Trump and His Foolish Birther Movement and How the Media has been unfair

The most graceful and dignified indictment of the U.S. media you’ll see in 2016

By Peter Daou |
SEPTEMBER 16, 2016

With some notable exceptions (David Fahrenthold comes to mind) the national political media have failed America in 2016. There is overwhelming, objective evidence that they are tipping the scales in favor of Donald Trump, offering cursory coverage of his myriad transgressions while obsessing over Hillary Clinton's every word. As a result, trust in the mass media is at an all time low.

On a day when Donald Trump has again invoked the assassination of Hillary Clinton, this response, from Kierna Mayo, is stunning in its simplicity and power:


Time is winding down and most of the 2016 race is in the rear view mirror. The view is ugly.
Hillary Clinton’s emails have been covered by major media outlets for 451 consecutive days (and 558 out of the past 562 days). Her every mistake is magnified and turned into a massive controversy. Even her cough is analyzed by pundits. She is scowled at while recovering from pneumonia and treated with dripping disdain at a Commander-in-Chief forum.
Meanwhile, Trump coasts along, leaving a trail of filth behind him. He mocks the press, toys with them, teases them. And they ask for more. Studies come out that confirm he gets better coverage. And they give him more.
Clinton is saddled with the Romney-esque 47% label for speaking the truth (inelegantly) about some of Trump’s supporters, while Trump is given a free pass for actually adding 3 points to Romney and calling 50% of the country lazy freeloaders.
Brian Beutler of the New Republic sums it up:
Whether you have a short or long view, you’ve seen enough to say authoritatively that Trump is different from all major party nominees in living memory. It is not normal in modern times for a major party nominee to be an erratic, racist demagogue; and it is almost definitionally abnormal for a major party nominee to be described as such by leading members of his own party.
These are the cardinal facts of this election. They should be the dominant upshot of any significant increment of news coverage and analysis—the thing that reaches and sticks with casual news consumers, in the same way that even musical dilettantes can hum the leitmotif of Beethoven’s fifth symphony.
For several weeks now—including since Labor Day, when most Americans truly began paying attention to the campaigns—these truths, which we all took for granted six months ago, have not been communicated to glancing news consumers. They’ve receded from most article leads, headlines, front pages, and A-block TV segments.
That development is the product of many collective choices and thousands of individual ones. It is an institutional failure, and as such, a major and abrupt course correction seems highly unlikely. But that doesn’t absolve reporters, editors, producers or anyone else who is part of the system.
There will be a reckoning when this race is over, a moment of truth for the mass media. And it is unclear whether they can ever recover from the damage they’ve done to their own credibility.








LEMON: Yes. Is that something to be proud of to make the president produce his birth certificate and then be wrong about him not, you know, being born somewhere else?

BASH: I mean, I don't expect him to say anything different. If he's going to make this conclusion that the president was born in the United States, he's Donald Trump, of course he's going to go through the record of how it happened, that the president did go to great lengths to release his long birth certificate. We all remember that happening. Now, he didn't...

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: If we could find that sound bite it would be great of the president saying, you know, we don't have time for this when he produced his birth certificate, I would like to play that moment.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Yes, but he didn't put...

LEMON: And also -- there's also -- there's also a moment where he's saying you wouldn't believe what -- it was an interview, I forget who -- don't know if it was Katy. I forget who is he is with. No, it was Meredith Vieira, Meredith Vieira, where he says you won't believe I had my investigators, you know, over in Africa and then Hawaii and you won't believe what I'm finding out.

So, -- and then he goes on to say, "Mr. Trump did a great service to the president and to the country by bringing closure to the issue that Hillary Clinton and her team first raised." They brought the Hillary Clinton thing up again. "Inarguably, Donald Trump is a closer, having successfully obtained President Obama's birth certificate when others could not. Mr. Trump believes the president -- that President Obama was born in the United States."

I have to give it to Jason Miller. I mean, it was, this is a pretty interesting read.

PRESTON: Here's thing that you have to ask yourself too about the whole issue for the Republican Party. And let me defend the Republican Party in this. Almost every republican official in Washington, I think just about every one of them, believes that Barack Obama was born in the United States.

LEMON: Republican officials, but not most republicans, I believe, especially Donald Trump supporters.

PRESTON: Look, I think it's like 20 percent of people who were at national polls...

LEMON: Born outside of the United States and he's Muslim.

PRESTON: Think he was born -- you know, by the way, they all don't have to be republicans. Some of those could be very conservative democrats, they could be independents.

LEMON: Or just people who are divorced from reality.

