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Op-Ed

Carnivorous Sheep

August 24, 2018

So this guy who spent $280,000 to get laid a couple of times touts himself as an ace dealmaker. Then he slams The New York Times and Washington Post as “fake news,” though he was propelled to office by the National Enquirer — Jesus’ Face on Mars! JFK and Marilyn Alive in Cuba! — which covered up his $280,000 “dates.”

Robert Kahn

By Robert Kahn

Deputy editor emeritus, Courthouse News

So this guy who spent $280,000 to get laid a couple of times touts himself as an ace dealmaker. Then he slams The New York Times and Washington Post as “fake news,” though he was propelled to office by the National Enquirer — Jesus’ Face on Mars! JFK and Marilyn Alive in Cuba! — which covered up his $280,000 “dates.”

I need not recapitulate the history of the term fake news, which the president has flung, by one count, more than 400 times. But consider his relationship with the publisher of the National Enquirer, the wonderfully named David J. Pecker.

It’s common knowledge today that this Pecker would — excuse me — that this Pecker did pay $280,000 — five times the median annual income of a U.S. citizen — to muzzle women with whom Donald had a john relationship: using them as a john would use a prostitute. And that the peckerwood did it to help Don john run for office.

We also know now that Don john’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as publisher of the New York Observer, ordered his staff to erase from the record published stories that showed Jared’s friends in a bad light.

I guess we can’t call this fake news, because it’s erasing the news. But isn’t that fake too? Isn’t it, as Don john says, “disgusting”?

“Bigfoot Kept Lumberjack as Love Slave!” “Alien Bible Found — They Worship Oprah!” Those are real headlines from Don john’s preferred newspaper.

Bringing this back to Earth, why has no one in the real news media pointed out that Don john and his minnows are the foremost purveyors of fake news today, and have been for years?

It’s all part of a decades-long Republican Party strategy of accusing their “enemies” of the very things the Republicans are about to do. This effectively puts on the defensive the “enemies of the people” — not just the free press, but the Democrats too.

I give you:

Fiscally irresponsible Democrats are busting the budget! (Ahem. About that $1.5 trillion tax cut …)

Communist-leaning Democrats are weak on national security! (See: Don john’s lips and Vladimir Putin’s butt.)

Democrats are crippling U.S. industry! (Ask Harley-Davidson offshore and Iowa soybean farmers about that.)

The Power to Regulate is the Power to Destroy! (See: Voter ID laws.)

Racial discrimination against white male Christians! (Take this spoon from me, lest I gag on it.)

Lying Hillary! “Hillary Gains 130 Pounds!” (The prosecution rests.)

To reiterate: Don john has perfected the Republican Party’s strategy of accusing Democrats of exactly what the Republicans are doing. This leaves the Democrats perennially on the defensive, while Republicans pick working women’s pockets, because the Democratic Party, for the past generation, has been too stupid and cowardly to do anything about it. Or even realize it.

Well, I can’t stop this. All I can do is point it out. I’d also like to point out that this unfolding national tragedy cannot wholly be blamed on the jillionaire Republican shysters who pulled it off. It’s also the fault of millions of voters and nonvoters who keep these people in office.

It reminds me of what Winston Churchill said about the millions of Germans who voted for the Nazis: “They are carnivorous sheep.”

(As I wrote this, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair and New York Times reported that publisher Pecker has struck a deal with federal prosecutors for immunity in the never-ending Don john scandals. That’s interesting news. Read it in the National Enquirer! Or not.)

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