Historian Ron Chernow, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner:
“Campaigns against the press do not get your face carved in Mount Rushmore because when you chip away at the free press you chip away at the heart of democracy.”
Really?
Ed Krayewski: "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." - Thomas Jefferson, who is on Mt. Rushmore
Also on Mount Rushmore:
President Teddy Roosevelt, “The Man With the Muck-rake”: "I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful. The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander, he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. ... Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself."
Such as the Russian Collusion Big Lie.
George Washington, to Hamilton, 1796:"Having from a variety of reasons (among which a disinclination to be longer buffetted in the public prints by a set of infamous scribblers) taken my ultimate determination “to seek the Post of honor in a private Station...”--The Professional Liars in the newspapers made him want to retireEd Krayewski: "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." - Thomas Jefferson, who is on Mt. Rushmore
Also on Mount Rushmore:
President Teddy Roosevelt, “The Man With the Muck-rake”: "I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful. The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander, he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. ... Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself."
Such as the Russian Collusion Big Lie.
"One day [Lincoln] entered the office of L. E. Chittenden, Treasurer of the United States, visibly angry and waving a newspaper clipping. A New York newspaper, making a personal attack on him, said he took his pay in gold while Union soldiers were paid in greenbacks worth only fifty cents on the dollar. As a further insult to Lincoln, the story said Jefferson Davis drew his twenty-five thousand dollars per year in Confederate money, then worth about one-fourth its face value. The story was a lie from start to finish. Lincoln told Chittenden he hoped the scoundrel who wrote the story would ‘boil hereafter.'”--Richard J. Carwardine, Lincoln: Profiles in Power
Lincoln, of course, shut down dozens of Democrat newspapers and jailed the editors. It was in all the history books, Mr. Chernow. Even yours.
We don't have a Free Press. But not because of President Trump.
We don't have a Free Press because they have volunteered to be stenographers and cheerleaders for the One-Party State. It's not a State-Sponsored Media; it's a State-Sponsoring Media, and they're like bums at the Information Superhighway on-ramp, holding signs saying "Will Lie For Free".
In recent years, the Trump Derangement Syndrome has pushed them from mere partisan hackery into outright Agit-Propaganda and journalistic Black Ops conducted against the American people.
ps; The Obama Administration wiretapped and surveilled reporters from CBS, FOX and the Associated Press among others. The reaction of the Poodle Press? A: Hiring their wiretapper John Brennan as an analyst on MSNBC.
Carve this in stone, people:
heh.