Yesterday the media headlines were gushing about what a brilliant and ruthless operator, Speaker Pelosi was.
Politico, in a headline that would have embarrassed Stalin, described her as, “satin and steel”. All because she tried to stop the State of the Union address citing fake security concerns.
Concerns that were specifically shot down by the Secret Service.
But Pelosi seems to have forgotten a basic tactic of her side during the last shutdown. POTUS has far more leeway for shutting things down than the House Speaker does.
Blocking the State of the Union was her big trump card. And her only one.
Unlike Obama, Trump hasn’t been trying to make the shutdown more painful. Instead he’s been working to ease the pain. There have been none of the abusive tactics of the Obama shutdown here. It’s the Democrats who have been trying to worsen the shutdown. The transparent efforts at inciting a TSA strike being a leading example.
But President Trump has far more tools at his disposal for making the shutdown more painful. And this is one example.
The media isn’t cheering it with satin and steel headlines. It’s suddenly facing the grim reality that its side picked a dumb fight and has fewer options on this terrain.
Had Trump started this fight, the media would have called him a bully. But Pelosi started it, the media praised her, and now it has to find excuses for the double standard of its narrative.
Leave a Reply