Punching each other in the family jewels
by Tom Sullivan
Pope Francis' speech to Congress is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. EDT, shortly after this posts. I hope I'll be somewhere I can watch it live. I wonder if would-be next president of the United States Donald Trump will be live-tweeting it? He might be too busy practicing being presidential.
Or not. Trump v. Fox News erupted again yesterday:
.@FoxNews has been treating me very unfairly & I have therefore decided that I won't be doing any more Fox shows for the foreseeable future.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2015Trump's tweet was a lame attempt at doing The Doors' Jim Morrison, à la “Hey, man, we just did the Sullivan show.” But he knows how to hit below the belt, right in Roger Ailes' bottom line. Politico reported yesterday:
Fox News fired back a couple hours later, saying Trump had it all wrong, and that it was Fox who dumped Trump. A spokesman issued a statement, condeming Trump's attacks on Fox's journalists.
"At 11:45am today, we canceled Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance on The O’Reilly Factor on Thursday, which resulted in Mr. Trump’s subsequent tweet about his ‘boycott’ of FOX News," the statement reads. "The press predictably jumped to cover his tweet, creating yet another distraction from any real issues that Mr. Trump might be questioned about. When coverage doesn’t go his way, he engages in personal attacks on our anchors and hosts, which has grown stale and tiresome. He doesn’t seem to grasp that candidates telling journalists what to ask is not how the media works in this country.”
Actually, that's right. Journalists who want to preserve their "access" already know what they can and cannot ask. They don't need to be told.
Things escalated from there:
The media world was waiting for it and Donald Trump delivered Wednesday night, performing his now nightly Twitter assault on Fox News after announcing his boycott of the network earlier in the day.
This time, the GOP frontrunner’s outrage came after the National Review’s Rich Lowry suggested that Carly Fiorina “cut [Trump’s] balls off with the precision of a surgeon” at the CNN Republican debate, much to host Megyn Kelly’s shock. “You can’t say that,” Kelly said. For once, she and Trump agreed.
Trump immediately took to Twitter to demand an apology. Rich Lowry replied (for once) with something with which we can all agree:
.@realDonaldTrump man, you can dish it out but you REALLY, REALLY can't take it
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) September 24, 2015Somewhere, Vladimir Putin is taking notes, just in case.