If this is true, a President should not be doing this.
I agree, if true he really shouldn't.
And I wonder if it actually matters one single bit whether it is true or not. There's not a whole lot of truth going around these days.
I've offered my opinion on the matter and you've offered your opinion on the matter. But they're only opinions. With that and ten dollars you can buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Yet is seems like opinions, rumors, and innuendo have become the new facts in today's world of social media and 10 second sound bites.
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Which brings me to videotape. We have thousands and thousands of hours of videotape at our disposal to either back up an argument or settle a dispute. But curiously it is almost never used to do so. Have we deleted all the old files?
How often have you seen a talking head on TV state, "I never said that", during one of these mini-debates so popular today? Well Hells bells, pull up the videotape. Settle it right then and there one way or the other. By failing to do so you allow a talking head to babble on carte blanche. There are no checks and balances for the truth, which allows opinion to rule the day.
To be fair you will see a little videotape being used on occasion. For example Fox News might play one clip of Sen. Warren making a statement from yesterday and then they'll pull up an older clip of her saying the opposite another day. That is fairly common.
But it is rare when someone takes the time to piece together a set of videotape clips to make a point by point argument such as a lawyer would do when making a case. Unless you are watching a documentary or full one hour edition of
Frontline you'll almost never see videotape used to make a case. Can't they squeeze in a 2 or 3 minute videotape presentation somewhere within a 3 hour show? Seems like that would be very effective to me.
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Besides using videotape to back up an argument or settle a dispute du jour there are larger issues at stake in my opinion. It is like we have no history. What if someone pulled up a videotape of Chris Mathews in 1993 stating on CNN how HillaryCare was illegal, unconstitutional and a very dangerous precedent for our country? That 3 minute video would serve several purposes:
[1] At one point in time Chris Mathews was actually a journalist
[2] At one point in time CNN was not fully in the tank as a paid propaganda machine
[3] HillaryCare was not "ahead of it's time" as they argue today, but illegal as hell
But we don't do that - it is simply not done. It is like we have no history in this country to refer back to at all. So I ask again, have we deleted all the old videotapes?
A country with no history has no future.