would invite a response. When provided
with an opportunity to join in he simply said, "I'm not biting." A fact that apparently went over well with
various focus groups.
But the other two up there on the stage were only
two eager to ‘bite’, chiming in, almost, as if on cue at every opportunity
handed to them. It just seemed all a bit
too coordinated for me. But I’m told
that the hard hitting questions stopped for a while after Wallace, Kelly and
the third moderator, Bret Baier, left the stage and the cameras turned to Bill
O’Reilly for the immediate post-game interview with Trump. I wouldn’t know, I’m
not crazy about O’Reilly either. And by
then I was likely watching as Ronan and Peter Quill duked it out over the
‘Infinity Stone.’
During the brief time I spent watching, I was trying
to remember when it was that I last saw any of these ‘journalists’ go after a
Democrat, or even an ‘Establishment Republican’, with the same level of
intensity that they have continually gone after Trump. And anyone watching who allowed these
moderators to change their opinion of Trump simply fell right into the trap
that was set for them. And why should we
believe these moderators and their pretty graphics any more than we should
believe Trump? I mean who came into this
debate with the more obvious ulterior motive?
And finally, lest anyone gets the wrong impression here, and presumes me to be a Trump supporter, let me be very clear. At this stage of the game I most certainly am not. But I have become more than a little disappointed in my candidate in that he seems to be far too willing, once he gets on the debate stage, to become little more than a Fox News attack dog in their effort to rid the race of Trump. But make no mistake, unlike so many others, should Trump be our nominee, I will vote for him against Hitlery. Because staying away from this very crucial election makes no sense.
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