Two Completely Unrelated Stories

One:

Two: Washington Post Columnist: The Networks Need to De-Platform Trump

This isn't a new idea but it is one that the left is desperate to legitimize in advance of the 2020 election. Today Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan made the case for de-platforming Trump...

I wouldn't suggest, for a moment, that network television and the rest of the mainstream media should ignore what the president says. That would be irresponsible, not to mention impossible.

...

But broadcasting him live and unfiltered -- whether in an Oval Office speech, or an impromptu news conference, or at a campaign rally -- has been a bad idea for quite some time.

Instead, whatever news is produced can be presented in context with facts woven in from the start: Truth first.

As with Anderson Cooper's "PREBUTTAL," does she mean?

No, she doesn't even mean that. She means taping a speech, cutting it up, and then offering leftwing commentary (LIAR! ILLEGALS ARE GUILTY OF NO CRIMES AT ALL!!) between the nuggets selected for broadcast.

Yesterday, Ed wrote about CNN's Don Lemon who wondered aloud whether Trump's speech should be delayed. That idea didn’t come from Lemon. He was probably borrowing from CNN's Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy who published a story last week under the headline "Cable news networks air Trump’s comments in real-time. But should they? If you know anything about CNN or Oliver Darcy you can probably guess which way the story was slanted. Here's a sample:

The practice of airing Trump’s remarks in real-time, as networks did this week, gives the President a platform to reach millions of people at once and dominate the conversation -- and Trump often uses the opportunity to deceive viewers by peddling misinformation and falsehoods.

If you like you doctor you can keep your doctor. Do you mean like that?

For some time, the conservative movement has been divided between liberals who don't really mind liberal rule because they like liberals because they are liberals, and actual conservatives, who feared, correctly, that the left was as serious as Hitler when it has repeatedly told us exactly what it intended to do, which is to punish and suppress any speech they think is "wrong." They have repeatedly told us that all issues are now "beyond discussion," and they have repeatedly proposed methods of punishing/criminalizing those who engage in such wrongthink.

Many of us said that there could be no compromise with this. Liberal Bill Kristol doesn't need to fear the liberal censorship state, because he's a fellow liberal and is useful for fighting their current political fight, but anyone who is actually opposed to leftwing hegemony and speech criminalization does need to fear them-- as they fear us.

Well, we're now at the point where the left has agreed (funny how they're always so swift to agree about revolutionary proposals in such a short window of debate, almost as if they have been deciding these things behind closed doors before introducing to the public) that even The President can no longer be permitted to offer his unfiltered arguments to the public.

Just like the leftwing decided that no longer would any Wrongthinkers be allowed to speak on college campuses.

John Sexton either noted or quoted someone to the effect: "We will all be living on the Evergreen State campus before long."

Well, here we are.

Now, between the claim made endlessly by so-called "reasonable Republicans" (actually: moderate liberals) that "My good friends on the left can be trusted and do not wish to criminalize you for your speech" and the radical firebrands who have been shouting, "The left, like Hitler, is telling you exactly what they intend to do, and you're determined not to believe them," who's right?

Should we all continue listening to David French and Jonah Goldberg?

Open thread. I'm knocking off early.

posted by Ace of Spades at 07:39 PM

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