True, Jessica Tarlov is hardly a prize. In her single dossier item here, she weighed in on a contrived Democrat-led controversy involving Florida’s public school standards about teaching slavery. Her party had pounced on a single, ill considered line stating that some slaves learned useful skills and trades in the course of their enslavement, and cherry-picked it to claim that Republicans believed slavery was “good.” On “The Five,” Tarlov compared that one statement in the history standards to saying Jews derived some benefits from the Holocaust, a really bad analogy.
I wrote, when Biden’s ventriloquists attacked Gutfield, “It is an abuse of power for the President and those who represent him to target citizens who are exercising their First Amendment rights and attack them for political ends. Obama had a revolting habit of doing something similar, although his specialty was shooting of his mouth about controversies he didn’t know much about and had no business interfering with, as when he implied that George Zimmerman was both a murderer and a racist, or when he criticized a Cambridge, Mass. cop for how he treated one of Obama’s pals.”
When Trump does it, this is still an abuse of power, and the sad fact that Trump has been doing it with increasing frequency in his second term doesn’t make the conduct less unethical, just less shocking.
Back to Tarlov: as Michael Kinsley complained after quitting as the designated liberal on “Crossfire,” his role prevented him from agreeing with his conservative adversaries. Kinsley was a liberal columnist for Time magazine and editor of The New Republic at the time, but hardly a knee-jerk ideologue. That was the part he played on TV, however. I assume Tarlov has a similar assignment: if the lone progressive voice on “The Five” starts agreeing with the conservatives, what use is she?
Add this to the myriad things our President can’t seem to grasp, or chooses not to.
Ethics Alarms 
The PRESIDENT of the United States HAS EVERY RIGHT to threaten journalists and media outlets since they have PROVEN themselves to be an ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! Any thoughts to the contrary are just moronic TDS. We have to FIGHT and SUBDUE our enemies.
They are enemies of the people, a functioning democracy, and civic literacy. And the President has a right to insult, criticize and denigrate them up to the point where he chills free speech. It’s still unethical to do so with individually named “journalists.” I hope that clarifies things for you.
Ay Dio Santo i Alovado …
(That was pure Ladino BTW. A direct attack against Ashkenazic hegemony in popular American speech. Oy veh ist mir just will no longer cut it…)
Ten years ago this month, you noted that Trump was a threat to democracy (and thus an enemy of the people). Subsequent rationalizations led to the conclusions, which I did not share, that his ultimate opponents in the presidential contest would be worse. Perhaps so; we cannot know. What we do know is that 10 years later Trump has not changed, he still is an enemy of democracy.
To reiterate what was said back then, ‘God help us’.
This comment ticks me off, and if you were a recent addition to the commentariate, I’d suspend you for it:
1. Using a past quote taken out of context to challenge me is cheap shot EA practice. I spent over an hour trying to find what post you were taking about and failed, undoubtedly because I misread you to say ONE year ago, giving you too much credit, I guess, since pulling a quote from 2016 is dishonest, dumb, and useless.
2. When I reference a prior post, I almost always link to it so everyone can read the context. Using an alleged past post to suggest that I am hypocritical and not referencing it by title and date at least is unethical, and in fact meets the legal definition of defamation: stating as a fact that someone has behaved wrongly without letting readers or listeners know what the authority for that statement is.
3. I have frequently referred to my posts in 2015 -2016 rejecting Trump as a qualified candidate for President. He was not a qualified President at that time. Since his election in 2016, he has not only exceeded my expectations, but is, as I find that I wrote a YEAR ago last April, arguably the sole bulwark we have against the single-party, totalitarian, socialist, oppressive rot the modern left would inflict on us. I have never referred to Trump as an “enemy of the people” or anything similar since he became President, and those ten years of experience are obviously relevant and substantial. My analysis in 2016 and before regarding Trump was fair and justified based on what we knew then. Citing that to discredit me (or Trump) in 2026 is desperate, unethical and stupid. The number of Presidents who many esteemed observers dismissed as hopelessly unfit for the job BEFORE THEY BECAME PRESIDENT includes Jackson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan.
4. I know it’s hard being proved so consistently wrong of late, HJ, but most of us here have learned to accept those streaks without throwing tantrums or misrepresenting the positions of others. You can do it. I have faith in you.
5. Bite me.
Notice: “Jude” is banned.
