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Ruth: The truth about Trump's false claims

 
Times Columnist Dan Ruth. {Times file]
Times Columnist Dan Ruth. {Times file]
Published Feb. 8, 2017

This is the inevitable result when you have a president who seems to get most of his news and information from his tip-top political adviser, Kellyanne Conway, the Stepford Wife of the West Wing.

It was Conway who recently unleashed a full bigly against the journalism community for its rank incompetence in failing to cover the horrific "Bowling Green massacre," which claimed untold numbers of the aide-de-scamp's brain cells.

During an appearance on MSNBC's Hardball, in an attempt to defend President Donald Trump's travel ban against Muslim countries, Conway noted: "I bet it's brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized and were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. Most people don't know that because it didn't get covered."

Is the ticket window still open to place a wager?

Here's how bad it has gotten. Some news outlets reportedly are wary of booking Conway for interviews because she has quickly developed a reputation for being less reliable with the facts than Iago. And this was a perfect example. Obama never issued a travel ban aimed at Iraqis. And the reason those irresponsible reporters never covered the "Bowling Green massacre" is because it never happened.

Conway, the Beltway's answer to a Blade Runner replicant, claimed she merely misspoke about the "Bowling Green massacre," although she has been doing plenty of misspeaking about the false claim for months in interviews.

This was an intolerable situation for the president: having someone on his staff who was getting more attention for being in less touch with reality than he is. Clearly, action needed to be taken if Trump was going to seize back the mantle of First Prevaricator.

So during Monday's visit to Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base, the president claimed the nation's news media has been covering up news about terrorist attacks. And he had the blarney to prove it, too.

"It's gotten to a point where it's not being reported," Trump claimed. "And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that."

Understand what? It would seem the president was obliquely suggesting the news media turns its back on reporting on terrorism because it is in league with terrorism groups like ISIS. That's absurd. Everyone knows reporters take our marching orders from the Kremlin.

To prove the media conspiracy to ignore horrific acts of terrorism, the White House released a list of 78 recent terrorist acts that it said were either dismissed by the press or underreported. And it's right about here that we find ourselves entering a fabulist vortex unseen since Scientology's L. Ron Hubbard last dined alone.

According to Trump, journalists brushed off the 2015 Paris nightclub attacks, which claimed 130 lives; the 2015 San Bernardino assault, in which 14 people were killed; the Brussels airport and subway bombings where 31 people died; the 2016 Istanbul airport assault where 45 people were killed; the 2016 Nice truck attack where 84 people died; and the 2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting where 49 were killed.

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Of course, each of those received massive media coverage, which the president would know if he bothered to read anything other than stories with the words Donald and Trump.

Fake news, "alternative facts," even false remembering are one thing. It's Washington, after all, where civic literacy goes to die.

But to pretend vast numbers of brutal terrorist attacks that were robustly covered by the media were reduced to an afterthought is an entirely new level of dissembling, delusion and fanciful deceit.

This isn't about Republican and Democrat. This isn't about liberal and conservative. It is about reality and denial.

At the end of the bar, offering up pure blather about what is and what isn't is harmless.

When you have the keys to the White House Situation Room, living in your made-up world is downright terrifying.