“It’s not Fake News … it’s stupid news,” wrote Eric Wemple from The Washington Post.

Wemple, an opinion writer for The Washington Post, was responding to CNN’s retraction of its failed hoopla scoop over former FBI Director James Comey’s sworn testimony Thursday to the Senate. One day before Comey released his prepared statement, a few analysts at CNN were convinced they had not just news but dire news.

So CNN assigned four reporters to inaccurately predict testimony that was coming in a matter of hours. Why throw a squadron of talent after what New York University professor Jay Rosen calls an “ego scoop”? Who would ever remember this exclusive? Does CNN believe the entire country is checking its countdown clocks every few minutes?

Further along, Wemple correctly infers CNN made no effort to deceive which one would need to sound the Fake News alarm.

Not fake news, just wrong news. CNN deployed four reporters — Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus — to pursue the story. They had sources. And when they figured out that the piece was mistaken, the network published a correction. All of those things stand in contradistinction to fabled fake news.

A better term for the story, however, would be “stupid news.”

Concluding Wemple advises CNN to choose its battles wisely.

CNN staffers know as well as anyone in this business that they pay a higher price than ever for slipping up. They’ll be hearing about this correction for months, including from a certain Twitter user, perhaps. All for a story that wouldn’t have mattered even if it had been right.

Will the mind-bending coddling ever stop?

Remember this guy?

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s.

“Grab them by the p—y,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

Nearly five months ago this guy was sworn into arguably the most powerful office on earth. Yet, by most accounts, he still believes, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” That was in 2005.

In 2017, I assure you, this Stars’ current station is not lost on The Donald.

Worse than Trump believing he has rights no other person has, are those who continue to push the bizarre notion that this 71 -year-old billionaire sophisticate is a babe in the ways of government.

That this man couldn’t be counted on to fully grasp how a President suddenly summoning a Director of the FBI to an intimate dinner at the President’s residence, then telling the FBI Director, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,” might activate warning sirens for the highest Federal Law Enforcement officer in the US.

Here’s Comey’s impression of the invitation and its context derived from his sworn testimony Thursday to the Senate.

Comey: “I mean, this is a president of the United States with me alone saying I hope this. I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didn’t obey that, but that’s the way I took it.”

Then there’s Paul Ryan protecting his reelection chances’ ignorance of how appropriate interpersonal relationships work.

“The president’s new at this. He’s new at government,” Ryan said. “He’s not steeped in the long running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI and White Houses.”

Wouldn’t it be fair for every American to receive a snail-mailed timetable from our representatives outlining an expected wait time to quit pretending this is all normal?

For any president in recent memory, this testimony would have been disastrous. It shows incompetence and bad character. It shows him as being petty, untrustworthy, and not overly concerned with ethical behavior. But instead of that being the story, and a big one, this is already met with a yawn by a public and even press that already knows he’s an unscrupulous liar and were busy salivating about treason or spying or other fanciful hopes that were pinned on Comey’s testimony. – Ben Howe. Republicans and Democrats: The Government of Stupid. RedState. 8 June, 2017.

The underlying rub here is the strident belief by freedom’s highest office holder that he can do anything he wants regardless of affect on the freedom of another. So far, he has been right.

This president isn’t ignorant. Director Comey was supposed to feel uncomfortable during that dinner. No small talk; Trump had an agenda.

This president is not ignorant. To pretext the public with the judgment of innocent serves no value to our humanity.

Full Text of Comey Testimony.

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