RawStory posted the video with a transcript that prompted me to think of how Trump is like Wile E. Coyete and the reporters trying to get a direct answer out of him, even if it is dishonest, are like Road Runner reporters trying catch President Coyote:
See: Trump storms out of press conference after grilling on supporter Kyle Rittenhouse Includes video.
Trump making a hasty retreat without looking back. I wonder what he was muttering under his breath.
Excerpt:
President Donald Trump on Monday was grilled about why he has not condemned supporter Kyle Rittenhouse, who has been charged for murder after traveling across state lines to confront Black Lives Matter protesters, allegedly shooting three and killing two.
Trump, however, defended Rittenhouse.
“That was an interesting situation,” said Trump. “He was trying to get away from them … and then they very violently attacked him.”
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins attempted to question Trump on the topic, but was cut off. Reporters shouted after Trump as he left the room.
“I couldn’t even really ask him a fully-formed question,” Collins said on CNN, following the press conference:
I thought damnit he’s like Wile E. Coyote and CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins was, this time, playing the role of Road Runner chasing the Trump coyote.
I did a little research about the cartoon which I’d seen many times but didn’t remember the exact plot and found this article on VOX:
The Amos Posner, a writer and directer, tweeted these rules which were included in the VOX article.
Even though Chuck Jones claimed that he and the artists behind the Road Runner and Wile E. cartoons adhered to some simple but strict rules the truth of the is in dispute: Read: en.wikipedia.org/...
You can see how some of the nine rules could apply to Trump. Alas he has been immune to Rule 1 “Chuck Jones, the creator of the Road Runner, has stated that this sound, the only way the Road Runner can harm the Coyote.” (Wikipedia under entry for “Beep Beep)
I digress….
Scrolling down to Rule 9 we now are seeing signs that Trump may actually suffer from a gravity problem. You portably missed how a right-wing Trump supporting network reported commented on his almost falling. It’s a gem. You have to give her begrudging credit for thinking quickly.
President Donald Trump appeared to narrowly avoid falling over as he walked up to the podium at a campaign rally in New Hampshire on Friday evening.
Video shows Trump flailing his arms while steadying himself a few feet from the lectern after disembarking from Air Force One.
"Looks like he almost tripped," Liz Willis, a Right Side Broadcasting network announcer, remarked during a livestream of the event. "I'm sure he will make a joke out of that one in just a moment."
(He didn’t mention it but immediately afterwards tried to pretend it was part of a deliberate schtick.)
In fact Trump’s neurological status was discussed last night on Rachel Maddow’s show (screen shot below) because it has been revealed in Michael Schmidt’s book, Donald Trump v. The Untied States that his unplanned trip could have required his being anesthetized. There have been articles with speculation that Donald Trump May Have Suffered From A ‘Series’ Of ‘Mini-Strokes.
This is from The Lincoln Project:
and this tweet expands on signs Trump may have a neurological problem.:
Back to the cartoon:
I thought it would be a good illustration for this diary but it needed to be changed because as you can see above, Wile E. Coyote is looking back at Road Runner. Trump never looks back. He just walks off in a snit without having the guts even to issue a retort to someone he sees as a “nasty woman” much than “you’re fake news” journalist to her face when she dares to question him.
The battle between Trump and all the Road Runner Reporters isn't a perfect analogy to the theme and plots of the Road Runner cartoons but you can see some similarities:
Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner are a duo of cartoon characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. In each episode, the cunning, insidious and constantly hungry Coyote repeatedly attempts to catch and subsequently eat the Road Runner, a fast-running ground bird, but is never successful.[21] Instead of his animal instincts, the Coyote uses absurdly complex contraptions (sometimes in the manner of Rube Goldberg) to try to catch his prey, which comically backfire, with the Coyote often getting injured in slapstick fashion. Many of the items for these contrivances are mail-ordered from a variety of companies that are all named Acme.
One running gag involves the Coyote trying (in vain) to shield himself with a little parasol against a great falling boulder that is about to crush him. Another running gag involves the Coyote falling from a high cliff. After he goes over the edge, the rest of the scene, shot from a bird's-eye view, shows him falling into a canyon so deep, that his figure is eventually lost to sight. This is followed, a second or two later, by the rising of a dust cloud from the canyon floor as the Coyote hits. Wikipedia.
So far very few reporters have manager to score a clean shot. In part this is because he controlled the microphone and because other reporters rarely ask followup questions when a previous reporters question is not answered.
I wrote about this on Sunday:
I wrote the following:
When he succeeds in avoiding answering a question on this subject and others of significant importance like the cessation of the DNI briefings to Congress, once and for all the next reporter, assuming they aren’t from OANN or Fox News, should drop their planned question and demand he address the one he is trying to weasel out of answering.
I don’t think there is a violation of a journalism code of ethics to plan in advance to ask follow-up questions to make sure a president answers another reporter’s question. If Trump won’t answer reporter’s questions directly they should boycott all of his press appearances. How would it look if the only two reporters in the room or on the South Lawn were from OANN and Fox News?
Before Kenosha we could have written that it was only a matter of time before a Trump supporter would kill someone in his name. Now it has happened.
I expect that we will be seeing ads from the Democrats and from anti-Trump Republican groups like The Lincoln Project laying the blame for the violence squarely at Trump’s feet where it belongs.
However the media will be culpable if they don’t demand Trump answer their questions since they are the only ones who can confront him directly.
Stop letting Trump be the Wile E. Coyote. Journalists, be journalists and set a damn trap which he can’t escape from already!
Reporters who let Trump get away with murdering the First Amendment should do some soul searching. They could do well by reading this excerpt from The Time article published The Freedom of the Press Is Enshrined in the First Amendment—But What That Means Has Changed published in May, 2019
The United Nations recognizes May 3 as World Press Freedom Day, and this year’s theme is “Media for Democracy, Journalism, and Elections in Times of Disinformation” — a choice meant to encourage discussions of the challenges faced by the press today when it comes to reporting on elections.
Ours is not the first era to recognize the importance of a free press in a functioning democracy. In the United States, that acknowledgement dates back to practically the beginning, as the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, among its other guarantees, bars Congress from making any laws “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
What do you think the Framers would think about the relationship between the President of the United States and the press today?
It’s hard to know what the Framers thought, but if you take the sum of history of the U.S. you have to be really discouraged and deeply concerned about the way in which free speech and free press are being talked about today by many people in this society, but by the President in particular. There is always going to be unhappiness on both sides, because of the press not having access to information and the government feeling they don’t have the ability to function effectively. [But] it has reached a level of disrespect for the basic principles of free speech and free press that is alarming. There are many ways for a government to exercise censorship. One is to make a law, but there are many more subtle ways in which you can accomplish very similar forms of censorship. The attacking of the press, the inciting of intolerance in society toward other points of view and towards the press, is itself a form of censorship.
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