We wrote here and here about how Associated Press reporter Jill Colvin has made herself and her “news” agency spokesmen for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Today Ms. Colvin outdid herself in reporting on Donald Trump’s speech in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She begins:
A beleaguered Donald Trump sought to undermine the legitimacy of the U.S. presidential election on Saturday, pressing unsubstantiated claims the contest is rigged against him, vowing anew to jail Hillary Clinton if he’s elected and throwing in a wild, baseless insinuation his rival was on drugs in the last debate.
Seriously? Did the Clinton campaign write that paragraph, or did Colvin come up with it on her own?
Not even the country’s more than two centuries of peaceful transitions of political leadership were sacrosanct as Trump accused the media and the Clinton campaign of conspiring against him to undermine a free and fair election.
I’m not sure what the reference to “two centuries of peaceful transitions of political leadership” is supposed to mean. Is she insinuating the Trump is plotting a coup? Or grumbling that he isn’t accepting defeat passively like a good Republican?
In a country with a history of peaceful political transition, his challenge to the election’s legitimacy — as a way to explain a loss in November, should that happen — was a striking rupture of faith in American democracy.
Well, it represents as lack of faith in the liberal press, anyway. This is what Trump said, as quoted by Colvin herself:
“The election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president,” he said, referring to the several women who have come forward in recent days to say that Trump had groped or sexually assaulted them.
I don’t think there is any doubt about the fact that the media, including the Associated Press, have pushed the allegations against Trump in an effort to elect Hillary Clinton. Does that make the media “corrupt,” as Trump says, or is electing Hillary part of a journalist’s job, as the New York Times now proudly proclaims? That is a matter of opinion, but I think Trump’s characterization is fair.
Finally, Ms. Colvin counters Trump’s suggestion that Mrs. Clinton may be taking drugs prior to the presidential debates. She apparently thinks Trump was being serious:
Trump also suggested at one point Saturday that Clinton had been on drugs during the last debate. Instead of spending the weekend preparing, he said, “I think she’s actually getting pumped up, you want to know the truth.”
“I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate, ’cause I don’t know what’s going on with her,” he said.
Trump offered no evidence to support the bizarre claim, which he appeared to base on his belief Clinton was energetic at the start of their second debate and downbeat at its conclusion. Nothing about Clinton’s demeanor in the debate suggested she was anything but clean and sober.
Ms. Colvin doesn’t seem to grasp the irony: Trump says the election is rigged because a corrupt media establishment is trying to elect Hillary Clinton, and with her own reporting, Colvin demonstrates that he is right.
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