{"id":1315346,"date":"2019-10-06T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T02:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/polman-column-trump-cant-control-the-story-anymore\/"},"modified":"2019-10-06T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T02:20:00","slug":"polman-column-trump-cant-control-the-story-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/polman-column-trump-cant-control-the-story-anymore\/","title":{"rendered":"Polman column: Trump can\u2019t control the story anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/p>

Dick Polman<\/strong>
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The impeachable president whined last week that he missed the good days when the Fourth Estate covered him exactly the way he wanted. In his inimitable words, \u201cI used to be the king of getting good press.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just for the record, this poseur was never the king of anything. But there was indeed a time when he orchestrated good press, when he\u2019d leak gossip garbage to compliant New York tabloid reporters. That\u2019s still his frame of reference, but those days are long gone. He\u2019s playing in the big leagues now, the high hard fastballs are hurtling at his head, and he\u2019s down in the dirt multiple times per news cycle.<\/p>\n

The self-described \u201cking of getting good press\u201d was spoiled back in the 1980s. According to Allen Salkin and Aaron Short, co-authors of a new book on Trump, here\u2019s how the game worked: \u201cIn his calls to reporters, Trump tattled about who showed up where and with whom (at New York parties), and asked for something in return. Sometimes it was a mention of a new project or book. More typically, he wanted the adjective \u2018billionaire\u2019 preceding his name when the New York Post\u2019s Page Six, the New York Daily News\u2019s Hot Copy, or Newsday\u2019s Inside New York mentioned him.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was zero evidence, of course, that Trump was actually a billionaire, but the tabloid reporters never bothered to fact-check it. They duly described him as \u201cbillionaire Donald Trump\u201d as a transactional thank-you for the gossip he perpetually supplied. Lloyd Grove, one of those tabloid reporters back in the day, recalls that Trump \u201cdefinitely knew how to write a tabloid story. He just had a natural ability to communicate in bold headlines.\u201d<\/p>\n

But was Grove concerned that the \u201cbillionaire\u201d label might be nonsense? Nah. He tells Salkin and Short: \u201cI didn\u2019t really challenge (Trump) on the facts. So I guess in that sense I was being an enabler and lazy. But he was a colorful personality. He wasn\u2019t the president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Grove\u2019s defense, who at the time could have imagined such a preposterous scenario? Unfortunately, those lazy enablers shaped Trump\u2019s deluded belief that whatever emanated from his mouth would be forever treated by the media as golden nuggets.<\/p>\n

Trump would even call up reporters, disguising himself as somebody else (\u201cJohn Miller\u201d or \u201cJohn Barron\u201d). Without being challenged, he would dish about himself in the third person \u2014 as we heard in a 1991 recording that surfaced during the 2016 campaign.<\/p>\n

Trump can arguably be excused for assuming that his luck with the media would last forever. In 2016, the cable networks covered his toxic campaign rallies from start to finish, without fact-checking in real time. Jeff Zucker, the top guy at CNN, said on the eve of the 2016 election: \u201cIf we made any mistake (in 2015), it\u2019s that we probably did put on too many of his campaign rallies in those early months and let them run. \u2026 Because you never knew what he would say, there was an attraction to put those on air.\u201d<\/p>\n

That era of mindless media indulgence is blessedly over. These days, Trump\u2019s panicked tweeting is a sign of weakness. The narrative is not his to command.<\/p>\n

Just in the span of 24 hours, we learned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo listened to Trump\u2019s infamous phone call to the Ukraine president confirming that Attorney General Bill Barr has asked western allies to aid his mission to undermine the U.S. intelligence agencies\u2019 conclusion that Russia helped elect Trump. We also learned that dirt-digging lawyer Rudy Giuliani has been subpoenaed by three House committees and that the intelligence community\u2019s Inspector General (a Trump appointee) has released a new letter attesting that the whistleblower had \u201cofficial and authorized access to information and sources referenced,\u201d as well as \u201cdirect knowledge of certain alleged conduct\u201d and \u201csubject matter expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump is now hostage to events beyond his control. And if he\u2019s still tempted to wax nostalgic for his \u201cgood press,\u201d I\u2019d suggest that he heed these Steely Dan lyrics:<\/p>\n

Those days are gone forever\/ Over a long time ago \/ Oh yeah.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2019 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dick Polman The impeachable president whined last week that he missed the good days when the Fourth Estate covered him exactly the way he wanted. In his inimitable words, \u201cI used to be the king of getting good press.\u201d Just for the record, this poseur was never the king of anything. But there was indeed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1315346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 20:36:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1315346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}