I’m not sure how I am going to write this blog entry.
I am laughing out loud.
Donald J. Trump has been whining about the coverage he’s been getting from the media, calling it the most unfair in U.S. history.
Here’s how Politico reported what the president told U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduates: âLook at the way Iâve been treated lately,â Trump said, as some in the audience burst into laughter, âespecially by the media. No politician in history â and I say this with great surety â has been treated worse or more unfairly.â
A friend of mine noted on social media that Trump, student of history that he is, is absolutely certain of what he said. My friend was joking, of course. Trump is no student of anything, let alone presidential history.
Were the media giving kid-glove treatment to, let’s see:
Harry Truman, for relieving Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his command during the Korean War?
John F. Kennedy, for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba?
Lyndon Johnson, for his prosecution of the Vietnam War?
Richard Nixon, for the Watergate scandal?
Gerald Ford, for his occasional fits of clumsiness?
Jimmy Carter, for his occasional fits of self-righteousness?
Ronald Reagan, for the Iran-Contra debacle?
George H.W. Bush, for reneging on his “read my lips” pledge to never raise taxes?
Bill Clinton, for messing around with that 20-something White House intern — and his subsequent impeachment?
George W. Bush, for failing to find weapons of mass destruction after going to war in Iraq?
Barack Obama, for enduring the “fake news” about his place of birth, which — by the way — was fomented by Donald John Trump?
These men — Democrats and Republicans — have plenty in common. They assumed the presidency knowing full well that the media would be looking carefully at every single thing they do. The media would expose every misstep, mistake, misstatement.
That’s how it goes. That’s a condition of the job to which they were elected or to which they ascended through other means.
However, for Trump to assert that he’s been given the worst treatment in the history of the presidency is — dare I say it candidly? — yet another fabrication.
There. I got through it. I’m proud of myself.