A few sentences about a few sentences that illustrate everything wrong with mainstream journalism
Everything right with mainstream journalism can be seen in the New York Times story about Trump’s tax returns. Everything wrong with it could be seen in a few sentences uttered at the very end of Meet The Press on Sept. 27. (Granted, some would argue that’s true every Sunday, but I digress.)
Times reporter Peter Baker was on; he coauthored a biography of James A. Baker, whose jobs have included Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury and, most important, doing the dirty work for an assortment of Republican presidents so they could appear to be “gentlemen.”
Baker unleashed Lee Atwater, who probably did more than anyone before Trump to inject racism into the fabric of mainstream American political discourse — remember the Willie Horton ad? Baker went on to lead the successful effort to steal the 2000 election.
But on Meet the Press Peter Baker (no relation) declared that Jim Baker was “all about … decency, integrity, dignity.” He went on to call Baker “the Un-Trump in so many ways.” No. Jim Baker helped spawn Trump. And, as Peter Baker acknowledged almost in the same breath, this man of supposed “decency, integrity, dignity” won’t even come out against Trump now.
Paging Dr. Orwell.
