Pat Caddell, whose byline describes him as “a major strategist in the Democratic party,” told conference attendees in 2012 that the media had “made themselves the enemy of the American people.”
The famed pollster had surmised that the media had crossed a threshold on bias, and had entered the newfound territory of reporting false information as news.
Sounds kind of familiar.
The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017
Caddell didn’t experience any of the backlashes President Trump is receiving from the media, but it shows a common argument from the two diametrically opposed personalities – Reporting that is consistently inaccurate, delivered from one viewpoint, or worse, fabricated, is indeed a bad thing for the American people.
Here is a transcript:
CADDELL: “The fundamental danger is this: I talked about the defense of the First Amendment. When the press —the press’s job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of all of us from a government and from organized governmental power. When they desert those ramparts and they go to serve — to decide that they will now become active participants — when they decide that their job is not simply both, to tell you who you may vote for, and who you may not, but, worse — and this is the danger of the last two weeks — what truth that you may know, as an American, and what truth you are not allowed to know? They have, then, made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves the enemy of the American people. And it is a threat to the very future of this country if that — we allow this stuff to go on, and we’ve crossed a — we’ve crossed a whole new and frightening slide on the slippery slope this last two weeks. And it needs to be talked about.”
Does that not sound like an argument President Trump would himself make? That the ‘fake news’ media is not only an enemy but “a threat to the very future of this country”?
Caddell wasn’t discussing poor coverage of President Obama, or ‘lies’ being told by Fox News either, as you might expect from a Democrat strategist. He was discussing media outlets colluding with the Obama administration in the days after the Benghazi terror attacks to paint a story helping to cover up the motivation of the attackers.
“We’ve had nine days of lies over what happened because they can’t dare say it’s a terrorist attack, and the press won’t push this,” Caddell said.
Specifically, he explained that “there was not a single piece in The New York Times over the question of Libya.
“Twenty American embassies, yesterday, are under attack,” he added. “None of that is on the national news. None of it is being pressed in the papers.”
Caddell concluded that bias is one thing altogether, but “It is another thing to specifically decide that you will not tell the American people information they have a right to know.”
And that right there is why President Trump and millions of Americans have concluded the media is the enemy of the American people.
Comment: Do you agree with Caddell and Trump that the media is the enemy of the American people? Share your thoughts below.
