How have We ever been Numbed

   You hammer a nail long enough, it goes into the wood.
   I consider how long President Trump has insisted the negative news about him is fake news. He has beat that drum and pounded that nail, and, as a result, many in the public are believing him.
I wonder what we would have thought of today's tweet from him, if it had been the first time he had tweeted or said such a thing.
   "The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?"
   If this were his first salvo on the topic, how would it come across? How well would it be accepted? How much outrage would there be against it?
   News is news. If it is negative, it is negative, but you still report it. If the Cohen stories are negative, they are still news. You don't say, "Nope, we can't report that because 50 percent of our stories are already negative and that will put us over the limit. It isn't fair to President Trump to be reporting so much negative news."
   Cover the news with comments from both sides of the issues, but cover them. If the Cohen stories and other stories are not including comments from the White House, then that is wrong, but I am seeing Sarah Huckabee Sanders and others being sought out for their comments.
   The last part of President Trump's tweet? "Take away credentials?"? What does he mean? Is he suggesting that those who report all the news instead of just a part of it -- those who include even the negative news -- ought to have their "credentials" taken away? And, what are their "credentials"? Is he going to take away their access to the White House? Is he suggesting they shouldn't be allowed to report at all?
   If this were the first time President Trump had suggested all this, we would shake our heads in disbelief. We would look at how he seemed to be suggesting that all negative news about him is therefore fake news, and we would be outraged.
   There is a fable about how if you stick a frog suddenly in boiling water, he will jump out. But, if you put him in while the water is tepid and then heat it up slowly, you can boil the frog. I don't know whether that is true. But, I do see that the principle seems to be working on the American people.
   We would be outraged if this were the first time Trump had made such a claim. But, we, as a nation, hardly seem outraged. Even if there were no scandals to that point, if this were the first tweet from Trump on the topic, we might be calling for his resignation on this one comment, alone. We would be taken by surprise and would be in utter amazement.
   But, we've been numbed -- how have we ever been numbed.







"The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?"