These Boots Aren't Made For Welker

I was rooting for Kristen Welker.  I really was.  As the first woman and as the first biracial person (he father is white, her mother is black), to moderate NBC's "Meet the Press," as the most popular woman on my beautiful-women picture blog (my July 2011 post of her has gotten over 51,000 views),  and as a reporter who has a more prestigious and storied career than Kaitlan Collins over at CNN, she had me expecting her interview with Donald Trump, her inaugural feature as the new "Meet the Press" moderator, to be a ball she'd knock out of the park.  I was expecting her to take Trump down in a way no other reporter could.

Instead, she proved no more effective than Kaitlan Collins.        

During her interview with Trump, Welker encountered every problem that Collins and other reporters had - she had to deal with Trump spewing lies, conspiracy theories, slogans, and all other sorts of verbal trickeries.  She rarely tried to contradict him, given her structured set of questions for Trump, and when she did, she responded to his lies and half-truths about the Democrats, making her seem like an operative for the Democratic Party and confirming, in the minds of MAGA Republicans, the belief that that the media and the government are out to stop Trump and go after anyone who agrees with him.  I mean, how else could you explain this "discussion" of these charges against Hunter Biden, who was just indicted for twelve charges, including a charge of illegal gun possession and several charges of misconduct in business affairs:

DONALD TRUMP: Well, sure, maybe. I mean, let’s see what happens. But this [gun charge] is the only charge that doesn’t affect Joe Biden . . . the gun charge. But gun charges are very serious. You know, people have had gun charges and gone to jail for a lot of, a lot of years. I pardoned some people who I thought it was just horrible what happened. But they were put in jail for many, many years, rappers and others. So, look, it’s a bad thing. But it’s one of 12, and it’s the one charge that doesn’t affect Joe Biden. 

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, of course, there's no evidence that the President has any link to his son's business dealings. Let me ask you, though — 

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I don't — 

KRISTEN WELKER: – about a second — 

DONALD TRUMP: – necessarily agree.

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, there is no — 

DONALD TRUMP: He called in. I mean, he called in to all these meetings. He was calling in on the meetings. He was put on speakerphone and — every single day and — 

 KRISTEN WELKER: The witness who testified — 

DONALD TRUMP: – literally many, many calls. And what about the fact that he got rid of the prosecutor for a billion dollars? They said — 

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, the witness who testified — 

DONALD TRUMP: "You don't get rid of this prosecutor, we’re not giving you a billion dollars to Ukraine." He said that. I mean, there are a lot of things here, Kristen.

Even as they kept interrupting each other, Trump managed to complete his sentences while denying Welker the ability to complete hers.

Many media critics agree that Welker should have questioned Trump more extemporaneously rather than stick to a prepared set of questions.  Because Trump knows what to expect why the questions are structured in advance and subsequently bobs and weaves to his own pleasure an the frustration of the interviewer. Somehow, I expected Welker to be more savvy than that. 

Still, Welker has more journalistic credibility than Kaitlan Collins.  Remember that Welker was on tap to replace Chuckles the Clown (formerly Chuck Todd) long before she set herself up to be steamrolled by Trump.  Collins, by contrast, got her own show on CNN after her disastrous town hall with Trump, having perversely gotten her show in the timeslot once occupied by Chris Cuomo for her allegedly masterful handling of Trump.  I could say that, Collins, like Chuckles the Clown at NBC News, benefited from the Peter Principle, but the Peter Principle says that you rise above your competence level when you get promoted to a position you can't handle by not screwing up in your lower-level jobs.  Collins screwed up with Trump and still got promoted.

As for Welker, well, what can I say?  I'm disappointed, of course.  And it now suddenly seems much more trivial than it already was to feature Welker, Collins, and other female news personalities on my beautiful-women picture blog.  In this new world of subjective reality ("Truth isn't truth!" - Rudolph Giuliani), maybe featuring female news personalities on my beautiful-women picture blog isn't so appropriate anymore, given that women in visual broadcast media weren't - or weren't supposed to be - hired for their looks.  Right now, I expect to feature a lot fewer female news personalities on my other blog than before, and I might just stop featuring them altogether.

As for Trump, he would have done what he did to Welker and Collins to a male broadcast journalist as well.  In fact, he could eat punks like George Stephanopoulos for breakfast.

And I think the most effective way to deal with Donald Trump in the news business is . . . not to give him any free media at all.