The liberal media certainly thought so. Anti-Trump protests dominated CNN and other news channels, while the Associated Press was giddy with delight at the number of people who turned out to demonstrate against President Trump:
In a global exclamation of defiance and solidarity, more than 1 million people rallied at women’s marches in the nation’s capital and cities around the world Saturday to send President Donald Trump an emphatic message on his first full day in office that they won’t let his agenda go unchallenged.
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The Washington rally alone attracted over 500,000 people according to city officials — apparently more than Trump’s inauguration drew on Friday. It was easily one of the biggest demonstrations in the city’s history….
Well, 500,000 people is a lot. But it’s funny how the number of people who turn out to demonstrate doesn’t necessarily determine whether it’s a major news story. Take, for example, the 650,000 who participated in the “March For Life” in D.C. in 2013. Was the AP breathless over that massive display of displeasure with liberal policies?
Just kidding. Actually, the AP didn’t even report it. Instead, the AP reported, and tweeted, a vastly smaller pro-gun control demonstration, which caused the liberal news agency to be called out on Twitter. The point is that what makes a demonstration newsworthy in the eyes of the liberal press is not the number of people who participate, but the agenda that the demonstration serves.
That’s quantity. How about quality? The AP tells us in a separate story that “A-list celebs [were] out in force for anti-Trump women’s marches.” I don’t know, these days, who is considered an A-list celebrity, but seriously: Madonna? Madonna, who peaked 30 years ago, was the star of the D.C. spectacle. The AP gives us a highly sanitized version of her remarks:
In the capital, a sea of pink, pointy-eared “pussyhats” mocking the new president stretched far and wide as Madonna took to the stage — and, to no one’s surprise, held little back.
“Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House,” she said. “But I know that this won’t change anything. We cannot fall into despair.” Instead, she called for a “revolution of love.”
Here is what Madonna actually said. See whether you can spot a lot of love. Warning: not safe for work, for children, or for those with an IQ in triple digits. It is almost unbelievably stupid:
For some reason, the AP doesn’t mention one of the other featured speakers at the Washington rally, Ashley Judd. Her speech was more obscene than Madonna’s, and at least as dumb:
The liberal media don’t want us to have a clear idea of what was said at today’s “women’s” demonstrations.
I understand that. But this is what I don’t get. The pretext for today’s outpouring of anti-Trump feminism is that years ago, Trump made crude comments in a private conversation, a tape of which was leaked by NBC in an effort to help Hillary Clinton win the election. Trump did indeed come across as vulgar in that conversation, although hardly misogynistic. (The idea that the former owner of the Miss Universe pageant hates women is ludicrous.) But not too many years ago, President Bill Clinton was credibly accused of rape by one woman, and of sexual harassment by several others. These weren’t just crude comments, they were illegal actions. Clinton was disbarred and paid a fine of something like $60,000 for committing perjury in a sexual harassment case.
Where were these women then? Looking at the photos, I would say that a large majority of them were around in the 1990s. Certainly Madonna and Ashley Judd were. Did they march on Washington to show their disapproval of an accused rapist and a president who–not a decade earlier, but while in office–committed perjury in a sexual harassment case? No, they did not.
So I find it hard to take their newfound outrage seriously. As for today’s most important news story, it may have been Trump’s visit to the CIA. It may turn out to have been actions taken by Trump that we don’t know about yet. But I am pretty sure it wasn’t anti-Trump demonstrations by a bunch of hypocritical feminists.
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