AND WHAT OF THE “INTENT TO DECEIVE?”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Jan. 22, 2016) — The Republican National Committee (RNC) has notified National Review editor Jack Fowler that it will not be co-anchoring the next Republican debate on February 25 as a result of National Review’s having published a print issue and internet campaign directed at derailing the presidential candidacy of Donald J. Trump.
Fowler and Rich Lowry, editor of National Review Online (NRO) have said that they were willing to take that risk when it became clear that they had mounted the campaign aimed at convincing primary voters not to support Trump.
On Friday morning, NRO’s headline reads, “Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP.” NRO’s efforts against Trump are termed a “symposium.” In the online edition, NR editors term Trump “a menace.”
The GOP believes that National Review’s position indicates that it cannot approach the debate without bias. Previously, NBC was to co-anchor the debate but was replaced by CNN after its affiliate, CNBC, was criticized by many as having shown bias in a previous Republican debate. Telemundo and Salem Radio will also participate on February 25.
GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush disagreed with the RNC’s disinvitation of NR.
As reported by Politico on Thursday, National Review planned to release a series of columns on its website on Friday as well as its print magazine with the headline, “Against Trump,” which Politico said it obtained “in advance.”
Lowry is also a columnist at Politico.
In September, Lowry made his thoughts on Trump known on a broadcast of “The Kelly File” in which, despite his uttering of a phrase arguably unfit for public broadcast, his microphone was not cut off by anchor Megyn Kelly.
On his Twitter feed on Friday morning, Fowler quoted National Review founder William F. Buckley, writing, “‘We exist to defend principles. To stand athwart history and demagogues yelling stop.’ That’s why @NRO is #AgainstTrump.” The remainder of Buckley’s quote is “at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”
Columnist Thomas Sowell, Media Research Center Editor L. Brent Bozell III, radio host Michael Medved, former RedState editor Erick Erickson, commentator Glenn Beck, former Department of Justice prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, and former Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese III have written that Trump is unsuitable for the presidency for various reasons, including the thawing of relations with communist Cuba, abortion, bank bailouts, “deal-making,” and the definition of “conservatism.”
In a Yahoo! News article, Beck is termed a “Fox News star,” and Mukasey and Meese are called “former U.S. Attorneys” when they were respective U.S. Attorneys General.
PJ Media applauded NR’s stance against Trump, calling his Twitter responses to NR “a mini-tantrum.” McCarthy is a PJ Media contributor.
On the topic of the $700B bank bailout ultimately passed under President George W. Bush in the waning days of his presidency, Trump was interviewed by Fox News’s “Your World” host Neil Cavuto on September 26, 2008 in which Cavuto asked Trump whether or not a depression were looming. A portion of the interview reads:
TRUMP: On your show two years ago, I really — I mentioned the word depression then.
Now, I did not know about a $700 billion bailout, in all fairness. And I think probably, it is something — it’s sad, but, probably, it’s something that has to get done, because your financial system is most likely going to come to a halt if it does not. So, it is a pretty sad day for this country.
CAVUTO: But what would $700 billion or this kind of money do to stop it? All I have seen, Donald, is, every time we shored up AIG, or done this money with Freddie and Fannie, or rescue Bear Stearns, and on and on, you know, we have a brief pop in the markets, a brief economic sort of lift, and then we sell off, and then people get depressed all over again.
So, wouldn’t this be a more expensive version of that?
TRUMP: It could very well be.
The Media Research Center says that it seeks to “Create a Media Culture in America Where Truth and Liberty Flourish.” Its mission statement begins:
Since 1987, the Media Research Center has been the nation’s premier media watchdog. We don’t endorse politicians and we don’t lobby for legislation. MRC’s sole mission is to expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the Left: the national news media. This makes the MRC’s work unique within the conservative movement.
The Media Research Center’s unwavering commitment to neutralizing left-wing bias in the news media and popular culture has influenced how millions of Americans perceive so-called objective reporting.
Bozell applauded when the RNC dismissed NBC as a co-anchor of the February debate. “NBC has proven itself unworthy of hosting a Republican primary debate. If NBC News ever wants to participate in this process again, I suggest it become reacquainted with journalistic ethics and fairness” he wrote.
In an interview with The Daily Caller in September, Trump called Obama’s nuclear “deal” with Iran “perhaps the greatest disaster of a contract that I’ve ever seen,” although the month before, he said that “I’m really good at looking at a contract and finding things within a contract that, even if they’re bad, I would police that contract so tough that they don’t have a chance. As bad as the contract is, I will be so tough on that contract.”
Regarding the reopening of relations with Cuba, Trump said in the same Daily Caller interview, “I think it’s fine. I think it’s fine, but we should have made a better deal. The concept of opening with Cuba — 50 years is enough — the concept of opening with Cuba is fine. I think we should have made a stronger deal.”
David Boaz wrote in NR that Trump exudes “nativism” and a “promise of one-man rule.” He continued, “Not since George Wallace has there been a presidential candidate who made racial and religious scapegoating so central to his campaign. Trump launched his campaign talking about Mexican rapists and has gone on to rant about mass deportation, bans on Muslim immigration, shutting down mosques, and building a wall around America. America is an exceptional nation in large part because we’ve aspired to rise above such prejudices and guarantee life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to everyone.”
On the subject of abortion in a 1999 interview with the late Tim Russert, Trump said that he “hated the concept of abortion” but that he would not “ban” it if he were to become president. “I am strongly for choice, and yet I hate the concept of abortion.” “I am pro-choice in every respect,” he then said, explaining his views by his upbringing in New York City.
