By DEXTER DUGGAN
As the Summer Olympics kicked off in Brazil, the marathon effort against Republican Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy in the U.S. passed the baton to a new runner.
Whatever the physical and mental demands on the world’s athletes in Rio de Janeiro, Trump was getting slugged in ways that would have had referees jumping in to protect the Manhattan billionaire competitor against low blows if he were a preferred liberal Democrat.
A few months ago, continued riots against Trump’s candidacy were bruited as bloody demonstrations against him burst out, with many Latinos participating, against his alleged racism. The open-border controversy bore its bitter fruit.
They waved the Mexican flag, burned the U.S. flag, wore masks, wrecked police cars, and beat people supporting Trump. The upcoming GOP convention in Cleveland appeared under threat. Then the riots simply stopped.
Did someone figure out that the bloody assaults only built sympathy for Trump? The fact that violent turnouts in different states could be turned on and off like a faucet suggested a frightening level of coordination.
So the baton in the race to clobber the GOP nominee was passed to another group skilled in assault, the dominantly liberal media.
The level of obvious venom against Trump in this media coverage grew so repellent that a New York Times writer addressed the issue — not to denounce it flatly, but to explore news media beliefs that Trump was just too dangerous to be allowed to win the White House.
However, Times writer Jim Rutenberg deluded himself that these media previously had a good record of balance and fairness that the horrible Trump now made them discard.
If journalists believe that Trump is such a threat, Rutenberg posted on August 7, “you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career. If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that.
“You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional,” he continued. “That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, non-opinion journalist I’ve ever known, and, by normal standards, untenable.”
But was it possible that such openly biased writers and editors actually would end up helping Trump by generating sympathy for him through their media assaults, as the rioters perhaps did?
Meanwhile, liberal Democratic Vice President Joe Biden, who alleges he’s a practicing Catholic, drew no outrage from the same dominant media when he committed scandal by officiating at a “same-sex marriage” at his residence for two male White House staffers as August began.
Pretending to join two people of the same sex in matrimony is an absolutely forbidden role for a practicing Catholic.
It was another illustration that when a prominent figure is on the same page as these media, no matter how degenerate his stand is, he’s home safe at the plate, but if the same media fear he poses a threat to their agenda, they’ll drag him over blazing coals.
They’re confident Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton pays fealty to the Culture of Death, so they’re comfortable with her, but they’re not sure about Trump, so he’s not worth their gamble.
You can promote abortion all you want and these media will ignore the horror as much as they can because they agree with you — but they know that most people don’t.
Of course, it doesn’t help when prominent Catholic Church officials continue to duck their responsibility to say that someone like the Culture of Death’s Biden has gone simply too far. Or do they think Biden had become a clergyman in the Church of Gay and left involvement by Rome behind?
Times writer Rutenberg, giving examples of why Trump is thought to have gone so far beyond what’s acceptable in his campaign, included that the GOP candidate “cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes.”
But what about anti-American dictators that Times correspondents and editors have swooned over for decades, including such prominent Communists as the Soviet Union’s succession of tyrants, China’s Mao Zedong, Cuba’s Castro brothers, and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh?
There’s much still unknown about Trump’s views and his familiarity with major issues, Rutenberg said.
As some conservatives read Rutenberg’s article, dominant-media treatment of other candidates leapt to mind. To cite simply one conspicuous and recent one, surely Rutenberg hasn’t forgotten that little-known left-wing Barack Obama received a velvet-gloves welcome as he began his initial presidential run.
Rather than encounter articles suggesting it was legitimate to blast him into small pieces in news coverage, Obama was greeted with media adoration and adulation that no conservative black ever could have expected.
It didn’t take much digging to see that extremist Obama had been mentored by an actual dedicated member of the Communist Party, Frank Marshall Davis, and was nurtured by a crew including domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and America-damning Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama was virulently pro-abortion and even fought against legislation as an Illinois state senator to provide medical care to babies who survived abortion. If such babies received care and lived, this would discourage abortion, explained Obama — who went on in the White House to try to punish Christians for their pro-life beliefs.
Dominant media knew these facts but did all they could to minimize and dismiss them — and still do even today — because that would hurt their ideological soulmate, Obama.
If a conservative presidential candidate had just a portion of the dirt on himself from the right side of the political spectrum that Obama had from the left, dominant media would have torn him to shreds before he could have gotten through the primary elections of 2008.
And as of 2016, Obama has been entrusted with the nuclear codes and been cozying up to anti-American dictators for years from the White House, but Rutenberg and his dishonest media pals seem completely unconcerned.
Rutenberg concluded his article with a pat on the back for his Trump-hating journo buddies:
“It may not always seem fair to Mr. Trump or his supporters. But journalism shouldn’t measure itself against any one campaign’s definition of fairness. It is journalism’s job to be true to the readers and viewers, and true to the facts, in a way that will stand up to history’s judgment. To do anything less would be untenable.”
Confusion Arises
As for Joe Biden’s formally officiating a “marriage” of two homosexuals, The Wanderer asked the media office of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., to comment.
The Wanderer said on August 8: “He conducted the ceremony himself, which is directly contrary to Catholic teaching, yet he says he is a practicing Catholic. What are the plans of the archdiocese to correct this action by Vice President Biden?”
Later the same day, Chieko Noguchi, director of media and public relations for the archdiocese, replied, “The archdiocese does not comment on individuals and their pastoral relationship to the Church,” but referred The Wanderer to an August 5 statement by three officials of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, led by USCCB President Archbishop Joseph Kurtz.
The statement, “Faithful Witness to Marriage,” didn’t name any politician but said in part:
“When a prominent Catholic politician publicly and voluntarily officiates at a ceremony to solemnize the relationship of two people of the same sex, confusion arises regarding Catholic teaching on marriage and the corresponding moral obligations of Catholics. What we see is a counterwitness, instead of a faithful one founded in the truth. . . .
“Faithful witness can be challenging — and it will only grow more challenging in the years to come — but it is also the joy and responsibility of all Catholics, especially those who have embraced positions of leadership and public service.
“Let us pray for our Catholic leaders in public life, that they may fulfill the responsibilities entrusted to them with grace and courage and offer a faithful witness that will bring much needed light to the world. And may all of us as Catholics help each other be faithful and joyful witnesses wherever we are called,” the statement concluded.
If the challenge to faithful witness will grow only worse in coming years, as the statement said, the USCCB may wish to consider how its weakness over decades has brought it to this precarious point.
The lay-edited California Catholic Daily blog posted the three bishops’ full statement on August 6 under the headline, “Bishops make tepid statement on marriage.”
In addition to promoting massive permissive abortion and “same-sex marriage,” Biden also favors compelling religious believers to act against their consciences, mandating invasions of public bathrooms by sexually disoriented people, and conducting and federally funding embryonic stem-cell research — all rejections of fundamental Catholic teaching.
However, at this year’s White House Easter prayer breakfast on March 30, Biden claimed he is “a practicing Catholic.”
When The Wanderer asked the Washington Archdiocese last spring if it planned to issue any statement about Biden’s March 30 claim, the archdiocese replied, “Thank you for reaching out to us. The Archdiocese of Washington declines comment.”
The archdiocese is headed by Donald Cardinal Wuerl, an adviser to Pope Francis.
That story was reported atop page 1 in the April 14 hardcopy issue of The Wanderer, under the headline, “Biden’s ‘Catholic’ claim — D.C. archdiocese declines comment; practicing Catholics tackle veep.”
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