APRIL 28, 2016
Photo: AP
Political Silly Season was supposed to be over by now.
Wednesday was an important day in the Presidential campaign, but you’d never know it by the leading stories on the three cable news networks. Ted Cruz selected a woman as his Vice-Presidential running mate, Bernie Sanders laid off over 250 staffers and shifted his rationale for staying in the race, and Donald Trump delivered what was billed as a “major foreign policy” address (which you know was “major” because he used a Teleprompter) that was filled with vague talking points, few details, contradictions and was, what one foreign policy expert called it, “gobbledygook.”
These are all significant moments in the race, affecting three major campaigns in potentially important ways. But would you know it from watching Thursday’s coverage?
According to CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, today’s most important stories have been the following gems:
At a speech at Stanford on Wednesday, former House Speaker John Boehner called Ted Cruz
“Lucifer in the flesh.”
Oh, Mr. Speaker, do go on. Happily, he did.
“I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”
Another saucer of milk for the Speaker, please.
Adding to the pile-on, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) helpfully objected:
“Maybe he gives Lucifer a bad name by comparing him to Ted Cruz.”
Where has this bitchfest come from?
Eager to get to the truth, the always on-the-spot Huffington Post consulted the one man who would know for sure whether Ted Cruz was “Lucifer in the flesh.” That one man is…a Satanist. Here’s the official ruling:
“Ted Cruz is God’s problem, not Satan’s.”
Well that settles that.
Today’s other headline-leading stories come from the Misspeaking and Mispronunciation Department:
At the same Indiana gym where the beloved basketball film “Hoosiers” was filmed, Cruz pointed to the basket and referred to it as a basketball “ring.” Trump immediately pounced, saying that this proves that Cruz knows nothing about “the basketball game.” One MSNBC anchor today called Cruz’s remark “a serious gaffe.” Really.
Not to be outdone, Trump, in Wednesday’s carefully-scripted Telepromptered foreign-policy address designed to burnish Trump’s international credentials, pronounced the country Tanzania as “tan-ZANY-a” instead of the correct “tanza-NEE-a.” Trump critics were all over that, saying that this proves that Trump is unfamiliar with the major countries of the world and should not be commander-in-chief. While it is true that the speech proved that Trump knows little about international diplomacy, mispronunciation had nothing to do with it. One note, however, to Trump’s Teleprompter crew — next time, print out the hard words phonetically. He’ll thank you.
Seriously, these were the lead stories in cable news today. I know I watch it so you don’t have to, but I’m afraid that today’s newscasts rotted what’s left of my brain cells. When voters complain that the candidates aren’t talking about the issues that matter to them, I usually blame the politicians. But today’s lead stories prove that they’re not the only ones at fault.