Beck’s NR column is titled “When Conservatives Needed Allies, Donald Trump Sided with Obama,” while Sowell’s and others’ are untitled columns appearing beneath Beck’s. Bozell’s is titled, “Conservatives Should Ask, ‘Does Trump Walk With Us?'”
Of the 2008 election of Obama, Beck wrote in his Friday column, “There was a silver lining, however. Rising out of the ashes of that electoral defeat came the Tea Party. The media struggled to explain it away as racist, xenophobic, and jingoistic. But the truth is, the Tea Party did not arise because Barack Obama defeated his opposition. It arose because there was no opposition.”
In 2008 and forward, Beck and others have refused to discuss the questions surrounding whether or not Obama qualified for the presidency under the “natural born Citizen” clause in Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution among reports that he was “born in Kenya” and “born in Indonesia.” Also at issue was Obama’s claim to dual citizenship at birth and a father who was never a U.S. citizen.
Obama reports that he was born in Honolulu, HI on August 4, 1961 to “a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas.” During both 2008 and 2012, anyone questioning his background, motives, allegiance, life narrative or truthfulness was labeled “a racist.”
Beck now supports Sen. Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada reportedly to a Cuban-citizen father and American-citizen mother. Beck has previously said that it is necessary to “return to the Constitution.”
On Friday morning, The Post & Email left a comment on Fowler’s Twitter feed stating, “A journalist does not take a position one way or another for any candidate,” with Fowler providing a response:
Our statement was not an opinion, but rather, a fact. National Review is subtitled “A Weekly Journal of Opinion.”
Fowler has received both support and criticism for his position against Trump and has expressed disagreement with his detractors using obscenities, slang, and quips.
National Review and others are further tweeting about Trump at the hashtag #AgainstTrump. Another hashtag, #UniteAgainstTrump, contends that Trump is running a “bigoted campaign for dictator.”
The Daily Beast claims that Trump has been retweeting comments from “proud white supremacists and Nazi sympathizers,” but from what The Post & Email can see, Trump is responding rather than retweeting.
CNN repeated that story.
Two follow-on articles at The Daily Beast are titled, “Trump Blames Intern for Bad Iowa Tweet” and White Power Party Vowels Loyalty to Trump.”
On Trump’s Twitter feed, Infowars’ Alex Jones and radio host Dr. James David Manning expressed their objections to NR’s attempts to cast Trump in a negative light.
CBS News’s Major Garrett tweeted:
In its reportage of NR’s elimination from the upcoming debate, ABC News reported of Trump in a minute-long video that he “also fanned the flames of the birther movement,” depicting Trump questioning the authenticity of Obama’s “long-form” birth certificate, which was declared by a law enforcement investigation to be fraudulent nearly four years ago and on which no “conservative” media outlet will report.
In early 2011, as Trump considered challenging Obama for the White House, he openly questioned why Obama had not released his “long-form” birth certificate to prove his presumptive constitutional eligibility. Trump claimed credit when, on April 27 of that year, the White House published an image of a birth certificate bearing Obama’s name.
Trump has also raised questions about Cruz’s eligibility. In recent weeks, questions have arisen as to whether or not Cruz’s mother, through whom he claims “natural born Citizen” status, became a Canadian citizen while she and her husband worked in the Canadian oil industry roughly between 1968 and 1974.
When asked if he believed Sen. Marco Rubio is eligible for the presidency given that Rubio’s parents were not U.S. citizens when he was born in Florida in 1971, Trump responded in the affirmative.
On a WOBC radio broadcast on Thursday night, co-hosts George Miller and Gary Wilmott spoke with several guests, including this writer, as well as callers on the “natural born Citizen” definition and the unknown details of Cruz’s background. During the second hour, guest Jeff Lichter recounted his meeting at Trump’s office in New York on April 8, 2011, exactly three weeks before the White House released what it said was Obama’s long-form birth certificate from Hawaii.
Lichter recalled that Trump had predicted that a forgery would be issued when the White House gave in to the pressure he had exerted for a release of Obama’s detailed birth certificate. Lichter and several other involved parties subsequently sent Trump documentation about the “natural born Citizen” clause, including that the citizenship of the parents, or at least the father, was always considered a factor in determining the citizenship of the child.
Trump has not addressed that both Cruz and Obama claim to have been born to foreign-citizen fathers, which could influence, or positively determine, whether or not either man is eligible to hold the office.
On the cover of NR’s “Against Trump” issue are the names of authors who have joined in the movement to convince voters that Trump is, in essence, a fraud. Those names include, in addition to those listed above: Townhall’s Katie Pavlich, former DOJ prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, former Attorney Gen. Michael B. Mukasey, author Cal Thomas and radio host and author Dana Loesch.
While McCarthy has argued for Obama’s impeachment, he but has not touched the issue of his eligibility to hold office or the forgery of his documentation. Having written a book on the threat of radical Islam to the U.S., McCarthy “offers a harrowing account of how the global Islamist movement’s jihad involves far more than terrorist attacks, and how it has found the ideal partner in President Barack Obama, whose Islamist sympathies run deep.”
Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, ABC and CBS continue to report under the guise that Obama’s documentation is authentic despite lead criminal investigator Mike Zullo’s having said that the forgery of Obama’s long-form birth certificate is the “foundational lie of this presidency,” created with “an intent to deceive.”