The last few days have been enough to drive one away from both polling services and news outlets. From Donald Trump shamelessly pushing for one of his failing resorts to host next years G-7--or if The Big Orange Guy has his way--G-8 conference to outright lying about the amount of relief funds Puerto Rico received after Hurricane Maria it was a bad week for the truth in more than one venue.
Of course we've grown used to Trump's complete ignorance of the Constitution he swore to uphold, his unbridled greed, and the utter disdain he holds for honesty and verifiable facts. What truly turned us around a couple of times this week was, first, a presidential election poll by the normally accurate Monmouth University Polling Institute, and second, an on air report by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell.
The Monmouth poll radically departed from every other survey taken recently. It showed former Vice President Joe Biden falling from a solid lead in the democratic race for the nomination into third place. It was precipitous drop of 14 points which no one saw coming. Especially Biden who immediately claimed the numbers were all kinds of wrong.
Within 48 hours the Monmouth people agreed with him. They issued a statement saying their poll, which had an unusually large margin of error, was a complete outlier. In short, they screwed the pooch. What they didn't say, but everyone knows, is in the future every alt right MAGA hack in the nation will cite this week's fuck up if and when the university publishes a poll showing Don Trump trailing anyone by even the slightest margin.
Then we come to Larry O'Donnell. On his Tuesday night show he reported--and this should have been a huge red flag--that a single source had told him Deutsche Bank had copies of El Don's tax returns and for several years he had paid little, or no U.S. income tax. Not only that, but to secure numerous loans Deutsch Bank had required him to have cosigners to guarantee them. Those cosigners, according to O'Donnell, were Russian billionaires who had close ties to Vladimir Putin.
Twitter went nuts with liberals claiming the news was the sum of all their suspicions while Trump's people did what they always do, threatened to sue the shit out of both O'Donnell and NBC. The first sign of something being amiss came the next morning. Neither MSNBC, or CNN were following up on what should have been a huge story. By Wednesday afternoon O'Donnell tweeted out a retraction and apology for reporting what he did. It was a fiasco which played straight into the hands of Trump's never ending, "fake news," blitzkrieg.
Yes, things had taken a serious turn for the worse, causing many to cringe and fascists everywhere to rejoice. Luckily for huge numbers of us this weekend brought a well needed distraction from all the vile folderol.
Thankfully the college football season has arrived along with all its faux ancient Roman pageantry. The season of color, tradition, and violence has returned to TV screens and stadiums across the land. In the weeks to come new rivalries will bloom and old ones will be renewed. Some will cheer deliriously while others gnash their teeth in anger and frustration. School colors and mascots will mean more than they should. At least in short bursts, politics and disasters both natural and man made will be pushed into the blessed dark recesses of our consciousness.
Given recent events it arrived at the perfect moment.
On to Norman, ladies and gentlemen. Tomorrow night the University of Houston comes to town to play my beloved Sooners.
Indeed, it is time, as Billy Shakespeare wrote, for the team I have lived and died with for nearly 65 years to go, "..once more into the breach..." and for me to say, screw everything else. Well, at least until Monday morning.
8-31-19
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