Donald in Arabia: Of bows, sword dances and arms deals
In fifth grade, my teacher talked about how propaganda works: Reporting results of an automobile competition, he told us, Pravda, the Russian state newspaper, said a Russian car came in second while the American was next to last. There were two cars in the contest.
I thought of that example as I read about Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where, like presidents before him, he was given their highest civilian honor. (Saudi Arabia, let’s recall, was the home of nearly all the 9/11 attackers, and is not exactly a world leader in human rights.) Will he bow, I wondered; and if he does, what will we hear from those who excoriated President Obama for it? Well, the results are in. Not only did he bow, he dipped his knee. Curtsied, but for lack of a tutu (AOL News: tinyurl.com/bow-and-curtsy). However, if you get your news from Fox this is the headline you saw: “Trump shakes hands with Saudi leader, doesn’t bow as Obama appeared to do.” (Fox News: tinyurl.com/foxbowincident)
And that’s how it’s done. Posting a picture of a different gathering, they lie by telling a different truth. It’s what they’ve done since inception (Sid Schwab Blogspot: tinyurl.com/true2lie). That, and straight-up lying (Washington Post: tinyurl.com/lie2us). Letters to the editor confirm how effective it’s been in cultivating disinterest in accurate news. “Pravda” means “truth.” Fox pretends it’s fair and balanced. The space between them is too tight for Trump’s medallion. Next day, during an interview, as video of the genuflection began, Jeanine Pirro motioned to cut, and cut they did. If Fox viewers want to see it (do they?), they may need another source.
But you won’t need to look elsewhere than here to find something positive about Donald Trump. His speech in Saudi Arabia, before he got “exhausted” after two days (Washington Examiner: tinyurl.com/2longtrip), wasn’t as bad as most, once he got past his usual self-referential braggadocio. For one thing, he’s gotten better at reading a teleprompter. More importantly, his writers toned down his usual malevolent rhetoric about Islam and about the country in which he was standing, even referring to Islam as a “great faith” and to Saudi Arabia as “sacred land.” Rather than repeating “Islam hates us,” he extolled “shared values.”
http://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/schwab-donald-in-arabia-of-bows-sword-dances-and-arms-deals/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=462ea35fec-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-462ea35fec-228635337
