Forget that psychologically those who pose as strong men are always the weakest of men. As far as a compelling story for the public to click on, as pure drama, the persecuted underdog who prevails and becomes leader of the Free world is a good story.

Sidebar, and not unrelated. Years ago, during the worst stress of my horrifying years working in the courts, I felt my aggravation rising one night and was afraid I was having a heart attack. I walked 3/4 of a mile to the closest emergency room, which should probably have told me all I needed to know about whether I was having a heart attack or not.

After a long wait they checked me in, I was feeling much better by then, and I heard the doctor tell his colleague that I was a good story. I thought this was good news and when the doctor returned I told her I was going home.

She cautioned me against it, advised an overnight in the hospital and said that if I wanted to leave I had to sign a document saying I was leaving the hospital against medical advice. I said  “you just said I was a good story.”  She explained that when ER docs are talking about a suspected heart attack, a good story is a man your age, your basic shape, and exhibiting the agitated aggravation that you have been exhibiting since you came in. “It makes you a good story to have a heart attack, in other words.“

Fuck me blind, I thought, as I signed myself out against medical advice and later came back to check in. It left me pondering the flexibility of the phrase “a good story.” Horrifying, sickening stories are also good stories, to fans of those genres.

This entire piece by Lawrence O’Donnell is excellent, contrasting corporate media’s lap dog acquiescence to (and normalizing of) Trump’s outrageous incoherence while it snarls contemptuously at Biden’s press secretary in pursuit of a fanciful story that Biden is a senile vegetable with a team of lying neurologists on call.   He notes that the story about the lying neurologist and Biden’s senility were never reported on because it turns out there was absolutely no story there.  But the press snarled and yelled over each other as the press secretary patiently and truthfully fielded as many of their shouted questions as she could get to.

He points out that mass media is giving Trump the same primadonna treatment it gave him in 2016.  Airing a rambling, lie-filled “press conference” live from Mara-Lago where he answered not a single question, and was asked no follow-up to anything. O’Donnell  compared this fawning coverage to the complete news blackout on Kamala Harris, at the same moment addressing the UAW live, and in between he showed the press repeatedly challenging Biden, who answered each question, and screaming at Biden’s press secretary about unfounded allegations of the cover up of his unfounded  neurological decline. 

The din in the White House press room and the aggressiveness of the screamed out challenges in stark contrast to the glazed silence that meets everything that pours out of corporate meal ticket Donald Trump’s mouth.

O’Donnell, in spite of his brilliance, doesn’t seem to realize who he works for, I guess, but his point is very important and the clip well worth your time.