The cry has gone up! Fire Sean Spicer! He is a closet fascist who cannot be allowed
to represent the president of the United States as press secretary. A man, as callous and ignorant as he, must
not be the spokesman for Trump’s administration. This would demean the entire nation.
What was Spicer’s sin? It was that this man had the audacity to deny
the existence of the holocaust. He stood
in front television cameras and declared that Hitler had not used gas to
exterminate the Jews. How crude! How cruel!
Well, that is not exactly what
Spicer said. What he stated was that
Hitler had not used gas on his own people during World War II the way Bashir
Assad did in Syria. The point was that
in this respect Assad was worse than Hitler.
Later in the day, this alleged
misstatement led the evening news on all three mainstream television networks. How, the newscasters asked, could anyone
forget the mass murders in Auschwitz? So
egregious was this error that it overshadowed what Assad had done.
Yet I am reminded of what I
was taught in High School. My very
liberal teachers made a point of saying that Hitler had not used gas during the
preceding war. Despite the fact that gas
was utilized extensively in World War I, its effects were so gruesome that even
a madman like the Fuhrer abstained.
Mind you, many of my
teachers had personal connections with people who died in Nazi gas
chambers. Nonetheless, they knew
perfectly well that they were making a distinction between using gas on the
battlefield versus extermination camps. They
were not denying the latter by noting the absence of the former.
But neither was Spicer. When castigated for his supposed blunder, he,
in fact, made a full-throated apology. Yes,
he said, he was wrong to claim Hitler had not used gas. But what he meant was that Hitler had not
dropped gas on people from airplanes.
This mea culpa was not enough. Despite repeating his admission of guilt
several times, Spicer was raked over the coals for two entire days. Commentators recurrently expressed their shock
at his original statement. It was so
terrible it could not be discounted.
What was the point of all
this? It was clearly not to instruct
Spicer. Nor was it to protect the public
from his insensitivity. Spicer knew what
he said, whereas most people became aware of this only through media
repetitions. No, the point was to
collect a scalp. The goal was to destroy the career and
reputation of a Trump ally.
Liberals, and their media
cohorts, have descended into an orgy of character assassination. Having lost an election, they are determined
to besmirch the names of anyone associated with the winner. It does not matter if the targets are good
people. Their innocence is
irrelevant. What counts is can they be
“got.”
This is not about
rationality. It is not about promoting alternative
programs. Given that many liberal
policies have failed and that many liberal heroes were exposed as having feet
of clay, the only recourse was to pull down the enemy—anywhere and by any
means.
Isn’t it ironic that people
who boast about their compassion show none when they perceive an opportunity to
discredit a foe? Isn’t it amazing that
they brag about their superior intelligence but were unable to discern what
Spicer meant?
The media attack dogs were
not, of course, interested in being fair or accurate. The job at hand was to take down a Trump
partisan. To this end, it was the
decibel level of the attack chorus and not the merits of the criticism that mattered.
The objective was manifestly
to intimidate the target into submission and disgrace him in the eyes of the
public. This was not about
journalism. It was political
warfare. The aim was to win—not be fair
or honest. At minimum, it was to harass
Spicer and make his job more difficult.
Thus, what happened to
Spicer cannot be taken at face value. It
only makes sense if recognized as an effort to inflict partisan injury. This was political theater, not a sincere critique.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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