PRESTON: Correct. I mean, they don't even need a political affiliation. But the fact is that this issue should have been put to bed a long time ago. Hillary Clinton's e-mail issue should have never happened, these medical records that we got in the last 24 hours should have been put together...

LEMON: Donald Trump shouldn't release his tax...

PRESTON: The tax issue should have been released a long time ago. I mean, this is another line of transparency that we're not seeing from either candidates.

LEMON: Yes. Dana, "Mr. Trump is now totally focused on bringing jobs back to American, defeating radical Islamic terrorism, taking care of our veterans, introducing choice of school, opportunities, and rebuilding and making our inner cities safe again." End of story. It's done. This issue is over.

BASH: Well, that's what he hopes. When I was talking to the senior aide who I talked to in the commercial break who gave us the breaking news that we reported that this statement was coming, that was my first question, why now? And the answer was, so he can focus on other things, the things in that statement.

Before when we were trying to figure out why he wasn't just saying, OK, fine, the president was born in the United States, you, Don, were saying well, maybe he's waiting for the debate.

Our colleague, David Chalian just e-mailed me something that's of course smart, which is all David Chalian says are smart things, and this is it's because he wants off the table before the debate, because this is not something that...

PRESTON: Of course.

BASH: ... he wants to be even a nanosecond of a focus during the debate. And you know just from the way Hillary Clinton jumped on it tonight, the fact that Washington Post interview went online with Trump, you know, sort of declining to say that the president was born in the United States.

I think it was maybe five minutes between then. And when Hillary Clinton added to that her prepared remarks in her speech this evening. So, they knew that this was going to be a potential issue. And again, remember, take a step back, this at this point, it is about Donald Trump being really close in a lot of these battleground states and to get over the line to the -- to the v-column, he has to expand his supporters, expand his base.

LEMON: Yes.

BASH: He's got those people. He needs to appeal to others.

LEMON: Phillip, we're going to talk and I know you want to get in and I promise you we'll get into it. The interesting thing is is that you have to give them -- him credit for at least now he's admitted it, I mean somewhat. You give him some credit for that. Though, I see other people in the studio saying no it took him way too long to do it. But, the interesting thing is is that why does it take so long for the campaign to admit? Why are they so tone deaf sometimes to admit that there are issues especially when we were all sitting here, when the night that he gave his speech in Milwaukee and we said why is he giving the speech to a mostly white crowd and the night before the campaign manager just was completely floored by, what are you talking about. So I think on this one issue, they were tone deaf, now they're trying to make up for it. 

2012 voters: The deepest racial split since ’88

The 2012 election is shaping up to be more polarized along racial lines than any presidential contest since 1988, with President Obama lagging behind Republican Mitt Romney among white voters by 21 percentage points, a steep drop in support from four years ago.

As he did in 2008, Obama gets overwhelming support from non-whites, who made up a record high proportion of the overall electorate four years ago. In that contest, 80 percent of all non-whites supported Obama, including 95 percent of black voters, according to the exit poll. In the Washington Post-ABC News national tracking poll released Wednesday, Obama wins 79 percent of non-whites, and support for his reelection is nearly universal among African Americans.

But among whites, Obama is currently doing much worse than he did in 2008. At this stage four years ago, Obama trailed Republican John McCain by eight percentage points among white voters. Even in victory, Obama ended up losing white voters by 12 percentage points.

Obama’s current 21-percent-deficit — he trails Romney 59 to 38 percent — would be far harder to overcome, as this year may break a string of increasingly non-white electorates. In 2008, whites made up a record-low 74 percent of all voters; in the latest Post-ABC poll, they made up a similar 75 percent of likely 2012 voters.

In 2004, John Kerry lost white voters to George W. Bush by a similarly wide margin, 58 to 41 percent — and he also lost the election.

Compared with four years ago, white voter support for Obama is now lower among white men and white independents. (See the latest Post-ABC tracking poll on The Fix at 5 p.m. every day through Nov. 5.)

The clearest loss for the president is among white men. In 2008, Obama lost white men by 16 points, according to the exit poll. This year, Obama trails Romney double that margin — 33 points — larger than any deficit for a Democratic candidate since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide win over Walter Mondale.

After splitting their votes 47 percent for Obama and 49 percent for McCain in 2008, whites who identify as political independents now favor Romney over Obama, 59 to 38 percent. Nearly half of all of those who supported Obama in 2008 but Romney in 2012 are white independents. (Overall, whites make up more than 90 percent of “switchers.”)

A key element of Romney’s advantage among all whites is that by 55 to 39 percent, more white voters say he, not Obama understands the economic problems people in this country are having. Among whites without college degrees, Romney is up 58 to 35 percent on this score, expanding what was a narrow gap just a few weeks ago. This advantage comes even as 48 percent of white voters say Romney, as president, would do more to favor the wealthy; 37 percent say he would do more to for the middle class.

