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October 31, 2019

Trump drives press to make a fool of itself over a ... dog

By Monica Showalter

President Trump has an impressive way of driving his most virulent opponents bonkers. He baits them, he gets a rise out of them, and being pompous nincompoops, they always end up beclowning themselves.

He was at it again, still on the dog stories, following the shiv he stuck into the side of Islamofascist terrorists in the wake of the raid he ordered on ISIS chieftain Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over the weekend, the one that left al-Baghdadi a grease spot on the desert floor.

Trump freaked that bunch out earlier by touting and praising the dog who chased the "pious Muslim scholar" back into his hole to blow himself up. As Thomas Lifson noted two days ago here, it was a hell of a psy-op, not just ending al-Baghdadi's reign of evil, but messing with Islamofascists' heads, fully cognizant of Islamists's problems with dogs. That al-Baghdadi ended up being taken down by a dog is embarrassing. Power Line has a great collection of the assorted memes from it.

Trump decided to pour more salt into these monsters' still-wounded pride by tweeting an obvious Photoshop of himself, placing a medal around the neck of the heroic dog. Its light blue ribbon suggested it was a Medal of Honor, but the pawprint on the medal itself signaled, as if the crude Photoshop itself couldn't, that Trump was jacking with them, and making a nod to America's appreciation for dogs. Here's the beaut:

 

 

It wasn't just raging terrorists that he bagged with that one, though. He also roped in another more pajama-y class of opponents, the outraged press, which set its best investigative reporters onto the case, reporting the stunt with gravity, offense and outrage, going full Victorian gent, as Tom Wolfe once put it. The self-important blue-checks took the whole thing seriously:

 

 

 

 

This one really took it seriously -- Voice of America, probably an Obama holdover.

 

 

A Politico blue-check took it pretty hard, too:

 

 

The Post was besides itself.

 

 

This one made me snicker. We all appreciate good Photoshop...

 

 

The New York Times in particular was pompous and pious about it, tracing the origins of the Photoshop (such ace investigative reporters) to something run by the Daily Wire, and then contacting the U.S. military veteran whose image it was derived from. The Wire scooped the Times a second time by flashing the Times' buried lede, which was quite embarrassing, to report that the vet actually enjoyed the Photoshop and wasn't offended in the slightest. Bad surprise for them, according to the Wire, which wrote:

Despite the serious tone of the piece, when the Times reached out to McCloughan by phone Wednesday for his response to Trump’s joking tweet, the paper found that the Medal of Honor recipient was “not offended” at all — in fact, he “laughed when he compared the two images.”

“In a phone interview on Wednesday, Mr. McCloughan, 73, who had not seen the image before a reporter sent it to him, said that he interpreted it as Mr. Trump recognizing the dog’s heroism,” the paper reports. “He certainly was not offended and laughed when he compared the two images.”

Noting that Medal of Honor recipients accept the award on behalf of their teams, McCloughan said canines have often been key to successful missions.

“This recognizes the dog is part of that team of brave people,” said McCloughan, emphasizing that military canines “are very courageous.”

 

Well, guess who ends up looking stupid from that one? Rule number one for gotcha reporting is to make the subject look stupid. Guess who now looks stupid? The Twitter public had some impressive laughs:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Screen shot of public meme by Don Draws, via Imgur // Power Line

 

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