President Trump's Favorite Television Channel Didn't Surprise a Lot of People

My interest in Michael Wolff’s book on the backbiting and character assassination in the Trump White House is minimal. What makes it amusing is that Wolff teases that not all of it is true and yet virtually everyone covering the story treats it as true. This is how the New York Times describes it:

“Historically, one of the problems with Wolff’s omniscience is that while he may know all, he gets some of it wrong,” David Carr, the late New York Times media columnist, wrote in 2008, reviewing a Wolff book that, he pointed out, contained errors.

The excerpts from “Fire and Fury” that appeared this week have been raked over for mistakes. Mr. Wolff writes that CNN reported on Mr. Trump being accused of an exotic sexual practice with prostitutes in an intelligence dossier; in fact, BuzzFeed News reported those details. He also describes Mr. Trump as being unaware of the identity of John Boehner, the former Republican House speaker; in fact, the pair had golfed together long before Mr. Wolff began visiting the White House.

Indeed, this book only works because it is a classic case of confirmation bias. If you believe that Trump is a total idiot, then it is easy to believe he didn’t know who John Boehner is. And because you believe he doesn’t know who John Boehner is, you can’t be bothered to actually check a story out…

Wacky @glennbeck who always seems to be crying (worse than Boehner) speaks badly of me only because I refuse to do his show–a real nut job!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2015

Speaker John Boehner, who I like, should never have agreed to raise taxes because the Republicans got absolutely nothing for it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2013

Maybe Boehner will stop this one sided deal in the House…I hope so!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2013

No taxes in Boehner or Reid Plan—-important victory for America.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2011

Trump, Boehner hit the links

Now there is another one in the same mode…only much, much better

This is my favorite part of Wolff's book so far. Amazing for what it says about this administration! (It's worse than you think!!). So amazing, I can barely even believe it. It's *literally* incredible@Pixelatedboat caught it first (he's a quicker reader than I). Reproducing: pic.twitter.com/qtOaNDxnx2

— Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) January 5, 2018

I have to confess desperately desiring an adult diaper as I was reading that. And funny though it was, it was pretty obvious parody. But not to everyone. A sampling.