The conventional Beltway wisdom seems to be that Trump is smart to “go to war with the media”. I guess that phrase means saying hurtful things during press conferences and having Spicey raise his voice (while making stars of people like Brian Stelter and Jake Tapper and David Farenthold by leaking and lying constantly).
I can think of two presidents in recent history who “went to war with the media”. One was impeached almost impeached and forced to resign. The other waved a white flag when his approval ratings bottomed out, finished as one of the most unpopular presidents in history, and helped hand Democrats a 7+ points victory in the presidential race along with 60 seats in the Senate.
The harder they come, the harder they fall. Or maybe, the cheaper the hood, the gaudier the patter.
Feebog
I’ve listened to or watched several clips of the press conference. His disdain for the press is evident in his response to every question. When the Karma comes around to bite him in the ass it is going to take a large chunk.
aimai
I love that–perfect quote. Is that Maltese Falcon?
Hunter Gathers
His press conference was Peak Wingnut.
It will never get any crazier than it is right now.
Green Balloons.
Doug!
@aimai:
You got it. I think it’s “crook” in the book but “hood” in the movie.
? Martin
Going to war with the media is stupid, sure. Going to war simultaneously with the media and the intelligence community is, well, suicidal.
khead
If by “conventional Beltway wisdom” you mean “wingnuts on my FB feed”, you would be correct.
Still trying to explain Cleek’s Law to the non-wingnuts who think the press conference looked like Betty’s Hindenburg video.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Even the libeurel Morn’ Blow says full panic has set in:
Brachiator
Where is this the conventional wisdom? Bizarro Trump Land?
Trump has been at war with the media since the primaries, where he would goad his supporters into snarling at the penned in press.
Trump’s Butt Boy Bannon was reported as taking a swipe at the media while walking by a reporter, just yesterday or the day before.
So this has fuck all to do with the Beltway. Unless you are taking into account the displacement of the old media with the new and improved Breitbart/Fox News AXIS.
And even here you are burying the lead. What Trump is clearly doing is sending a message to his base that they should trust only him, and what he tells them directly via a press conference or Twitter message.
Cermet
So Alexander Acosta, when he was the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida, prosecuted the lobbyist Jack Abramoff! OK, that is sounding a lot better. I still know he is first a thug on many issues but he can and will follow the general agency rules/law. He might be ok heading labor department.
Brachiator
@aimai:
Yeppity yep.
And gaudier also fits the Gilt Loving Trumpster to a tee.
Chris
@? Martin:
If that’s true, then in the wise words of the Emperor: “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.”
debbie
Check this out: A better way to view Trump’s tweets!
https://twitter.com/thedailyshow/status/831923451627704321
dmsilev
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: And yet in public, they all still stand with him.
? Martin
@Chris: I think the strategy from the left has been to feed Trumps paranoia and undermine his need to be viewed favorably to increasingly push him over the edge. I’m still about 50/50 on whether Congress will find their balls before Trump offs himself. But with no response yet from Congress, I guess we keep pushing.
cain
You know once you indicate that media is not going to enjoy stuff like access to cocktail parties and all that other good stuff that charms the press.. if there is no niceties, I expect them to go all ninja on Trump and probably on the Republican party.. plus covering a train wreck is good for ratings.
jl
I don’t know about ‘going to war’ with the media in general. However, it is generally a bad idea to go to any kind of war when you have ammunition that blows up in your face.
So, in this case, they are going to war with patent and obvious lies, and incoherent nonsense. And delivered in an environment where they are not delivering on their campaign promises (except the Musling ban non-ban, but even that obviously makes no sense because it conveniently leaves out every country where it might hit Drumpf in the pocket book.)
I’m not a military expert, but I’m guessing that in this case, it is a very bad idea and they will lose.
? Martin
Status on Oroville:
They’re continuing 24/7 to shore up the eroding area. They’ve gotten a bit of rain, more to come, but not expected to be terribly bad. Lake level at 866 and continuing to drop (35′ below flood – they wanted at least 25′, and ideally 50′, so good shape). Inflow to the lake is fluctuating but pretty modest at about 30K CFS (it peaked at 190K leading up to the crisis), and outflow has been reduced slightly from 100K CFS to 85K CFS. As the models tighten up they can with more confidence reduce the flow out to help the river and sediment problems while still draining the lake and not lose headroom should the rains pick up.
tl;dr: so far so good.
Taylor
On at 6:30pm today EST on TCM.
“I like to talk to a man who likes to talk.”
Ares Akritas
CNN said he was unhinged. I agreed. However, Mara (FNC!) Liasson right now on NPR told me that the orange shitgibbon was charming, will receive a lot of credit and showed he can stand there for 70+ minutes and take it.
I despair.