Lesson to me: I let his first post out of moderation despite being infantile “it is pretty embarrassing what the Times did.” Then two snarky, non-subtantive posts followed I’ll have to be more exacting in the future.
Remember: Don’t respond to the inevitable garbage almost all banned commenters resort to post banning. I’ll spam it as soon as it pops up.
Peak Poe’s Law here. I read this as a sarcastic parody of how the President would respond to Jack’s post. All it was missing was “THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”
Yeah I saw it as a parody of a Trump post as well and had a good laugh. If I misread it, well . . . I misread it.
–Dwayne
I read it as more typical HJ sarcasm, but it doesn’t matter, though if one is going to indulge in satire, you’d should be better at it.
[I]f the lone progressive voice on “The Five” starts agreeing with the conservatives, what use is she?
What a curious question. So, television conservatives and liberals aren’t really thinking, analytical people? They’re just playing a part in a scripted show. Jesus H. Christ. No wonder television news has devolved into a shit show. It’s just like professional wrestling!
I disagree here. The only reason why conservatives still pay attention to CNN is to listen to how Scott Jennings sets a liberal straight. It is a good business decision of any TV show with panel discussions to have people on it with different views, the back and forth between the panelist is what makes the panel interesting to the public. Being exposed to opposing views in a panel also has a civic value. One function of the debate is to bring us closer to the truth. Having a TV network with panelist who all agree with each other, and were the panelists are trying to exceed each other in either leftism or conservatism creates echo chambers.
Jessica Tarlov at Fox News fulfills a similar function as Scott Jennings at CNN. The problem is that she is too cerebral and lacks wit, and gets often overshadowed by Greg Gutfield and Jesse Watters. That makes her the liberal foil or punching bag at Fox News panels.
i thought this was going to be a post about his other where he threatened to wipe out an entire civilization…or said FUCKIN
I guess those didn’t raise any ethics alarms for you?
Warning #1: That is not how you ask a question here. Shape up or ship out.
Also, I wrote a post earlier this week about the referenced comment. Do your homework before you start throwing around implied accusations.
ALSO: I have addressed the use of vulgarity by the President and his political adversaries many times, as well as the use of fuck and its variations. Try to keep up.
Do better, or keep quiet. And read the comment policies, since you obviously haven’t.
Journalism is supposed to be an objective process. Today, most seem to have graduated from the William Randolph Hearst school of yellow journalism. If they want to be writing editorials there is a page for that.
Tarlov and others on the five are not journalists so Trump should understand her role. I do agree her voice grates on my ears so from that perspective I turn her off but Fox execs probably know her voice is irritating so it help reinforce the viewers negative of her opinions.
I think the problem is that “journalists” have been able to have their cake and eat it too.
Their profession has a history of thinking that they’re special, but not acting like it. They look down the bridges of their noses at people with cell phones and a YouTube channels, pretending that something they’ve done or learned makes them a higher class of professional, when in reality, despite almost unthinkable amounts of resources, they still manage to constantly shit the bed.
The problem is that “journalists” don’t have professional associations like other professions do. If a lawyer fucks up, or a doctor, or an accountant, their managing organizations have recourse…. If a journalist fucks up, they show up to work the next day. This lack of accountability coupled with perverse economic incentive structures and equally perverse political structures naturally leads to the point where we are: It’s not the cream that rises.
Well-stated Humble. Exactly right. Teachers, the other ethically corrupted profession, also do not have a policing or regulating organization except to serve as a bar to entry.
It’s all down to accountability.
Do you have a governing body, or do you have a union? Do you have something that holds you to a standard, or do you have something that enables you to break them?
(He is) arguably the sole bulwark we have against the single-party, totalitarian, socialist, oppressive rot the modern left would inflict on us.
My view of Trump’s policies:
Summation: to all appearances what has recently been put in motion will not succeed. It will backfire. Saying that is not a wish that this happens. It is simply a statement of likelihood. Things could have and should have been conducted differently right from the start. Core defect? Belligerency.
Synonyms: belligerent, bellicose, pugnacious, combative
Lessons to modern Machiavellians: Do not broadcast that you are acting through Machiavellian principles. Be bellicose, but be ultra-crafty. The “goal” must be defined, and then both the tactical and the strategic route to get to it.
”I can add colors to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut! were it further off, I’ll pluck it down.”