 Joe Honick |
Who would ever have even had the nerve to think of the conservative Wall Street Journal as a humor publication, especially when it came to politics?
Certainly, not me, at least not when I was student in journalism school.
When I was a student all those years ago before the Murdochs virtually became the media PR for the right instead of a tough, well-respected example of how journalism should be done, the newspaper was the “bible” for how to present all the news fit to print no less than the New York Times.
Sadly, the Wall Street Journal has become a virtual humor medium and at a time that so imperatively needs its old professionalism.
Two examples express how the Journal is trying to recover from its own problems when even conservative media were grudgingly endorsing Hillary Clinton, the Journal editorial board was caught and had its own reasons for opposing Trump for the Republican nomination. But, when he was nominated and real Journal pros like Dorothy Robinowitz argued against a Trump support and a broad scale “Dump Trump” effort was underway, “influentials” like ultra conservative Karl Rove were doing their own campaigns on the op-ed page.
But the real humor job was done by columnist Daniel Henninger on May 18, 2017, with a piece headlined: “Let Trump Be Trump.” Following on the same page: “The Trump Tumult is Too Much” by old timer Karl Rove.
All this from the same mainstream medium that also previously featured writers who did their best to come down against nomination-seeking Trump.
But letting Trump be Trump. as Henninger urges, is fertile stuff for the likes of Stephen Colbert who has feasted on Trumpian comments and actions.
Apparently Henninger sees the POTUS who whined before the graduating class of the Coast Guard Academy that he, Trump, was the most egregiously media-treated politician in history forgot, as the NYT’s Gail Collins quoted: Lincoln had been accused of everything from drunkenness to treason to being a “fungus from the corrupt womb of bigotry and fanaticism before being assassinated.”
Appallingly, Trump presents himself as a student of Lincoln, intoning once at fundraiser that hardly anyone realized the great man was a Republican! Huh?
In other words, after only very modestly congratulating the fine young men and women of the Coast Guard Academy, he found the time to whine that media and others were picking on him excessively, hardly a representation a real leader would use to such an audience whose graduates were getting ready for some demanding responsibilities and personal risk.
Somehow, he managed to avoid the reality of his having permitted the Russian Ambassador and his foreign affairs top guy into the Oval Office with only a Tass photographer to scope out this most important facility with not one American representative as a witness or transcriber of the alleged transfer of classified information to the Russians.
In the next humorous and totally embarrassing event, it fell to none other than Vladimir Putin to leap to the fore and promise he would provide the transcript of the session that no American representative could.
Consider had Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama had done such a thing. Does anyone think for a moment that the Wall Street Journal’s Henninger, Trove and editorial writers would not have had a raving feast at their expense? And I would have joined them!
“Let Trump Be Trump”? Who can stop him? And, embarrassingly if not dangerously, but certainly not humorously, the rest of the world seems to know it as well.
The bottom line or, perhaps the final question, is why the once the once deservedly and profoundly respected Wall Street Journal of my college days, and after being one of the major challengers of Donald Trump even to be his party’s nominee, has permitted itself to ignore its own journalistic traditions.
The newly appointed Independent Counsel, a man of uncontested integrity and courage, has been ordered not only to investigate Russian interference in our American elections but, as noted, “other matters.” As usual. Mr. Trump has slandered the search for truth instead of simply welcoming an effort to clear his and the public record.
If such a probe would find all challenges without merit, it would give him incalculable “gloating privileges” and an unbeatable second term run.
Until now, contrary to the Journal’s Henninger, the nation has indeed permitted Trump to be Trump, a major reason why we are where we are.
And it isn’t funny anymore!
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Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications. He can be reached at [email protected]
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