The media are hyping former White House aide Omarosa’s negative takes on “racist” Donald Trump and of course playing audio from her surreptitious tapes – with the networks devoting 93 minutes on the topic so far.
On Monday’s Today show, co-host Savanna Guthrie teased: “Just ahead, our exclusive – live with Omarosa on the secret recording she made of President Trump…and the troubling picture she’s now painting of the president.” Guthrie even joked with Omarosa as she began the interview: “I should let you know, I’m recording this conversation.”
But there was a time when the media utterly despised secret recordings, back when they were protecting a President they liked – Bill Clinton.
In 1998 when Linda Tripp recorded her conversations with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky about her trysts with Clinton, the former Pentagon employee was savaged as a “treacherous” “back-stabbing” “betrayer” by journalists at TV and print outlets.
The following is just a sample of the harsh takes on secret taping and Tripp as culled from the MRC’s archives:
Trashing Tripp
“They [Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg] wanted to make money on a book but once push came to shove they were perfectly willing to sacrifice the young former White House intern on the altar of greed, on the altar of hatred for Bill Clinton and his administration….And my God, a first year law student hearing those tapes will be able to make her look like exactly what she is, a treacherous, back-stabbing, good-for-nothing enemy of the truth.”
— Geraldo Rivera on CNBC’s Rivera Live, June 26, 1998.“Tripp lost membership in the family of man when day after day she looked into Monica Lewinskys eyes as a friend and at night hit the ‘on’ button on her Radio Shack tape recorder.”
— Time’s Margaret Carlson responding to Jonah Goldberg in a Slate “dialogue” about Linda Tripp, June 30, 1998.“Friends don’t tape friends, so could we all quit calling Linda Tripp anything but the spy-provocateur she is? Nothing in this mess is more inexplicable than how anyone could record, day after day, the most intimate details, real or imagined, of another person’s life.”
— Time columnist Margaret Carlson, February 9, 1998.“Linda Tripp seemed to try to cast herself as a victim in this case, almost an unwilling participant. No mention of those 20 hours of tapes that she surreptitiously recorded with Monica Lewinsky. Is that curious from your perspective?”
— CNN The World Today co-anchor Jim Moret to CNN reporter Bob Franken the night Tripp spoke, July 29, 1998.“Tripp [down arrow]: Says ‘I’m you.’ We’re made-over, illegally-taping, friend-betraying Cruella DeVils?”
— Newsweek’s Conventional Wisdom Watch, August 10, 1998.
You don’t have to back that far. The Democrats ignored the information leaked out of the DNC showing Democrat leadership to be racist, liars and scandalous but all Democrats cared about was whining about how the information acquired. Recordings of Planned Parenthood conniving with what they thought were pimps to provide abortions for underage hookers when the need arose or the market for dismembered babies harvested at their peak were only terrible in the context of how these facts were brought to the public.
So, the best thing to do in this situation (the recordings released so far reveal nothing of the bombshells Omarosa says have happened) is to attack the recorder and ignore the message.
Maybe the bombshell is that Trump doesn’t know what’s going on inside his own White House, though I strongly suspect in this case he’s only pretending not to.
His former favorite reality TV villain, choice for Director of African-American Outreach, and Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison claims to have more damaging tapes. Tune in for the next exciting episode of “As the Weasel Turns.”
Classic.
@Greg:
More likely someone Trump hired to help got in over her head, got fired, turned bitter (she originally had nothing but praise for Trump) and sees an ocean of liberal idiots she can sell books to if she denigrates Trump. Does that hook in the mouth hurt much?
What if he only learned about it on the news? Would that make him seem more informed?
Heres another flash back when she “worked” in the Clinton admin. https://dailycaller.com/2018/08/14/former-vp-al-gore-omarosa/
She is a proven liar, Omarosa reportedly embellished her job titles, tasks, and work performance on her resume. She had the opportunity of a lifetime twice and doesnt know you must work when you get a job.
A message for America, from the President:
Classy, right? A public figure an leader we can be proud of, and true role model for America’s children.
@Greg: Accurate. Honest. Straightforward. He helped her and she lied about him. I guess he could take a page out of Obama’s playbook and sic the FISA court and IRS on her, but Trump respects the Constitution more than that.
@kitt: The left loves liars. They vote for them, they support them and they defend them. If someone lies about Trump, they are their greatest hero.
@Deplorable me: He gave her every opportunity to make something of herself, now its 15 minutes of fame and when the left is done with her shes the nothing she made of herself.
The truth? You’ve put a man in charge of our nuclear launch system who can’t even control his childish impulses with a Twitter account.
@Greg: Have you yet noticed that despite this oft repeated (and stupid) fear, we are all still here and not vaporized on a nuclear whim? In fact, NONE of the fantastic fears you liberals pretend to believe have proven to have any basis in fact. We were in far more danger under the weak sissy Obama and Hillary likely would have allowed a nuclear strike on the United States to the highest bidder.
I think Trump may have taken over your brain. That post actually reads like something he might have written.
@Greg: He has put facts and results in my brain. If you have enough of that, there’s no room for all that propaganda you keep in your brain.
Thomas Jefferson wrote it eloquently to John Norvell in 1807: “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.”