“I’m really not a bad person”
In an overblown 77-minute press conference, the president of the United States took the mic away from Spicer and decided to command communication himself. His opening lecture to the press belabored his quest to discredit the media.
His attempts to alienate journalists smacks of the implication of the opposite. Donald J. Trump loves the press and lives for their attention. When he says “the tone is such hatred” in the reporting on his administration, he takes on a martyr complex that is so unattractive in any human.
His statement, “I’m really not a bad person” was as shallow as Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.” If you have to tell people you aren’t something, you open the door for the listener to think that you are saying the opposite. “The roll out was perfect, there was zero chaos” and “the administration is running like a fine-tuned machine” are simply not true. The rollout of the travel ban was vague and disruptive and found to be poorly written at best. I’m not sure the hail of executive orders is something to brag about, especially when they aren’t comprehended by the commander-in-chief.
The on-going reverse engineering that is taking place is atrocious. When Trump was confronted on the misinformation about his electoral vote number by NBC’s Peter Alexander, the president’s defense was “I was given that information” and then, “Actually, I’ve seen that information around.” While claiming that everybody else is fake news, the lie bubbles coming out of his little round pie-hole exposes his lack of trustworthiness with facts and figures.
Why would any country want to deal with someone who doesn’t prepare enough for a press conference to get the facts right? Any Congressional leader who isn’t asking how do we contain this paranoid-pathological liar posing as president has probably sipped enough of the Kool-Aid of power to longer be thought of as a viable leader either. We are talking to you Paul Ryan.
The reality TV show – referred to as the press conference – had some simple rules. Ask a tough question, you’re out. Ask a question that provides a way for the host to brag about himself, you get praise. Ask a controversial question, and you will be put down with lines like, “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” and then, “See he lied about — he was going to get up and ask a very straight, simple question. Okay, sit down.”
Once again, Trump treated a Jewish reporter with disrespect going on a self-absorbed talk about himself, rather than answering the question. To the credit of other reporters, they didn’t let the president off the hook by returning to the question and pointing out it wasn’t about him. This was the worst press conference ever.
One of the ways a president can be impeached is if the office holder commits a misdemeanor. If someone continually lies to the American public, to Congress or to the Judiciary, isn’t that a misdemeanor? Let’s keep counting the lies for the writing of the Articles of Impeachment. If only embarrassing America was a misdemeanor.