The propensity for inaccuracy from\u00a0the Trump presidency concerns progressives and conservatives alike. According to THE HILL columnist Brent Budowsky, (01\/05\/17):<\/p>\n
\u2026 many Republicans are well aware of, and deeply concerned by, the fact that Trump often says things that aren’t true. There is a debate among the most serious journalists in America, from the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal<\/i> to the newsroom of The New York Times<\/i>, about whether Trump should be called a “liar.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Then on February 16, 2017 Fox News<\/i> host Shep Smith stated that it is his job to point out when the President of the United States says things that are \u201cdemonstrably, unquestionably, opinion aside, 100 percent false.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s sort of our job to let you know when things are said that aren\u2019t true. This president keeps telling untrue things and he does it every single time he\u2019s in front of a microphone \u2026 some of them aren\u2019t really big, but they\u2019re coming from the president.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I recently came upon Tina Kelley’s Feb. 11, 2003 New York Times<\/i>\u2019 announcement of the death of Ron Zeigler, who had been Richard Nixon\u2019s press secretary in the 1970\u2019s. She states:<\/p>\n
Mr. Ziegler, who was known for referring to the Watergate break-in as a ”third-rate burglary” and for steadfastly speaking for President Nixon as his presidency crumbled, was 63.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As the investigation into Watergate unraveled, Mr. Ziegler admitted that his previous statements had become ”inoperative.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Inoperative<\/i>. Such a strange word.<\/p>\n
Time Magazine, on April 30, 1973 reported:<\/p>\n
White House Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler enlarged the vocabulary last week, declaring that all of Nixon’s previous statements on Watergate were “inoperative.” Not incorrect, not misinformed, not untrue\u2014simply inoperative, like batteries gone dead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I personally recall that in his testimony during the Senate investigation of the Watergate break-in, Nixon\u2019s former legal counsel John Dean had used this word often to refer to false statements that he had previously released at the request\u00a0of the Nixon White House. The word was a kind of short-hand used by the president’s message-managers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms. Kelley\u2019s article continues:<\/p>\n
One writer, Christopher Lasch, noted in ”The Culture of Narcissism<\/i>”: ”Many commentators assumed Ziegler was groping for a euphemistic way of saying that he had lied. What he meant, however, was that his earlier statements were no longer believable. Not their falsity but their inability to command assent rendered them ‘inoperative.’ The question of whether they were true or not was beside the point.” http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/02\/11\/us\/ron-ziegler-press-secretary-to-nixon-is-dead-at-63.html<\/a> <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Not their falsity but their inability to command assent \u2013 Inoperative!<\/i><\/p>\n
Whether or not the Trump communication machine internally uses this word as did the Nixon folks, it clearly gives insight to the current president\u2019s actions, including his need to conduct post-election campaign rallies.<\/p>\n
It is operative<\/i> to present \u201calternative facts\u201d for the consumption of the third of USAmericans who will blindly accept them.<\/p>\n
The question remains: How operative<\/i> are these blatant falsehoods for the other two-thirds of our countrymen, many of whom voted for him?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Larry personally watched the televised Senate proceedings in June 1973, as former White House counsel John Dean revealed the methodology of the Watergate cover-up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In this blogpost, he recalls the strange use of a word which clearly gives insight to the current president\u2019s actions, including his need to conduct post-election campaign rallies.<\/p>\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-frontpage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}