Fake President

      There are numerous websites out there that do fact-checking on statements by politicians and other celebrities, and compile statistics.  The process is a bit subjective, and there are multiple ways to tally the statistics. For example, if somebody says a false statement five times, does that count as one lie or five?  

     But regardless of the math and the method, all of these sites agree that Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, is way up there in terms of failing the fact check test.  The Toronto Star reports a total of 3084 false statements from his inauguration on Jan 20, 2017 thru October 23, 2018, and lists every one of them, by category.

     Here is a nice summary from Politifact:

        True:   29  (5%)

        Mostly True:  72  (11%)

        Half-true:    92  (15%)

        Mostly false:   134  (21%)

        False:  210  (33%)

        Pants on fire:   91  (14%) 

       A couple of recent Trumpisms are:

·         The wildfires in California are caused by forestry mismanagement

·         There is widespread voter fraud happening in states where Democrat candidates won seats 

      So whenever the news media points out that Trump is making unfounded, unsupported claims such as this, his response is usually that it's all "fake news", and that they are all the "enemy of the people."

      Many have observed that Trump is not the first politician to hate the news media.  See this article by Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald.  Trump joins company with notable historical figures like Stalin, Hitler, Kim (of North Korea), Castro, Chavez (of Venezuela), and others who have - or attempted to  - taken control of the news media, so to ensure that only favorable news is reported. 

      CNN chief Jeff Zucker has contemplated boycotting the President's press conferences in protest to Trumps anti-media antics.  But, that tactic might backfire, and actually give Trump exactly what he wants: for the news media to just go away.

      The truth is that the vast majority of news media organizations work very, very hard to ensure that what they report is accurate, factual, and free of bias.  Yes, sometimes they screw up.  It is true that too many have editorial staffs that are heavily populated by leftists and liberals.  And sometimes their bias shows, or rogue reporters slip one thru.  When this happens, then absolutely they must be called out on it.  But to their eternal credit, the media is good about owning up to their goofs and getting rid of reporters that break the rules.  They are NOT the "enemy of the people", and Trump and his compadres love to chant.

     The hard-core Trump supporters like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity need to quit parroting that stupid "enemy of the people" baloney, and act more like the "liberal" news media they say they hate.  They need to actually address some of the media's beefs with Trump; you know, stuff like the statistics mentioned at the top of this article, which clearly point out that, among other things, the President is a compulsive, persistent, egotistical, insecure liar. 

     The news is real.  But the president is a fake.