It’s that time of year again. The time when the media loves to contrive mostly irrelevant milestones in order to shape easily digested narratives that invariably oversimplify complex political and social matters. And as we approach the one year anniversary of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the spinners are coming out to create their partisan perspectives of what occurred in the recent past.
Prominent among the propagandist class is, of course, Fox News. On this occasion Fox’s Sean Hannity invited Fox News contributor Lara Trump, to deliver her perverse version of events (video below), and to compare Biden’s record to that of her father-in-law, Donald Trump. That’s not biased at all, is it? It’s the sort of “fair and balanced” analysis that Fox News is known for.
Ms. Trump began her stroll down memory-hole lane with a wildly distorted retelling of Trump’s work ethic while in the White House:
“I’m old enough to remember when we had a president who worked all day everyday for the American people, and by the way, took no salary. Of course I’m talking about President Donald Trump who in four years in office made $4.00. That’s right, because he had to take $1.00 a year. And I struggle to figure out any job where you could just not show up for a quarter of the days and keep your job.”
Good point! And indeed, Trump did not keep his job. Also, somebody might want to remind Lara about “Executive Time,” a euphemism coined to describe Trump’s notorious laziness. Leaked records from Trump’s White House reveal that he spent 60% of his time watching TV, phoning Fox News hosts, and tweeting undeserved exaltations of himself or bitter attacks on his foes. And that was when he wasn’t sermonizing at his cult rallies or golfing. Speaking of which, Lara noted that…
“I remember when the press and the Democrats would go crazy if Donald Trump got anywhere near a golf course. He clearly wasn’t golfing a quarter of his presidency.”
Actually, it was almost exactly a quarter of his presidency that Trump spent on the links. The documented truth is that Trump played golf at least 298 times (an average of once every five days) at a cost of $144 million taxpayer dollars. And most of those dollars went straight into Trump’s pocket as it paid for accommodations at his hotels and golf resorts for family, staff, members of Congress, Secret Service, political organizations, and even foreign operatives with business before the U.S. government. It shows what a trifling and dishonest dodge his bragging about taking a one dollar a year salary is.
Ms. Trump went on to praise Daddy-in-law for a string of imaginary accomplishments, including “the biggest tax cut in American history” (that overwhelming benefitted corporations and the wealthy; “remov[ing] so many regulations on businesses” (that made them more profitable at the expense of safety and the environment); “And he had also gotten rid of ISIS” (which will come as surprise to ISIS that is still very active).
In closing, Lara criticized Biden for taking “vacations” to his home in Delaware:
“I think it’s time to stop vacationing Joe Biden. I think it’s time, instead of walking your dog masked up on the beach in Delaware – by the way we still don’t know what happened to the first dog – It’s time to roll your sleeves up, get to work in the White House, cause vacationing clearly is not working.”
That’s a bold critique coming from the daughter-in-law of the president who spent the most time away from work in history. For the record, Biden was not on vacation when he went home. He was working remotely and getting a fair amount done. For instance: a major COVID-19 relief package, a bipartisan infrastructure bill, historically low unemployment, solid economic growth, the most federal judge confirmations in forty years, and getting more than 71% of American adults vaccinated.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been setbacks. The Build Back Better bill and the voting rights bills are still stuck in congressional limbo because not a single Republican will put the interests of the America people above their partisan political interests. Consequently, Biden is suffering a painfully low approval rating. However, he’s still doing better than Trump by a considerable margin.
“As Biden prepares to enter his second year in office, his average approval rating during the first year of his presidency (48.9%) is second only to former President Donald Trump, who had the lowest first-year rating of any post-World War II president, at 38.4%, according to Gallup.”
Democrats just need to do a better job of communicating their successes. And if they can do that without lying, the way Lara Trump is doing, they will eventually reap the reward.
NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.
Lara Trump: I’m old enough to remember when we had a president who worked all day everyday for the American people… Of course I’m talking about President Donald Trump who in four years in office made $4 pic.twitter.com/YYDay81MnT
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 19, 2022
Lara Trump: I think it’s time to stop vacationing Joe Biden… By the way we still don’t know what happened to the first dog pic.twitter.com/UA17gkD9zr
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 19, 2022
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