{"id":27377,"date":"2018-01-13T15:51:20","date_gmt":"2018-01-13T15:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27377"},"modified":"2018-01-13T15:51:20","modified_gmt":"2018-01-13T15:51:20","slug":"no-thing-off-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27377","title":{"rendered":"No such thing as ‘off the record’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

Michael Smerconish is a smart commentator and CNN TV host.<\/p>\n

He offered a prime piece of political wisdom this morning when he said, “There’s no such thing as ‘off the record.'”<\/p>\n

There it is. A lesson that no doubt has not<\/em> been lost on the “stable genius” who sits in the Oval Office of the White House. Donald Trump clearly knew that when he described African nations and Haiti as “sh**hole countries” would be picked up and flashed around the world.<\/p>\n

As Smerconish noted today, seemingly everyone has a smart phone equipped with a camera and a recording device.<\/p>\n

When the president blurts out a racist comment, or when he makes declarations that are sure to offend millions of Americans — let alone billions<\/em> of other world inhabitants — he is speaking only to a narrow audience: his political base, the 30-some percent of Americans who stand with him no matter what.<\/p>\n

As Smerconish noted today, Barack Obama was caught telling a fundraising crowd that many Americans “cling to their guns” and their religious faith; four years later, Mitt Romney was overheard telling a crowd that “47 percent of Americans” who live on government programs will vote for President Obama “no matter what.”<\/p>\n

The world is listening to these politicians.<\/p>\n

I get that Trump’s sh**hole comments aren’t a precise parallel to the examples cited already. Still, Donald Trump called an entire continent a place full of “sh**hole” countries populated by dark-skinned people. Lawmakers heard him say it and have declared they heard it. Such a statement sounds pretty damn racist to me.<\/p>\n

He has offended millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

Trump doesn’t care. His base hangs with him.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Smerconish is a smart commentator and CNN TV host. He offered a prime piece of political wisdom this morning when he said, “There’s no such thing as ‘off the record.’” There it is. A lesson that no doubt has not been lost on the “stable genius” who sits in the Oval Office of the … Continue reading No such thing as ‘off the record’<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13],"tags":[540,1424,2245,3101,4289,4300],"class_list":["post-27377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-news","category-national-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-donald-trump","tag-immigration","tag-mitt-romney","tag-smart-phones","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27378,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27377\/revisions\/27378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}