Those who work for our major news media outlets have tried this weekend to make much of the fact that attendance at President Trump's Inauguration was lower than when President Obama was inaugurated, but the importance of this factoid has been left unexplained. It seems, though, to suggest no more than that more people were motivated to be part of the history-making inauguration of America's first black president than were motivated to turn out for one of the two least popular presidential candidates in American history - the other being Hillary Clinton - but so what? Why belabor the point unless it's just to indulge the desire to take gratuitous potshots at the new president?
Mr. Trump's estimate of his numbers at his inaugural address was allegedly false, and the media has been relentless this weekend in reminding us that the president was factually incorrect in saying that the crowd extended all the way to the Washington Monument. Photos I've seen seem to support the media, and Mr. Trump's exaggeration and imprecision is troubling, but when President Obama declared that Hillary Clinton was the best qualified person in our history to run for the presidency no one in the media made much at all of this extraordinarily absurd claim.
Indeed, many people who have run for the office had served several terms as chief executives (governors) of states, which is better preparation for the White House than serving as a minority party senator or secretary of a bureaucracy. Indeed, George H. W. Bush's resume is surely more impressive than Ms. Clinton's, but the media merely ignored President Obama's distortion, and thus make themselves look childish, petulant and partisan when they now criticize Mr. Trump for his.
Our media have also been talking non-stop about the women's marches on Saturday, but are invariably tight-lipped whenever equal numbers of people descend on Washington for pro-life or Promise-Keepers rallies. The numbers of women in the weekend marches were impressive and should certainly be reported upon - although the raunch and vulgarity exhibited by some of the demonstrators certainly tarnished and diminished their message - but then professional, fair-minded journalists should also give as much time to reporting accurately on other, similar, events even if those journalists have less political sympathy for those who participate in them.
Finally, it's astonishing that when Donald Trump stated prior to the election that he might not accept the results if he thought the election was "rigged" he was flagellated by his political opponents. We were told that his renitence was a threat to our democracy and the integrity of the electoral system, but then candidate Trump won the election, and many of those who were so critical of him for suggesting that he might not accept the outcome have now themselves adamantly refused to accept the outcome.
Protestors wear shirts declaring that Trump's not their president. Disgruntled leftists and others riot in the streets, destroying property and endangering lives. One can only imagine what would've been written if, after Mr. Obama's election, tea-partiers had rioted and overtly refused to accept him as their president. In fact, some individuals did say things like this, and were excoriated for it by the press. They were labelled racists and bigots, but scarcely a word of censure has been directed at those who've refused to accept the results of November's voting.
It's this bias and dishonesty in the major media in particular, and on the left in general, that was largely responsible for the backlash that produced the Trump nomination and presidency in the first place, and if these folks think they can destroy his administration by giving us more of the same they're deluding themselves.
All they're doing is confirming in the minds of Donald Trump's voters, especially those who were apprehensive about voting for him, that they were right to give him their support.
