I have come to realize that if I (or anybody else, for that matter) wanted to write a column every single day filled with nothing but stories about political hypocrisy, I (or anybody else) could easily do that.
In fact, if I (or anybody else) restricted myself only to stories in which political hypocrisy blew up in people’s faces, writing a daily column-full would still be a cinch.
To prove my point, I made a quick list of six such stories from the last 10 days, but as I wrote about them, I only had time for two.
First story: You may have noticed the elite Left rending their garments and gnashing their teeth last week over Trump’s latest crime against humanity: “banning” CNN, MSNOW and Politico from covering his presidency.
Never mind that this “ban” is a “ban” only in the sense that books teaching grade schoolers how to be polymorphously sexual are “banned.” (I.e. those books are available in tons of bookstores, public libraries and via Amazon, but cannot be purchased with taxpayer dollars and put into grade school libraries.) Those three propaganda outlets can still make stuff up from 99.9% of the locations in the United States…except for the tiny bit of real estate that is the WH press room.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m against Trump’s pseudo-“ban.” It’s a dumb move, and will certainly be overturned in short order. It won’t do anything to make CNN less dishonest, and it creates terrible optics for Trump. If he was more sneakily Machiavellian, he would follow the Dem playbook, and give one press conference every several months, taking pre-screened questions only from friendly outlets (on cue cards featuring pictures of the MSM talking head who is going to ask the question, so he doesn’t forget and call them “Jill”), and almost never call on any conservative outlet reporter in the room.
But that being said, I still must shake my head at the top Dems who did exactly what they are hollering about Trump doing. For example, Hillary just said that Trump’s “kicking out news organizations” means that “everything is at risk.” “That’s what authoritarians do,” railed the Canklesaurus.
But flash back to 2016, when she was trying to become our communist overlord, and this headline from the lefty Boston Globe: “Clinton Campaign Bans National Pool Reporter from N.H. Events.” The author called her authoritarian move “a development that will make coverage for her trip spotty for some of the country’s largest print outlets.” UNEXPECTEDLY!
And of course Barry O and the late Joe Biden were routinely doing the same and worse, as is their wont. Many conservative outlets have tried for years to get a spot in the WH reporter pool, and no Dem prez has let them in, often pointing to their supposed bias, and/or their small audiences as justification. But if biased coverage was objectionable, no major MSM outlet would be allowed within a country mile of the WH press room. And if audience size was dispositive, the Daily Wire has a much wider reach than CNN, whose viewers (not counting those trapped in airports) could be fit into a mid-sized community college gym.
The irony was especially thick when Obama gave a speech last week at Colgate, during which he dialed the condescension up to 11, wondering aloud what the nation would have done if he had ever told Fox News to get lost, for example. “It’s unimaginable!” he smirked.
Annnndddd…a flock of chickens tragically did not appear in the auditorium and descend on Obama, pecking at and defecating upon him until he was forced to flee the stage in shame.
But many receipts were dropped on him from the archives. People pointed out that his minions regularly delegitimized Fox. Comms director Anita Dunn called Fox “opinion journalism masquerading as news,” David Axelrod said that Fox was not a real news organization and that other outlets “ought not to treat them that way,” and etc.
Oh, and it turns out Obama himself did EXACTLY what Trump is doing now. He said that his TARP “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg would be made available to every network except Fox. His minions set up a pool interview that “banned” Fox, and his deputy press secretary Josh Earnest bragged that the admin had “demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews.”
Obama only relented when he got caught, and his stupid move proved too much even for the lickspittles in the MSM, so that they all refused to interview Feinberg if Fox was excluded. (In fact, Fox is doing the same thing on their behalf now, refusing to participate if Trump excludes CNN et. al.)
And we shouldn’t forget the other ways in which Obama was much worse on press freedom than Trump has been. He routinely went after whistleblowers with prosecutions, lobbied hard to stop FOIA reform, and charged, prosecuted and jailed a record 8 people under the Espionage Act of 1917. Compare that to the 3 total EA prosecutions from all of the previous administrations combined! (For the record, if they leaked classified info to the press, I have no problem with going after them. It’s the Left who virtue signals about that kind of thing constantly…except when they’re the ones doing it.)
And who can forget the James Rosen story? (I mean, except Obama and the entire MSM!) In 2009, Fox reporter Rosen wrote a story about North Korea’s nuclear program. An outraged Obama wanted to catch Rosen’s source, and so labeled Rosen a “criminal co-conspirator” during his leak investigation – this despite never charging Rosen with an crime. But the designation allowed Obama’s co-conspirators to obtain a secret search warrant to track his movements, and monitor his emails and phone records.
Because freedom of the press is sacred to leftists, unlike a certain Orange Hitler! Who, oddly enough, has never secretly monitored, charged and jailed any of the thousands of leftist propaganda hacks who have made a living and won Pulitzers based on lying and/or exaggerating about his bad actions 24/7 for ten years now.
Hey, speaking of creepy lefty liars, did you notice their outrage over how warmly Trump treated those leftists’ socialist co-religionist Xi Jinping during his state visit last week?
This is another example of when I could find common ground with the left, because I am often disgusted by how Western leaders routinely treat despots and dictators nicely. I’d like to think that if I were ever president – and what a glorious world this would be if I were! – I’d be constantly dissing foreign a-holes.
I’d hold my hand out to Xi, and when he went to shake it, I’d yank it back and yell, “Psych! How many Uyghurs have you murdered lately, you Winnie-the-Pooh lookin’ mfer? Stop stealing our IP. Now beat it!” I think I could probably do a tight 3 minutes just on his stupid name alone. I would also like to see us shut down the UN, to spare us the degradation of hosting the wretched hive of scum and villainy that regularly parades through the HQ in Manhattan.
But I’m a big boy, and understand that in the real world, you have to conduct diplomacy with a bunch of scoundrels, ne’er-do-wells, and other people you rightly despise. I just want to lose the double standard. If we’re going to condemn presidents for being polite to scumbags, it has to apply to all presidents.
“Martin, are you implying that the Dems have not held themselves to that same standard?”
Stop it. I’m insulted by such a naïve question.
Remember when Obama met with the leader of the Saudi corrupticrats, King Abdullah? Barry bowed so deeply to the old goat that for a moment I feared I was about to witness an actual arse kissing. Or something even worse! (Think Don Lemon interviewing a spiffed-up Ken-Doll Newsom.) (Or don’t!)
Remember when the Democrats and MSM railed against Obama over his obsequiousness to that dictator, and demanded that he be impeached?
Me neither.
I’ll close with one more perfect example. On Friday, David Axelrod posted a tweet condemning the way “an American POTUS give[s] the red carpet treatment to the authoritarian leaders of adversarial countries.”
Got that? Giving red carpet treatment to adversaries like Xi Pingpong is no bueno!
Cut to the internet, which just like my wife, never forgets. And a picture from exactly 11 years earlier (9/25/25) of Barry and Michelle, standing, smiling and waving in front of the White House.
On a red carpet.
With Mr. and Mrs. Xi!
It’s a cliché because it’s true: If it weren’t for double standards, the Left would have no standards at all.
Que Mala/Crockett, 2028!
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