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Saturday, March 17, 2018

CNN, At It Again

CNN has a column by Julian Zelizer today.  Zelizer is a Princeton history professor and a frequent guest on CNN.  His thesis today is that President Trump is constructing a "dangerous echo chamber" around himself by getting rid of those in the cabinet and among his advisers who disagree with him.  Zelizer says this is dangerous because the President is so "lacking in experience" and "unstable".  Why does CNN publish this garbage?

Let's take a closer look at what Zelizer has to say.

1.  Trump got rid of Rex Tillerson and put in Mike Pompeo (now head of CIA) to replace him.  Trump also replaced economic advisor Gary Cohn with Larry Kudlow.  Trump is rumored to be about to replace national security adviser H.R.McMaster as well.  These are the three big moves which concern Zelizer.  But think about those moves for a moment.  One (McMaster) hasn't happened, and the White House says it is not about to occur.  Cohn was the chief White House point person on the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, something on which he was fully in agreement with the President.  Only after that was achieved did Cohn decide to leave.  The media portrayed the departure as a disagreement over tariffs, but that is denied by both Trump and Cohn.  All we have is the media which has lied so often about the Trump White House, that there is no reason to believe it.  But take it further; the new guy Kudlow is an avowed free trader.  His voice will be no less against tariffs and trade wars than Cohn's was.  That leaves Tillerson.  Tillerson is said to have opposed the strong methods used against North Korea which seem to have led to a possible breakthrough (we still don't know).  Trump was right; Tillerson was wrong.  Tillerson also opposed many of the US moves in the Middle East; with ISIS defeated it is hard to want to keep Tillerson around for his insight.  In other words, Tillerson has not proven to be correct all that often.  If Trump wants someone else, he ought to have the person he wants.  And Pompeo has quite the record.  He is extremely smart.  Obama tried stupid at State with John Kerry and we had disaster after disaster as a result.  Pompeo is fully versed on the military and intelligence aspects which related to foreign policy, something that Tillerson didn't have.  All other things being equal, changing Tillerson for Pompeo at State seems to be a big step up for the USA.

2.  We hear once again the Trump is inexperienced.  The reality, however, is that President Trump has as much experience in foreign affairs after a year and a few months in office as Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had after a similar time in office.  In fact, Trump probably has more because he had to deal with many other countries in his life in business prior to running for president.  The BS charge about experience is one that is tired and untrue.

In other words, CNN is publishing a column that is based upon FakeNews.  So what else is new?

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