What is the dumbest thing you've ever heard a politician or a member of the media say?

In modern politics, the very nature of trying to debate objective reality has become a multiple-choice game between differing ideologies and self-interests, wherein facts which are suspect and patently absurd are given equal time. The rationalization of deceit has given way to prettier terms like “spin.” Being a racist asshole is treated by dumb pundits as the musings of “firebrands.” Normalizing bigotry under the banner of “religious freedom” is treated as something to be understood in some circles, instead of something to be defeated. Because, in the middle of it all, the conversation is controlled by a news media which too often is afraid to call a lie a lie, and puppets those lies as just another viewpoint while trying to absolve themselves of any responsibility for spreading it far and wide.

Over the weekend, Maggie Haberman, a reporter who has long defended the media’s reluctance to use the term “lie” to describe what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth (except when the lies are about HER, then she has no problem using the word) wrote a patently stupid article which presented the issue of whether former White House communications director Hope Hicks complies with a congressional subpoena as a melodramatic “existential” question. This led to widespread condemnation and ridicule of The New York Times deciding the concept of complying with the law was somehow more about glamour photos of Hicks, and Haberman’s time at Sarah Lawerence College failing her in understanding what Jean-Paul Sartre and Søren Kierkegaard were trying to say.

Even though neither responded to the criticism, or to the many, many people on Twitter trolling Haberman’s posts about the stupidity of her piece, The Times and Haberman seem to have been shamed enough to change the word “existential” to “crucial.” The Times and people like Haberman tend to get away with this kind of thing, since members of the media tend to have each other’s backs to some degree. And, as we have all seen over many years, stupidity promulgated by government officials can sometimes not get the examination it deserves if reporters want to preserve relationships and access. 

So this got me thinking about the dumbest things said by politicians and members of the media. What is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard or seen, where it was just mind-numbingly stupid? 

from Daily Kos http://bit.ly/2EQX9F5