Some days I wish that Trump would just go back to being a regular piece of shit. You know, a racist or a sexist or just in general a jerk, the kind of guy you’d never want your daughter dating, the kind of dude you just don’t want to have to explain to your kids.
Because if he was just a regular pile of trash, I wouldn’t be as furious as I am right this second after hearing how Donald Trump reacted to the death of the legendary Cokie Roberts, who was essentially a co-founder at NPR, a trailblazer for women journalists, and an inspiration to everyone who wanted insightful, high-level reporting on American government from someone trustworthy and fair.
Your humble author was twelve years old when Cokie went on the air on television for the ABC network. She’d already established herself at National Public Radio, but I was the only boy in my house — dad gone, being raised by a mom and a sister just older than me — and I sought out information from women on television. She was a panelist on David Brinkley’s program, and when other kids were begging their parents to put on Roseanne or Cosby, I wanted to watch This Week and see what David and Cokie and Sam Donaldson had to say about Reagan’s version of Star Wars, and New Coke, and the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl, and the Soviets pulling out of Afghanistan.
Mom was amenable because of that other fellow, George Will, who I never cared for.
Cokie took over that show with Sam a few years later and I never stopped watching. I can still hear their voices. Before the internet, we had only a few people to get the news from, and they were honest if a little biased. But I trusted what I heard from Cokie the same way I trusted that the strange noises that came out of the flimsy plastic square “record” I tore out of the middle of the National Geographic were actually whale songs.
That’s why when I see what Trump said today, according to Daniel Dale and the White House press pool, it makes me hate him even more, my friends:
Per pool, here’s Trump on the death of Cokie Roberts: “I never met her. She never treated me nicely. But I would like to wish her family well. She was a professional and I respect professionals…Never treated me well, but I certainly respect her as a professional.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 17, 2019
Donald, if Cokie never treated you nicely, it’s because you were always the kind of piece of shit who would make even a legend’s death into something about yourself, and she knew it all along.
Featured image via screen capture
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