SatanicPanic
I’m with everyone else who’s like, when did this become conventional wisdom? I’m not seeing it. The media has been better than usual the last month.
Redshift
@Brachiator:
Vox, for one.
I don’t buy it either. Or rather, I buy that it’s what he was trying to do (since they sent out a simultaneous email campaign to supporters), but I don’t think it will work.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
Really? LA Times is reporting they’re predicting 10 inches of rain in the area between Sunday and Monday.
Redshift
@Ares Akritas: Yeah, that was pretty appalling. And saying “we’ll have to see” whether today’s performance reassures congressional Republicans that everything is fine.
Major Major Major Major
@Redshift:
This is a very important distinction that I wish more people would make. This administration has broken Hanlon’s razor; it’s malicious but tempered by incompetence.
Ian G.
I wasn’t born until 6 years after Nixon’s resignation, but was an adult for all of W’s presidency, and at no point can I recall the Bush White House becoming this unhinged publicly about anything, certainly not the way the press was treating it. As I said earlier, Trump is 9/10ths of the way to Gaddafi rambling about Fish Flu and the Jewish conspiracy to murder JFK at the UN some years back.
JPL
Harward turned down the NSC post, but the administration is trying to change his mind. Maybe he should just watch Trump’s performance this afternoon.
Death Panel Truck
Nixon wasn’t impeached. He resigned because there weren’t enough votes in the Senate to forestall a conviction if he were impeached.
Mister Forkbeard
@Ares Akritas: NPR is just fucking useless lately. Their print section isn’t any better – they report dutifully on Trump but never imply or directly state how awful he is. At worst, you get headlines like “President Trump forcefully criticizes media, though claims not always supported by evidence.”
I’m kind of tempted to write them letters, but the best I can muster at the moment is writing comments on their facebook feed whenever they post another egregious journalistic error.
Mister Forkbeard
@Roger Moore: The big problem with the prior rain (so I’ve heard) was that it was a relatively hot system, and that causes snow melt. The snow melt is the real danger for the dam. This new rain, however, is expected to be fairly cold and shouldn’t pose the same kind of risk.
Brachiator
@Redshift: From Vox:
This is clueless. Trump not only has Fox News on his side, he also has his own Twitter rants and the FaceBook Echo Chamber.
If there is a war, Trump won it long ago with his base, a base which will ignore the conventional media because they can easily get messages from the Front from their Dear Leader and happily pass them on via social media.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Even 10 inches would be half of what occurred last week, so there’s that! Luckily the first storms are fairly cold and will bring snow, not rain to the high country. Next week–Tuesdayish–may bring a warmer storm and meltoff.
Now that they’re confident of running the main spillway at 100k there’s no compelling reason to let the surface get close to the emergency level again (absent some really bad combo of rain and snowmelt). Per today’s presser, repairs to the emergency spill outlet are moving ahead.
I believe Site #2 is stonking huge, though.
They’re dropping outflow to expose the powerhouse and haul off debris preventing its operation. If they can start that up it represents as much as 14k cfs that needn’t spill. Also make a few bucks for paying those construction bills!
Feebog
@Cermet:
Uh, no. Really, big time, no, no, no. Clerked for Alito, very sketchy career at the Justice Dept. record of voter suppression. No.
zzyzx
@Death Panel Truck: House impeaches, Senate tries. Nixon was impeached by the House.
TriassicSands
@Hunter Gathers:
Oh, yeah? Just watch. Trump hasn’t even begun to top/bottom out, depending on one’s perspective.
I’ve been keeping track of the We the People petitions on the White House website for two reasons. First, it was a pleasure watching the signatures calling for him to release his taxes climb inexorably toward 1,000,000. Today, two things happened. The total surpassed 936,000 and the White House removed all of the petitions from the site. Gone! And that was the second reason why I was keeping tabs on the petition page. I was surprised they let the page exist as long as they did.
As the number of signatures calling for him to release his taxes grew…and grew…and grew…it became harder and harder for him to claim “nobody cares” (except the media) about his taxes. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find the petition page. In addition, the website now has the least obvious link to a contact form I’ve ever seen. Pretty clearly, Trump doesn’t want to hear from the people. At least not those who think he’s a narcissistic sociopath who represents an existential threat to this country.
Uncle Omar
“Woe unto thee, O Land, when thy king is a child…” Ecclesiastes 10:16 Woe unto us, indeed.
bystander
Judge rules there is probable cause to charge Chris Christie in connection with Bridgegate.
