The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Cohen! Cohen! Cohen!’

Posted on | July 20, 2018 | Comments Off on ‘Cohen! Cohen! Cohen!’

Continuing to watch CNN (so you don’t have to), they have now switched from “Russia! Russia! Russia!” to “Cohen! Cohen! Cohen!” This reflects the headline today in the New York Times:

Michael Cohen Secretly Taped Trump
Discussing Payment to Playboy Model

Now, the ordinary non-CNN viewer may ask, “So what?”

Probably the not-obsessed-with-politics-24/7 person has no idea what’s going with the prosecution of Trump’s former personal lawyer, and as for Trump banging Playboy models, the reaction is, “So what?” Nobody with two eyes and a brain could have believed the billionaire real-estate tycoon Donald Trump was immune to the charms of the fair sex, or that he was particular scrupulous in avoid the danger of scandal. The “news”:

President Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, secretly recorded a conversation with Mr. Trump two months before the presidential election in which they discussed payments to a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump, according to lawyers and others familiar with the recording.
The F.B.I. seized the recording this year during a raid on Mr. Cohen’s office. The Justice Department is investigating Mr. Cohen’s involvement in paying women to tamp down embarrassing news stories about Mr. Trump ahead of the 2016 election. . . .
The former model, Karen McDougal, says she began a nearly yearlong affair with Mr. Trump in 2006, shortly after Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, gave birth to their son Barron. Ms. McDougal sold her story to The National Enquirer for $150,000 during the final months of the presidential campaign, but the tabloid sat on the story, which kept it from becoming public. The practice, known as “catch and kill,” effectively silenced Ms. McDougal for the remainder of the campaign.

In 2006, Donald Trump was a private citizen. He never held any public office prior to being elected President. That his personal lawyer was involved in efforts to keep this embarrassing tale out of the headlines is, again, one of those “So what?” revelations. Whether anything illegal was done in pursuit of keeping this story quiet is a matter we’ll leave the courts to figure out. The difference between this and Bill Clinton’s “bimbo eruptions” during the 1992 campaign was that all of Clinton’s sex scandals involved women he’d met through his position as Governor of Arkansas and, as was later revealed, Clinton used the powers of his office (e.g., Arkansas state troopers) to enable his affairs. This was a species of political corruption, whereas Trump banging a Playboy model was just a private citizen doing what perhaps a lot of other private citizens might have done, if they were celebrity billionaires.

Meanwhile, 17 people were killed when a tourist boat capsized in Missouri, but it’s all-Trump, all-the-time on CNN, so never mind.

 

Category: CNN, Donald Trump

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