Democracy dies in dimness

There’s fake news and there’s non-news. Between the two, they account for way too much of what the mainstream media reports.

Here’s an example of non-news. The Washington Post tells us that “Tom Hanks would vote no to attending a screening of ‘The Post’ at the White House.”

“The Post” is Hollywood’s homage to the Washington Post for publishing the Pentagon Papers decades ago. Tinseltown hoped, through this vehicle, to provide a needed boost to the beleaguered mainstream media and, in particular, to an organ at the forefront of the anti-Trump resistance. This was before Hollywood found itself beleaguered by news that some of its leading lights are pigs and pig-enablers (Hanks’ co-star in “The Post” falls squarely in the latter category).

What is the likelihood that President Trump will screen Hollywood’s valentine to his arch-enemy, the Washington Post? About the same as the likelihood he will host a book party for James Comey when the former FBI director publishes his memoirs.

Hanks acknowledges that, when it comes to politics, “I’m only knowing what I read in the newspapers and what have you.” Naturally, then, he believes that Trump’s attacks on the media amount to “monkeying around with our Constitution.”

Hanks explained:

It is relatively obvious, I think, what is trying to go forward, when you tear down these institutions to a level of, so you can’t believe anything that is in any of them. That raises the stock of those agenda-filled other institutions and whatnot, so that if you can’t believe them, well, that means you get to believe some of the other stuff that is in these.

The dim Mr. Hanks apparently believes the Constitution is offended if people “get to believe” media outlets other than “institutions” he thinks they should believe. Hanks need not plan a response to what the Post calls a “hypothetical” White House invitation.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses