My colleague Sister Toldjah wrote a great story earlier today about how “presidential historian” Michael Beschloss stepped in it big time, chastising President Trump for how he addressed a reporter who he believed was being rude and obnoxious.
Beschloss cited what Trump said to the reporter and asked people to imagine if Abraham Lincoln would have ever used the words that Trump used with the reporter.
Abraham Lincoln never told an esteemed reporter, "Don't talk to me that way! . . .I’m the President of the United States. Don't ever talk to the President that way!"
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) December 10, 2020
“Abraham Lincoln never told an esteemed reporter, “Don’t talk to me that way! . . .I’m the President of the United States. Don’t ever talk to the President that way!””
But this presidential historian was so deluded by his raging Trump Derangement Syndrome, he of course has completely forgotten his history. Or maybe even worse, he remembers his history and just wants to deceive you. Anyway his tweet was so monumentally dumb and wrong, he got ratioed to heck and back for it, with many reminding him about how Abraham Lincoln actually arrested reporters and suspended habeas corpus to crush dissent.
He suspended the writ of habeas corpus 8 times, empowed military to imprison thousands of civilians without any recourse to the courts. Moreover, some 300 disloyal newspapers were shut down, by military and civilian authorities.
So excuse Trump for hurting the presses feelings. https://t.co/D3qmwAX6QV
— Rich Hannigan (@RichardVeii) December 10, 2020
The point of course is that media today is completely without perspective as Sister Toldjah so cogently wrote.
So I wanted for the sake of perspective, to point out how wrong they are to lie and suggest that somehow Trump being abrupt or harsh on a reporter is somehow unique or special in history, how their constant demonization of him is once again wrong.
So let’s look at some of the other presidents beyond Lincoln (who certainly might win the prize for harshest on reporters).
But coming in a close second, perhaps, was Barack Obama who spied on reporters and also tried to get them arrested. He even spied on the parents of former Fox News reporter James Rosen.
THE FACTS: Trump may use extraordinary rhetoric to undermine trust in the press, but Obama arguably went farther — using extraordinary actions to block the flow of information to the public.
The Obama administration used the 1917 Espionage Act with unprecedented vigor, prosecuting more people under that law for leaking sensitive information to the public than all previous administrations combined. Obama’s Justice Department dug into confidential communications between news organizations and their sources as part of that effort.
In 2013 the Obama administration obtained the records of 20 Associated Press office phone lines and reporters’ home and cell phones, seizing them without notice, as part of an investigation into the disclosure of information about a foiled al-Qaida terrorist plot.
AP was not the target of the investigation. But it called the seizure a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its news-gathering activities, betraying information about its operations “that the government has no conceivable right to know.”
Obama’s Justice Department also secretly dogged Fox News journalist James Rosen, getting his phone records, tracking his arrivals and departures at the State Department through his security-badge use, obtaining a search warrant to see his personal emails and naming him as a possible criminal conspirator in the investigation of a news leak.
Not to mention how Obama constantly demonized Fox News.
How about Thomas Jefferson? One of our Founders. An incredibly learned man and critical to the framework of our government. But he was not a fan of the partisan media which he frequently called out for being partisan.
During his presidency he became critical of what he saw as the partisan nature of the press and began airing his grievances in personal letters stating, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” For some context, newspapers of the early 19th century in the U.S. frequently printed pieces with overt bias and plagued politicians with personal attacks.
You don’t say? Do tell.
During his presidency he became critical of what he saw as the partisan nature of the press and began airing his grievances in personal letters stating, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” For some context, newspapers of the early 19th century in the U.S. frequently printed pieces with overt bias and plagued politicians with personal attacks.
Well, at least they didn’t accuse him of being a Russian agent and a traitor, right?
Perhaps some of the best skewering of the press came from Harry Truman.
In a 1955 letter, Truman famously wrote: “Presidents and the members of their Cabinets and their staff members have been slandered and misrepresented since George Washington…when the press is friendly to an administration the opposition has been lied about and treated to the excrescence [sic] of paid prostitutes of the mind.”
But don’t ever criticize his daughter Margaret’s singing ability. One critic, Paul Hume, made that mistake.
According to Truman’s presidential library, Hume wrote that Margaret was “a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality,” but “cannot sing very well” and “is flat a good deal of the time, more last night than at any time we have heard her in past years.”
He kept at it, adding she “still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish.”
Truman was irate, and fired off a scathing letter to Hume:
“Mr. Hume:
“I’ve just read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert. I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an ‘eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay.’
“It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you’re off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work.
“Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!
“[Newspaper columnist Westbrook] Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you’ll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.”
HST
So perspective. Maybe Trump can fire off a “gutter snipe” remark about Jim Acosta. But seriously, folks, once again media distorts, for their own narrative ends. The evil orange man hasn’t done anything to those reporters and many of whom continued to adore Obama even after he spied on their brethren.
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