This is another BS column. By that I mean “Bob Simplifies.” (Whatever did you think I meant?) With so much misleading rhetoric, politicians are able to constantly confuse what they are really saying with complicated babble. So, as a badly needed public service, Bob Simplifies:
“Fake news” misspeaks for itself. It actually means that the particular expose in question is probably accurate. As a part of his campaign to discredit any critical coverage in the media, Donald Trump has been able to deflect all but the most sycophantic stories. The tactic has been wildly successful with his millions of lemmings — pardon me, his “base” — who are consumed by resentment for anybody not named Trump. Scumbag journalists are high on their list of lowlifes, where we’ve been since the beginning of time when we began reporting on the people who would lead us, supported by adoring crowds of followers. This is nothing new.
We’re the skunk at their picnic. Recently it’s become their favorite way of dismissing a valid story: Call it “fake news.” Take Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kovach, who is vice chair of the federal voting commission, which was contrived by Trump to prove his fictitious claim that widespread election fraud denied him an actual majority victory in the 2016 presidential campaign. Kovach has requested that states provide the commission individual voter data, and a huge number of states are resisting. Stories about that? Kovach calls them “fake news.” Hey, that’s all the true believers need to hear to disbelieve.
But it’s not just the war on media that requires translation. There’s the fearsome possibility of real war and the double-talk that surrounds it that needs untwisting. When Trump tells a news conference in Warsaw, Poland, that he’s considering “some pretty severe things” (which are unspecified) to deal with North Korea and there is a growing fear that its insane leader is creating a nuclear arsenal capable of striking the United States, what he really means is that he has no earthly idea how to handle this metastasizing crisis.
One of my favorite variations is that “all options are on the table.” No, they’re not. All-out war would mean that millions upon millions of people would die. North Korea and the pipsqueak leader Kim Jong Un would be responsible for a catastrophe. So could be an impetuous President Donald Trump, who might mindlessly blunder the United States into a choice between that catastrophe and national embarrassment as the nation is revealed to be what the Chinese like to call a “paper tiger.” It means “pretend strong, but actually weak.” In this case, Trump would be a “paper tweeter.”
It’s those Chinese who are really key in finding some sort of leverage to cause Kim to back off, but let’s face it, folks: The U.S. is going to have to pay a price for China to tighten the economic screws. They are the patrons of their tiny neighbor with such huge ambitions. When Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders reacts by telling reporters, “We’ve been pretty consistent that we are never going to broadcast next steps,” which is a favorite response of the Trumpster’s, what she and they are again really saying is: “We don’t really have any ‘next steps.’”
We can only hope that cooler heads prevail somehow. That is another case of distorted language, since the main “cooler heads” in this case are Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. How uncool are they? Almost frightening is what that really means, which is that Russia and China will decide whether it is in their interests to bail America out. That hope is not altogether unfounded, given that North Korea is in their part of the world, so they, too, would suffer severe damage if they didn’t step in.
It brings to mind one other expression, the one that goes “Make America Great Again.” So far, we’re being diminished. Which is quite clear, thanks to this BS explanation.
