I doubt that Ann Althouse would ever vote for Donald Trump; I’m pretty sure she hasn’t yet. But the longtime liberal law prof-blogger from Madison has distinguished herself and enhanced her respect in my eyes by consistently debunking anti-Trump bias from the news media while pronouncing her disgust with its hypocrisy and unfairness. Her reward has been to end up with a commentariat that is much more conservative than she is, but Althouse continues to be a Trump Truthteller (try to say that three times fast). She had a particularly impressive day yesterday.

First, Ann threw a flag on Washington Post pundit Aaron Rupar’s “How not to interview Trump/Kristen Welker’s tenure as ‘Meet the Press’ moderator got off to an inauspicious start. I only maintain a Post subscription to read articles others send me too: essentially I’ve boycotted the rag as too biased and obviously partisan to trust. His thesis is emboied in the excerpt Ann selected:

“The first thing to understand about Trump is that he’s not a normal politician. He doesn’t give a rip about policy. What he cares about is saying and doing whatever it takes to fulfill his desires and thirst for power, including destroying democracy if necessary. Treating him as anything other than a depraved authoritarian is not only wrongheaded, but helps his cause by legitimizing him as a reasonable choice for voters. And that’s exactly what Welker did.”

Boy, do I hate that attitude toward anyone. I’ve detested it regarding Trump since he was elected, and I resented other people treated that same way my entire life. It is bigotry and bias plain and unvarnished: someone chooses to decide, without genuine evidence, that an individual is just bad to the bone, with evil motives, and anything he or she does is thereafter interpreted in that context. This is how Trump was judged guilty until proven innocent in the Russian collusion hoax. It is the exact mindset that led people to back his first impeachment for doing exactly what many Presidents had doubtlessly done before him; it was the reasoning behind the second impeachment as well: Yeah, nothing he said indicating he was telling his wacko followers to state a violent “insurrection,” but you know that’s what he wanted them to do, because that’s the kind of person he is.

Althouse strikes back,

I don’t like the way the abnormalization of Trump has come at the cost of stifling our capacity to critique other politicians. The others may be more “normal” than Trump, but since when is a “normal politician” a genuine policy wonk who’s dedicated to telling the truth and serving the people?I watched the entire interview with Trump — video, transcript — and it seemed to me that Trump was heavily immersed in policy. His haters act as though it’s a matter of principle to refuse to engage on the substance at all. Ironically, they are making it easier for him to win on the merits. Stop dehumanizing him and answer him! The abnormalization strategy reinforces a suspicion that you don’t dare argue substance…

Exactly. The tactic of what Ann calls “abnormalization” is nothing more than negative stereotyping and rationalizing bias. I have seen enough to demonstrat to me that Trump doesn’t care about ethics, but that’s just not unusual in a President, including great and revered Presidents, many of whom were sociopaths or narcissists. However, nobody has ever been President who wasn’t making a personal sacrifice for what he thought was the good of his nation; every one was a patriot, and all of them wanted to do a good job while being remembered by history as doing a good job. Of course Trump cares about policy. All Presidents are, to some extent, trying to fulfill their “desires,” which primarily include the desire to be a successful President. Rupar’s silly analysis is like claiming that Bill Clinton only wanted to be President to seduce interns. Moreover, Trump has lost both money and popularity by being President, and his “brand,” which was so important to him, is permanently scarred. I very much doubt that he sees the Presidency as a personal benefit at all: how could he, as Democrats and their allies have become obsessed as by-passing core American values and the Constitution in order to destroy him?

Then Althouse focused on the self-indicting nature of  Kristen Welker’s interview with Trump, which should have shattered any hope that Welker will prove less of a partisan hack than her predecessor as host of “Meet the Press.” Trump wondered aloud why the news media keeps covering for Joe Biden and refusing to criticize him—-what Trump called “sticking up for Biden”— mentioning his indefensible draining of the strategic oil reserves to try to stem the raise in gas prices that Biden’s policies substantially triggered. And Welker interjected, “And there are a lot of factors that have contributed to that,” sticking up for Biden, and when Trump tried to rebut her, she cut him off with “Let’s talk about taxes,” trying to change the subject. When Trump again pressed the oil reserves point, Welker repeated the White House talking point: “Mr. President, there are a lot of factors, including global factors, that went into that. Let’s talk about taxes, though.”

Wow. She proved Trump’s point, and he went for the knock-out, as he should have, saying,

“I don’t know why people stick up for him so much when he makes bad decisions…like you. I don’t know why, and I have a lot of respect for you, and you were very fair in the debate. But I don’t know why you and other people say, “Oh, it’s okay that he’s destroyed the strategic petroleum reserves.” I mean, why do you do that? Or, “It’s okay that he has open borders.” Somebody who was in your position, not quite as good, said this morning, “Oh, having open borders is a wonderful thing.” I don’t know why. And I think that’s why the media has lost so much credibility.”

Welker’s pathetic rebuttal: “No, we’re not sticking up, Mr. President, we’re just having a conversation.”

Thus validating and proving everything Trump said about the news media. Masterful job by Trump, and good for Althouse to highlight it, since she knows 90% of the news media won’t.