While net surfing, saw the headline "Analysis: Donald Trump calling Vladimir Putin a 'genius' was no mistake". It is a CNN article, but I read it anyway, to see what spin they put on it.
And yeah, they did, big time. Spinning into lying. It's that Buck Sexton and Clay Travis podcast that we've discussed on this forum. The article paints Trump as a Putin devotee with whom he sides, even against our country.
Right off the bat, in the headline, they lied. In the interview, Trump did not say that Putin was a genius. He used "genius" in the colloquial manner that he often does to describe really clever things or opinions--this time to comment on Putin's invasion--"This is genius"--which doesn't amount to calling Putin a genius. It's a common expression to describe a particular thing or action, not an unconditional judgment of the doer's mental capacity. And Trump's "Oh, that's wonderful" was pure Trumpian sarcasm. And being "smart" is not an indication of being morally upright or even of being right. Complimenting someone as being smart or doing something smart is not in itself an approval of his character. "I'd say that's pretty smart. He's taking over a country -- really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right in."-- "for two dollars' worth of sanctions." Saying it was "smart" to do that for almost nothing in retribution is not, as a transaction, incorrect. Obviously, Putin miscalculated if he thought the response would be puny in comparison to what he'd get--so he might not be as smart as Trump suggests.
And Trump, the article does not mention, said that the invasion was a disaster.
The article goes on: Then, in a speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, Trump, again, repeated his praise of Putin. "Yesterday reporters asked me if I thought President Putin was smart," he said. "I said, 'Of course, he's smart,' to which I was greeted with 'Oh, that's such a terrible thing to say.'" I like to tell them, 'Yes, he's smart." Trump obviously likes to poke back at his Press adversaries--they either don't get what he's doing, or they intentionally spin it their way.
The article goes on and links to some timeline, I suppose of Trump praising Putin. I've seen enough selective timelines re Trump to not bother wasting time on it--select what you can spin and disregard the vast residuum of other things Trump has said or done or accomplished. To paint a picture. To create a narrative.
I don't say any of this to "defend" Trump. I would be perfectly happy if he was no longer an issue--whether he was convicted of an actual crime, or was not elected the candidate in the next primary. I am pointing out what is being done on a larger scale to take this country to a place that I do not think is good. And I think Trump is the scapegoat to distract us from the real danger. Paint him as the danger to "our Democracy" while the real culprit, the whole corporate/government/media complex is becoming our ruling class and needs to be exposed. Honest information is needed to fight it. Lies, false narratives, will not help us maintain what is left of our Republic.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp
Threaded Mode