Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Sean Spicer: Public Enemy?


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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