JR
@Mister Forkbeard: I agree. Although, I’ll give them a little credit for the warm stories on immigrants they’ve been running recently. It’s obvious to me that they are trying to humanize immigrants without having the courage to come out against the ban in their news coverage
lollipopguild
@Death Panel Truck: Barry Goldwater sat Nixon down and told him to resign or be impeached. Then Ford had to go and pardon him. If Ford had not pardoned Nixon, Ford probably would have won the 1976 election.
zhena gogolia
@zzyzx:
He was? Wow, I don’t remember that.
trollhattan
@Mister Forkbeard:
It was weirdly warm in the valley throughout last week’s storms–overnight lows in the 60s. Highway 50 was closed for days and I-80 on and off, too, due to mud and rockslides.
rp
Remember, only 27% of voters supported Trump, and of those 27%, a significant # don’t like him and were only voting against Clinton. So even if this plays really well to his base, that base is not a particularly large group. And at least some of the people who voted against Clinton are going to be alarmed by this.
zhena gogolia
@zzyzx:
Not exactly. An “impeachment process” was started, but he wasn’t “impeached.” Wikipedia: “On July 27, 29, and 30, 1974, the Committee approved three articles of impeachment against Nixon, for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress, and reported those articles to the House of Representatives. Two other articles of impeachment were debated but not approved. Before the House could vote on the impeachment resolutions, Nixon made public one of the additional conversations, known as the “Smoking Gun Tape”, which made clear his complicity in the cover-up. With his political support completely eroded, Nixon resigned from office on August 9, 1974. It is widely believed that had Nixon not resigned, his impeachment by the House and removal from office by a trial before the United States Senate would have occurred.
Nixon is one of only three U.S. presidents against whom articles of impeachment have been reported to the full House for consideration since the office was established in 1789. The other two–Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998–were both impeached; both were also acquitted from all charges following a Senate trial. The impeachment process against Nixon is the only one resulting in the departure from office of its target.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zzyzx: Nope, the Judiciary Committee of the House voted impeachment resolutions, the full House never voted to impeach Nixon.
TenguPhule
“Only an idiot would fight a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts.”
— Londo
A Ghost to Most
@Hunter Gathers:
If it doesn’t involve firearms, we are nowhere close to peak wingnut.
I am encouraged that the evil they are attempting is somewhat tempered by their incompetence.
bemused
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Good. It’s about time they start peeing their under armour.
Roger Moore
@zzyzx:
Not quite. The House had drafted articles of impeachment and voted them out of committee, but he resigned before they could be brought up on the House floor. So he was only most of the way through the impeachment process, not formally impeached.
zzyzx
Ah OK thanks. Apparently my memory of the obscure process as a 5 year old wasn’t accurate :)
Redshift
@Brachiator:
So? That was already the case with his base. He could bark like a dog and scream “libruls suck!” and “win” them. Unless it works with someone other than his hard core base, he’s not “winning” anything.
bystander
I hope to hear some day soon, “Let the healing begin.”
Stacy
@Ares Akritas: I think Putin holds hours long press conferences. Don’t think Trump will be able to work up to that. We may have seen his ceiling.
Stacy
@Redshift: Or shoot someone on 5th ave?
Death Panel Truck
@zzyzx:
You don’t say.
Turgidson
I don’t remember the GWB administration going to war with the press. I remember the press being completely supine and cowed by the administration after 9/11 and only belatedly and fairly reluctantly getting tougher on them long after the voting public had begun turning on him. There was some hostility when the press started grilling Scotty McClellan more persistently, but I don’t remember it being a long-running war. And they went easier on the administration again once their buddy Snow was the press secretary.
I’m sure my fondness for Obama and disgust for Bush helps color my perception, but I’d say Obama had a tougher time with the WH press corpse than Bush did. Once the inauguration honeymoon ended (and it didn’t last long thanks to the braindead teabaggers getting in their Medicare scooters and yelling at clouds for Fox News cameras), they tried to pin an “Obama’s Katrina” on him every time he farted.
Librarian
“So many guns around and so few brains. “
ThresherK
The conventional Beltway wisdom seems to be that Trump is smart to “go to war with the media”.
Who will be the first Beltway Inbred to realize, “Hey, he’s declaring war on me?”, and adjust accordingly?
mainmata
@aimai: Yes, Dashiell Hammett in Maltese Falcon. Hammett was one of the best script writers ever.
mainmata
@Ares Akritas: Mara Liasson is now really more Fox than NPR; she wandered away from what used to be good reporting quite a while ago actually.
Elie
@Mister Forkbeard:
I never listen to NPR news. Their other programming is grand, but their news is exactly as charged: Nice Polite Republicans. They never have much worth saying in their analyses. Still, they may be good to listen to from time to time. They will definitely broadcast the right wing/passive zeitgeist so if they start heading south in their commentary, you gotta figure that the end is near…
Elie
@mainmata:
Actually, she was really pretty vocally anti Trump during the primaries (which thoroughly surprised me). She did a pretty ok job moderating the debates between Hilz and Trump also. That said, she may have recoiled back to the old frame of the Fox dilitante…