Most non-college and college-educated whites alike see Obama as doing more to favor those in the middle, not the wealthy.

Colin Powell: Why Colin Powell’s Obama endorsement matters

HI

AKOCTOBER 25, 2012 6:16 PM

Why Colin Powell’s Obama endorsement matters

BY DAVID SWERDLICK

Don’t worry, conservatives, I’m well aware that Gen. Colin Powell’s re-endorsement of President Obama probably won’t make much difference on Election Day.

But if you’re wondering why, then, Powell told CBS News this morning that he’s “signed on for a long patrol with President Obama,” the answer is actually simple:

Where else is he going to go?

Powell probably doesn’t see eye-to-eye with Obama on everything, but the general is still a leading indicator that the President is a better choice for centrists than “Old Moderate Mitt”— calling Romney’s foreign policy outlook “a moving target” and questioning Romney’s “plan” to cut taxes while also increasing defense spending.

And as a general, after Monday’s foreign policy debate in which Romney glommed onto Obama’s hawkish war policy while simultaneously serving up pageant-worthy platitudes like “we want a peaceful planet,” there really wasn’t much of a choice for Powell between Obama — who reintroduced the “speak softly and carry a big stick” doctrine — and Romney, whose war stance seems to be “speak one notch louder and carry a stick of as-yet-undetermined size.”

Saying that “I’m a Republican of a more moderate mold and that's something of a dying breed, I'm sorry to say,” today’s GOP is becoming unrecognizable to Powell. His brand of Republicanism fits with the “compassionate conservatism” of George H.W. Bush — the President under whom Powell served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — Mitt’s late father, Michigan Gov. George Romney and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Brooke, the GOP’s last African American to serve as governor or U.S. Senator.

Sticking with Obama is a recognition that Powell’s “Rockefeller” Republicanism — a nod to New York’s 49^th governor and the nation’s 41^st vice president — finds its analog in the centrist, low-boil approach of Obama far more than Romney the son.

Nothing’s been undertaken by Obama in these last four years that wouldn’t have been undertaken by any of the moderate Republican Presidents — now derided as “RINOs” or Republicans in Name Only — of the last century: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and the aforementioned Bush.

And Powell, in public life for 30 years, knows it — whether or not anyone else does.

Colin Powell Endorses Obama For President

The Huffington Post  |  By Luke Johnson   Posted: 10/25/2012 7:56 am EDT Updated: 10/25/2012 12:27 pm EDT

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed President Barack Obama for a second term Thursday.

"You know, I voted for him in 2008 and I plan to stick with him in 2012, and I'll be voting for he and Vice President Joe Biden next month," he said on CBS' "This Morning."

Asked whether it was an endorsement, he said, "Yes."

Powell praised the president's handling of the economy and ending of the Iraq War.

"I think we ought to keep on the track we are on," he said.

Powell said he had the "utmost respect" for Mitt Romney, but criticized his tax plan.

He said Romney's foreign policy was a "moving target." "One day he has a certain strong view about staying in Afghanistan, but then on Monday night he agrees with the withdrawal. Same thing in Iraq. On every issue that was discussed on Monday night, Gov. Romney agreed with the president with some nuances. But this is quite a different set of foreign policy views than he had earlier in the campaign."

Powell, a Republican who served in President George W. Bush's first term, backed Obama in 2008. He was frequently mentioned as a potential Republican challenger against Bill Clinton in 1996, but decided against it.

UPDATE: 12:27 p.m. -- President Barack Obama called Powell on Thursday morning to thank him for the endorsement, according to Obama campaign traveling press secretary Jen Psaki. They did not discuss joint appearances. She said they were "very excited" about it and said they “think it sends a strong signal about why [Obama] should be sent back for another four years to be commander in chief.”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) blasted Powell on Fox News Radio's "Kilmeade & Friends" Thursday morning.

"Well, I’m just saddened because, you know, I used to be a great admirer of Colin Powell. We were friends. I think one of the sad aspects of his career is going to the United Nations Security Council and telling them things about Iraq that were absolutely false," he said.

"Obviously, my view of the situation in Iraq is we’re losing," he continued. "We’re losing what we won thanks to the surge. Al Qaeda is doubled. There’s training camps in Western Iraq. In Afghanistan, all we do is say we’re leaving. Al Qaeda is on the comeback all over northern Africa. They’ve taken over parts of Mali. All I can say is that Gen. Powell, you disappoint us and you have harmed your legacy even further by defending what has clearly been the most feckless foreign policy in my lifetime."