Fox News Implies That Donald Trump is Just as Batty as Kim Jong-Un. Who Can Argue With That?

On Wednesday Donald Trump laid the foundation for a nuclear confrontation with North Korea. His brimstone laden “fire and fury” speech has brought new and unnecessary tensions to an already shaky relationship. It was an inevitable escalation of craziness from a narcissistic personality with a thirty-three percent approval rating. And of course, it didn’t take long for the media pundits to weigh in with predictably inane debates.

Donald Trump Kim Jong-Un

On Fox News Thursday morning there was a particularly confounding view offered by anchor Jon Scott. He wanted to know whether there was a “double standard among the press” for their criticism of Trump’s overheated rhetoric. He was puzzled as to why Trump was being criticized but “nobody seems to care all that much about the threats coming from Kim Jong-Un.”

Let’s be clear about this. Scott is making the absurd inference that the media should treat Trump’s statements with equal significance as a certified fruitcake. On the surface, I can’t really find any fault with that. Trump is at least as batty as Kim. However, when looked at as an American president vs. Kim, the distinction ought be huge. Under ordinary circumstances the U.S. should be regarded as far more serious and conscientious than raving madmen.

Unfortunately, these are not ordinary times. Hence the critique of the press by Scott, who thinks Trump should be regarded in the same league as Kim. But Scott’s guest, fellow Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, wasn’t having it:

“Well, look, we kind of expect crazy from Kim Jong-Un. As I said, he’s the head of the ‘Hermit Kingdom. He’s a pariah for almost the entire world. So, we don’t expect him to be judged the same standard as the president. […] I certainly hope we’re not judging Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un by the same standards.”

Wallace’s perspective is surely more coherent than Scott’s. But Scott’s is more prevalent on Fox News and throughout the right-wing mediasphere. Even Trump’s Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said that Trump was using “language that Kim Jong-Un would understand.” When did lowering our communications skills to the level of babbling nutcases become the goal of American diplomacy?

Wallace deserves some credit for batting down Scott’s absurd allegation of a press double standard. But he still managed to live down to Fox’s low standards for misleading reporting. Woven into his remarks was this completely false observation of the fallout from Trump’s “fire and fury” speech:

“I don’t think anybody objects to the idea that the president was tough and sent a very stern message to the North Koreans.”

Oh really? You would have to be ignoring the letter from sixty members of congress fervently objecting to Trump’s war mongering. And you would also have to have missed the objections from Democratic senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein. Not to mention Republican senators John McCain, Dan Sullivan, and Jeff Flake. Trump’s off-the-cuff bluster was widely considered to be inflammatory and counterproductive. And Wallace’s attempt to soft-peddle the backlash only keeps Fox News viewers ill-informed. But then, that’s the mission of Fox News, so Wallace and Scott are just doing their jobs.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

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3 thoughts on “Fox News Implies That Donald Trump is Just as Batty as Kim Jong-Un. Who Can Argue With That?

  1. Just goes to prove Kim Jong Un is a better judge of character than I gave him credit for. Of course, with everyone around him telling him he’s a god and such, that may be empty praise.

  2. “Scott is making the absurd inference that the media should treat Trump’s statements with equal significance as a certified fruitcake.”

    That is not what Scott said at all. In fact you are bold faced liar. Not something new for your ilk.

    • Not what he said?

      Ok then, first off we aren’t talking about what Jon Scott SAID, but what was implied, even if he didn’t actually MEAN to imply it.

      Let’s set the record straight with this, Scott compared Kim Jong Un’s remarks with Trump’s in his less than rational rant about the media’s “double standard” when dealing with comments coming from both of them.

      Now I could easily answer his question about his perceived “media double standard” and why it isn’t at all a double standard, but that’s an unrelated issue. The REAL takeaway is that in doing so he implied that Trump and Kin Jong Un’s remarks are more or less the same. Don’t agree? Well then if the equivalence really wasn’t implied, then Scott would have been comparing apples and oranges when comparing their remarks, however I don’t think ANYONE disagrees that Trump and Kim Jong Un’s remarks are both similar and comparable. Even Rex Tillerson agrees on this.

      So given that their remarks are similar and comparable, we now turn to the implication that Scott either deliberately or inadvertently made. If the remarks are comparable, that means that they can be judged to be the same in tone and content. So if one set of remarks is a certified fruitcake, the other one would be as well, if one of them is rational, then BOTH of them would be.

      Given that, we now come to an interesting conclusion. Either Kim Jong Un’s remarks are completely sane and rational, or they are the rantings of a certified fruitcake. Whichever they are, Trump’s would be as well, given he compared Trump’s remarks with Kim Jong Un’s remarks.

      So in summary, and because for intelligent deprived Trumpians like yourself, a simple case of inference absolutely HAS to be explained in detail, there are only 3 possible scenarios. One, Scott was comparing apples to oranges in comparing Trump’s remarks to Kim Jong Un’s which makes him guilty of a fallacy on air (Rex Tillerson too). Two, Scott was actually implying that BOTH Kim Jong Un and Trump’s remarks are not certified fruitcakes, and in fact sane and rational (Presidential if you will) remarks. Three, Scott was implying that BOTH Kim Jong Un’s and Trump’s remarks are certified fruitcake.

      Take your pick Marco.

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