One consequence of a gym membership is that, for better or for worse, you see TV you would otherwise never see. I would never knowingly sit down and turn on the Today Show. The last thing I need is to ingest intellectual rot that makes me stupider by the second. But when you climb on the elliptical to do 30 minutes of cardio, the machine's built-in TV doesn't have MLB Network. Yeah. I know. And this morning, for some reason, Fox Sports Detroit wasn't replaying last night's Tiger game.
So what's a guy to do during his workout? The last poor slug who used the machine had tuned the TV to Channel 4, which is our local NBC affiliate here in the Detroit area. So as I'm getting the settings right on the machine, I find myself involuntarily exposed to the Today Show. And what do you know? Their star of the morning is one Alicia Machado, the 1996 Miss Universe who was mentioned by Hillary during the debate as the innocent victim of awful fat-shaming by Donald Trump. Supposedly this led to her having an eating disorder and brought great harm onto her life.
Now look: If Trump really talked about her the way Machado claims, that is absolutely not OK. I am voting for Trump because a Trump presidency on balance is a much wiser course for the nation than a Hillary presidency, for reasons we've already discussed at great length in this space. That does not require me to excuse every bit of personal behavior Trump has ever been responsible for.
That said, there are some serious problems here. For one thing, the Miss Universe pageant in question was 20 years ago. That is the sort of timespan that Hillary herself would call "old news" if anyone brought up a past misdeed of hers. Right now the media are in overdrive trying to dig up any dirt they can on Trump, as they see Hillary's hopes for the presidency slipping away.
Second problem: This is yet another example of the media acting as Hillary's lapdogs, since the Machado story originated with Hillary's campaign, and the news coverage was an egregious example of editors and producers jumping to book Machado at the behest of Hillary's PR people. The nexus between Democrat candidates and media decision-makers is nothing if not blatant.
Now, because Machado was supplied by Hillary's campaign to the media, you don't suppose there could be any problems at all with her credibility, do you? After all, these are the Clintons! They would never deal with people of questionable character! Ever!
Um, yeah . . . about that:
In January 1998, the Associated Press revealed that Machado had been accused in court documents in Cadacras of driving her boyfriend from the scene of a shooting.
She was ordered to testify in court, with her lawyer telling a local newspaper that she was in fact filming a soap opera at the time.
The murder, it was alleged, was the culmination of a bitter feud.
Machado's boyfriend, Juan Rodriguez Reggeti, was accused of shooting his brother-in-law, Francisco Sbert Moukso - at the funeral of the dead man's wife, Maria Rodriguez, who was the alleged murderer's sister.
Sbert's attorney alleged that Reggeti believed the dead man had driven his sister to suicide and took revenge, the Associated Press said.
Rodriguez was eight months pregnant when she jumped to her death off a fifth-floor balcony.
The attorney also alleged that witnesses saw Machado drive her boyfriend away from the scene of the crime, and that her boyfriend had snatched the dead woman's 11-month-old son as well.
But her lawyer, Ricardo Koesling, was quoted in a local newspaper calling the claims 'a huge stupidity' and saying: 'She wasn't even present at the site of the incident.'
Machado was not indicted when the judge in the case said there was insufficient evidence that she was at the scene of the alleged crime.
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I excerpted the whole thing out of fairness, because a) she was never charged; b) there have always been conflicting accounts about what happened; and c) it was - like the alleged Trump comments - a long time ago.
I am not claiming that Machado actually was involved with the shooting, because I don't know. Maybe she wasn't. I am not alleging that Trump did not make the comments, because I don't know. Maybe he did.
What I do know is this: There is reason for concern about Machado's credibility here, in addition to the fact that she was served up on a platter by Hillary's campaign, that the responsible practice of journalism would not be to just rush her onto the Today Show without making sure there was no good reason to question her credibility.
But that is not the priority of the media right now. Their priority is to destroy Trump and elect Hillary. If rushing Alicia Machado onto the national airwaves and presenting her story uncritically serves that objective, then good journalism practices be damned, that is what they will do.
Compare that to the way the media have always treated Juanita Broaddrick, who has been consisted for 28 years with her story that Bill Clinton raped her and that Hillary pressured her to keep quiet about it. When is her guest spot on the Today Show? And if it did happen, do you really think they would treat her with the same deference and credulity they afforded Alicia Machado this morning?
Of course they wouldn't. The Today Show producers uncriticially allowed Hillary's campaign to spoon-feed them a story and a source this morning, with none of the usual scrutiny such a situation would require, because they both share the same objective. Electing Hillary. And they're equally willing to shove any propaganda down your throats that will accomplish that objective.
One consequence of a gym membership is that, for better or for worse, you see TV you would otherwise never see. I would never knowingly sit down and turn on the Today Show. The last thing I need is to ingest intellectual rot that makes me stupider by the second. But when you climb on the elliptical to do 30 minutes of cardio, the machine's built-in TV doesn't have MLB Network. Yeah. I know. And this morning, for some reason, Fox Sports Detroit wasn't replaying last night's Tiger game.
So what's a guy to do during his workout? The last poor slug who used the machine had tuned the TV to Channel 4, which is our local NBC affiliate here in the Detroit area. So as I'm getting the settings right on the machine, I find myself involuntarily exposed to the Today Show. And what do you know? Their star of the morning is one Alicia Machado, the 1996 Miss Universe who was mentioned by Hillary during the debate as the innocent victim of awful fat-shaming by Donald Trump. Supposedly this led to her having an eating disorder and brought great harm onto her life.
