Saturday, June 18, 2022

Learned Behavior

Now where did they learn to do that?

"BIG NEWS: Fake News CNN has just announced that it will no longer allow the use of the phrase,'The Big Lie,' probably because they are open to legal exposure as facts are now out, with more coming, that the 2020 Presidential Election was indeed Rigged and Stolen, and that the term Big Lie now represents the exact opposite of what the Democrats and Fake News Media was conning the public to believe. A big step by CNN. Congratulations!"

Not exactly what happened:

CNN’s newly installed CEO, Chris Licht, reportedly wants to phase out the use of “the big lie” when referring to Donald Trump’s “stolen election” claims, a change that comes amid reports the boss hopes to rein in partisanship (or perceptions thereof). Licht, who made the comments during a Tuesday meeting with producers, warned that using “the Big Lie” is too close to the Democratic Party’s “branding,” according to Mediaite. He also suggested that CNN’s producers refer to Trump’s debunked voter fraud claims as the “Trump election lie” or “election lies” in banners and graphics.

So "Trump election lie" or "election lies" would suit Trump better?  And it's not a directive:

Licht did clarify that the recommendation is his preference, rather than a network-wide mandate. However, some staffers reportedly view it as a direct order from the boss while others have taken issue with Licht’s suggestion. “ 

The policy change that isn't a policy change is debatable.  NPR used "the big lie" in describing Trump's claims, while covering the J6 hearings.  One of their reporters explained to the audience they were hearing lies about election fraud in the context of that fraud being exposed and disproven, because NPR wanted to be very careful (obviously) about not spreading those lies.  So I'm not sure "big lie" is a truly Democratic Party line, but whatever.  I don't watch CNN anyway.  It's boring.

Still, it's funny how Trump can't get anything right (and I would be happy for CNN to start using "Trump election lie" regularly).  Which brings me to this interview between Michael Smerconish and Kellyanne Conway, who has a book to shill (I don't have much use for those interviews, either, but there's entertainment value here):

"You know, I also write in the book, Michael, that people like to say without Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump would not have gotten elected president of the United States, that's debatable," she humbly stated. "But without George Conway urging, if not insisting me, his wife, to take that campaign management job and helping out with more with the kids and home, I don't see how I could be the campaign manager the level I was. George was my partner."

"Did you ever say, George, what the hell are you doing here?" the CNN host asked.

"I did and that's in the book," she shot back. "All I got was a steady diet of 'Trump, Trump, Trump.' I will tell you that I know he's billed differently now, but for the three years, he was mentioned 48 times by the New York Times. He was mentioned 45 of the 48 times as, quote, 'Kellyanne Conway's husband.' We should be honest about how everybody came to know him and that he became some kind of resistance folk hero but not at a small cost."

"I feel that I should have known ahead of time if this thing called the Lincoln Project was going to exist there were going to be ads, dumping an op-ed the next day, his tweets are going to be about my boss," she continued. "Again, just so your viewers who are saying 'why did you have her on? I turned off the TV,' although they didn't or are reading online, they should know that George -- I feel like I was owed an explanation. And this is not the situation, I gave up millions of dollars to go be a public servant in the White House. George wanted to have a big job in the Trump administration, we moved our family to Washington as a family. He changed his mind about Donald Trump somewhere along the way. Famously, Donald Trump never changes. I didn't change my mind."

As I learned from Gene Lyons back when Clinton was in office, other people's marriages is a country where I don't speak the language.  So I don't care about the relationship between this couple. Maybe it's just an object lesson in power:  be careful how assiduously you pursue it, or how close you want to get to it, because you're riding a tiger.  Maybe that's not.  I just found the last two lines telling.

Kellyanne Conway is the last of the true believers.  She's just not quite the clown show that Navarro is.


Adding: and this is who she believes in:

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