Timeless advice from George Constanza
Maggie Haberman, the now embattled New York Times White House correspondent, has explicitly adopted the George Constanza policy on lying.
5/27/18, 11:08 AM
I have written stories about his lies, falsehoods, whoppers, half-truths, salesman-like stretches. The reality is that what he does can be hard to label because, as anyone who has worked for him will tell you in candor, he often thinks whatever he says is what’s real. twitter.com/jbenton/status…
In other words, if Trump believes it, the NY Times will not call it a lie. Fellow journalists, like Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star, support her.
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5/27/18, 11:54 AM
I’m someone who uses “lie” a lot for Trump claims. I also think Maggie’s points in this fight are indisputably true.
Two things are true at once: 1) Trump is a serial liar; 2) Reporters can’t call *all* his false claims lies; sometimes he’s confused or ignorant, not intentional. twitter.com/maggienyt/stat…
Maggie responds and takes a step further:
5/27/18, 12:27 PM
Thanks Daniel. One more I’d add in your list - 4) Trump critics who use their large platforms to amplify his attacks on the press/accuse reporters of bad faith are helping him immeasurably. twitter.com/ddale8/status/…
So you’re actually aiding and abetting Trump by calling him a liar. Maggie’s now getting into Ari Fleischer, c. 2002 “Watch what you say” territory.
There are many problems with the Constaza approach:
- How does she know he doesn’t know he’s lying? E.g., today he says firing Comey had nothing to do with the Russia probe, after he repeatedly said it does. It’s hard to believe this is delusional or based on ignorance. It’s a cynical, deliberate Lie.
- If it is delusional, isn’t that the big story? Isn’t the headline “Delusional President says he didn’t fire Comey because of the Russia probe?” more appropriate?
- If he’s ignorant, isn’t that the big story? Shouldn’t a headline be: “Trump shows ignorance by saying Frederick Douglass is alive?”
- Most importantly, blatant lies must not be normalized. Trump is President because his cascade of lies in the campaign were not called lies. Think back to the debates when Hillary said easily verifiable truths like, “You said climate change was a Chinese hoax.” or “You said Miss Universe was fat” and Trump simply brayed “Wrong!,” repeatedly. Trump said Hillary started birtherism, and he stopped after 2011. Both blatant lies.
Trump’s lying in the debates and the campaign generally was incessant and outrageous. Yet the coverage was “theater criticism,” like “Trump looked good in the first 20 minutes on trade,” even though most of that was lying. Or Chuck Todd’s “Hillary was overprepared.” The coverage should have been “Trump lied repeatedly in the debate. His statement Wrong! responding to obvious truths is unprecedented in any campaign.”
At the same time, Hillary Clinton’s statements were parsed and called lies repeatedly even when they were true or subject to question, such as whether Comey essentially agreed with her position.
The result? Election eve polls showed Trump way ahead of Clinton on truthfulness.
And Trump keeps lying because he got away with it by getting elected.
Trump hardcore supporters will never change, but there are many who still don’t realize the extent of Trump’s abject lying.
The Times’ job is to tell the truth to these people and to everyone by calling his statements lies, or at best, delusional or ignorant.