Our political media figures continue to be stymied by the creature that is Donald Trump. On the one hand Trump's speech today was deeply dishonest, and ignorant, and "slanderous"—but he was on message!
CNN HOST JON BERMAN: This was a speech with broad sweeping statements like that. This will be a speech that is fact checked by the media. He said things that were not true about his opposition to the war, time line there, same with Libya. This was a speech with discipline and a message and it was a speech designed to frame the entire election. Probably the first general election speech he has given of this campaign.
If you ignore what he said and just focus on whether was able to enunciate clearly when he said it, this speech was a great success!
DANA BASH: You're right, there are several things we're going to be digging into that are questionable when it comes to facts. [...] We'll get to that. That is our job and what we'll do. When it comes to the overarching political narrative, what Republicans again back to what you said to me have been begging him to do to look more presidential and not just throw insults but to have an argument that is sort of well thought out, he did that today.
Rest assured we'll get to the rampant dishonesty later, America, but that's a whole separate staff and they work in a different building. But let's shovel all that away for a minute, because Republicans have got to be thinking they've found a pony in this mess.
All right, but that's still a little beaty-around-the-bushy. Boiling this down to its base elements may require the services of a true punditry veteran. David Gergen, show us how it's done?
DAVID GERGEN: If you don't look at what the substance of what he said, one of his best speeches and most effective speeches. It was disciplined and we got a text, never before happened before in a Trump campaign.
Needlepoint that and hang it on the wall, now there's the core essence of the pundit's art. If you don't look at what he actually said—sweet Jesus, we got an advance copy! The Trump campaign has at long last mastered the core skill of having their campaign speak on the topic he was supposed to speak on! Reince Priebus is probably taking a celebratory bubble bath right now!
On the other hand, there was all that lying.
GERGEN: I'm sorry, at this level, you can't slander somebody -- and this was a slanderous speech, without more proof. [...] Look, it works, Kate, if you're reinforcing existing narrative and it's true. But you're going to have to stand up to the fact checkers and it's not going to become an existing narrative and begin to solidify unless it's true.
And this is the pundit's dilemma, as it has been in every election. It is the core premise of cable news:You listen to the powerful man talk, or the lobbyist, or the ambitious hack, and then sit around a plexiglass table discussing whether the particular brand of bullshit being sold today was delivered effectively enough to make a rube who didn't know any better think there was some substance to it.
Just once, I would like Dana Bash to throw up her hands. "You know what, Jon Berman, I have been covering politics for fuckity-two years and this was the biggest load of horsecrap I have ever had to sit through. The man cribbed his core arguments from a book of conspiracy theories. He repeated lies about his past positions that we can prove are lies because we have the damn tapes. And while we're at it I don't think this candidate could find Libya if you put him in a plane over Tripoli and threw him out the cargo door."
We don't have to pretend that all candidates are all qualified for every position they might seek, right? If a man runs for Senate wearing nothing but a trench coat and oversized rubber chicken feet, nobody will force themselves into pretending that this nice fellow talking about the alien menace between frequent breaks to chew on the corner of his podium has a fine and important point to make about the extraterrestrial menace. Donald Trump has been on the campaign trail for a year and has yet to demonstrate even the cursory issue competence of one of last go-round's worst candidates. His pronouncements are childlike. His policy prescriptions fluctuate between nonsensical and illegal. He is a nut.
But God help us, the American punditry industry has no available tools to dismantle such a candidate. We had to pretend Sarah Palin was just as qualified for the presidency as Joe Biden, because "neutrality" demands we pretend that. We have to pretend Donald Trump knows eff-all about presidentin' because we've spent a generation swearing up and down that rich people must be smarter than the rest of us because their credit cards have higher limits and their cars have nicer trim.
That said, they’re trying, by gum. They’re not quite sure how any of this is supposed to work anymore, but they are trying.
Here's hoping Donald Trump can do to punditry what he's done for his party: Break it. Break it, scatter it, burn it down to the foundation while all the serious people look on with charred clothes and stubble where their eyebrows used to be, proudly congratulating each other for getting out just in the nick of time. At some point, the "serious" people have to either admit this particular emperor is buck-naked—or start shedding clothes themselves.