We're going to get this again and again for as long as Trump is president, but that doesn't mean we should just settle in and let the media get away with it. You can't win with them, of course, if you're a Republican administration. If you let them walk all over you, they will. If you give as good as you get, they'll find a way to make that a scandal - and their easiest and most predictable path to doing that is if someone mixes it up with a female and/or minority reporter.
April Ryan is certainly a goldmine for them, isn't she? Back in February they tried to martyr her because of an exchange with Trump himself that was about as innocuous as a thing can be.
Ryan was a lot less substantive and a lot more obnoxious
Tuesday's exchange was Sean # was different. Ryan was a lot less substantive and a lot more obnoxious in asking # about how he intends to repair what she called Trump's "image" problem. #'s response was basically that any "image problem" Trump might have exists only in the minds and via the mouths of the media, who continue to talk endlessly about certain things that are either a) irrelevant; or b) not even true. The exchange was testy, mainly because Ryan kept stepping on #'s responnse both verbally and nonverbally.
And guess who has re-emerged from whatever hole she crawled into to declare # racist and sexist as a result?
You should have known she'd be the thing that wouldn't leave:
So we're told that # was being racist and sexist for the way he dealt with Ryan here. OK. Let's see the actual exchange for ourselves:
Questions about this:
Did # at any point refer to Ryan's race? No.
Did # at any point refer to Ryan's sex? No.
Who kept interrupting the other? Ryan asked a question, # tried to answer it. Yes, they were both shouting over each other, but it was Ryan who kept cutting # off as he tried to give her a detailed answer. You don't see all the head-shaking but # obviously does and considers it just as much a part of the interruption as her tried to shout followup questions when he's not done with his initial answer.
What we've got here is exactly what it looks like: A tense, testy exchange between a reporter and the White House press secretary, brought on by a frankly obnoxious question that's impossible to answer effectively without doing exactly what # did, which is to turn the question back on the press. Ryan doesn't like that so things get tense. Fine. But why should anyone think # would have handled it differently if a white male reporter had asked the same question, or had continually interrupted his answer, or had sat there shaking his head dismissively as # was trying to answer?
He wouldn't, and you know it.
Support Canada Free Press
Real reason they're so furious today. Their ammo is being revealed as powerless, and everyone is starting to notice
The standard the left is trying to set here is that minorities and women can only be handled with kid gloves, and that anyone who mixes it up with them is racist by definition even if the matter at hand has nothing to do with race or sex and makes no reference to it. And if that's going to be the standard by which we have to operate, what exactly does the left think of female and minority reporters?
As for the question itself, it's obnoxious in the extreme precisely because it's one of those unfalsifiable notions the press likes to toss out there. The president has an image problem! Russia! Wiretapping! So much! It won't go away!
If it won't go away, it's because they are resolved to keep talking about it even if there's nothing there to talk about. That's #'s point. How can you repair an "image problem" that's created and kept alive solely by the will of the press? You can't, nor should you even take seriously the notion that it's your problem to fix. The stupid Russia thing "won't go away" because they don't want it to, not because there's anything to it. Trump has decided to let it be their problem, and they're butthurt that he's not jumping through hoops trying to satisfy them.
Because Trump learned two things during the campaign: 1. You can't satisfy them. 2. Them being satisfied doesn't matter as much as politicians have long assumed it does.
And that's the real reason they're so furious today. Their ammo is being revealed as powerless, and everyone is starting to notice.
