Wednesday, August 24, 2016

A lavish lifestyle and business success are not the same thing

Alberto Giacometti, "The Nose," Hirshhorn Gallery, Washington, D.C.



     I’ve been on Fox News more than I’ve watched it.
     That might be a slight exaggeration. They did go on about a column of mine earlier in the summer. And I was a local Fox pundit for about a year, adding my little segments to the end of the 9 p.m. broadcasts. I said anything on my mind — once I compared opera and hockey (better music at operas, better looking fans at hockey games). The checks cleared, and I’d be doing it still but a new regime took the program in a different direction. Or not — as I said, I never watched the show, I was just on it.
     I did tune in for Fox’s GOP debate, the one where Megyn Kelly so upset Donald Trump by asking him pointed questions as if he were running for president. I was impressed with the journalistic job Fox did.
     That rigor seems to have been an exception based on the latest tempest swirling around another Fox host, Sean Hannity, who is rolling at Trump’s feet like a puppy. Having never watched Hannity, I’ll have to trust the judgment of others.
     “Fox News host Sean Hannity isn’t just shilling for Donald Trump,” Erik Wemple wrote in the Washington Post. “He’s not just orchestrating applause for the candidate’s most abhorrent policy positions. He’s not just facilitating and reciting every Trump talking point in marathon interviews. . . . He’s also advising the candidate.”


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12 comments:

  1. The thing is, Madoff was a good businessman; he just chose to apply his skills to a Ponzi scheme. His legitimate broker/dealer business was successful. Trump has really demonstrated no acumen, other than juggling real estate debt and abusing bankruptcy law after being given an original large stake to play with.

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  2. Have watched Hannity around Trump out of curiosity. It's sickening to see. Maybe he has investments in Trump's businesses or has been offered some cabinet post. Hannity is as much of a journalist as my mail carrier is.

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  3. If by some hideous catastrophe Trump does win, one of the few consolations would be watching Hannity's head explode while he tries to field tough questions as presidential press secretary.

    Bitter Scribe

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    1. But I think Hannity's head will explode if Trump loses as badly as predicted. So either way we're covered.

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  4. I thought William J. Bennett was being "sarcastic" when he referred to "allowing [liberals] to wreck our sacred republic" in today's paper, but I guess he was being serious in denouncing Hillary's supposed agenda for stacking the Supreme Court to do her liberal bidding. It appears that there are a lot of people so prejudiced against Hillary -- and I just heard a staid lawyer refer to her murder of Vince Foster as one of her many sins -- that they'll take whatever Trump has to offer, no matter how unpalatable.

    john

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  5. Today's paper also reports how Trump claimed someone at the CPD told him the crime here can be cleaned up in a week if they get tougher. That was denied of course by the CPD. More lies and pandering with the usual lack of details from the Trumpster.

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  6. The Bennet piece was a spectacular case of advanced right wing paranoia. Our youth are in peril because evil men, under the guise of transgenders, will be sneaking into women's bathrooms do pursue their perverted aims.

    FOX is now taking heat for sexual abuse of employees. Were You sexually abused Neil?

    Hannity has been teaming, somewhat comically, with the odious Rudy Guliani, to raise questions about Mrs. Clinton's health and endurance: subtext, "Frailty, thy name is woman."

    I don't watch him, so I don't know if he has signed on to Trump's latest claim of a conversation with a tough Chicago cop who knows how to solve the current crime wave in a week. Didn't know Jon Burge was out of the pokey and back on the job.

    FOX is

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  7. In reading Tom's comment, I laughed out loud. Trump is going to, single-handedly, 1) destroy ISIS 2) destroy all terrorists 3) deport 11M people, 4) build a 50ft.(?) wall 5) make life wonderful for the African-Americans 6) make like wonderful for all poor people 7) rebuild our infrastructure 8) make life wonderful for the women 9) while deporting 11M people, will make life wonderful for the Hispanics (I love it when he says THE whomever), oh, I forgot 10) will stop all crime. What have I missed? And I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the people who believe him. Sorry, I may have mis-numbered my points; there are so many to keep track of!

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    1. Nothing about Trump is really funny,but ridicule is probably the best weapon against him. As Thomas More remarked about the Devil,"The best way to drive him out,if he will not yield to tests of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him. For he cannont bear scorn."

      Tom Evans

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    2. Good line. I'll have to remember that.

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  8. And don't forget he's bringing back all the jobs that went overseas. Talk about delusional...

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  9. R. Simon had a good column in today's paper about the alternate universe that Trump must be living in.

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