ON TARGET

 3/17/17   by Dave Gunn

Scooping the Scooper

    It was hyped all day Tuesday, and for the first 20 minutes of the program.  Rachel “the mad cow” Maddow, of MSNBC, was going to expose President Donald Trump before the whole nation.  Well, at least before the dozen or so that watch MSNBC.  She had obtained, from a reporter, Donald Trump’s tax returns from 2005.  What a scoop!  Unfortunately, working many years in a job doesn’t make one proficient.  The big expose turned into a big bust.

    In the first place, no one really cares about Donald Trump’s 2005 tax return.  In a survey conducted by MSN, 68% of respondents said that Trump’s tax return was irrelevant.

    Then there was the way Maddow and MSNBC botched the expose.  Promo after promo ran all day long on MSNBC.  This gave the Trump White House the time to release the tax return themselves and control the narrative.  Other news outlets, having obtained the tax return from the White House scooped Maddow.  So by the time Maddow finally got to her scoop – 20 minutes into her show, which irritated viewers – it was all scooped out.

    So Maddow and MSNBC  were shown for what they are: far-leftist Democrat partisans who will do anything they can to attack President Donald Trump.  They were also shown to be rather amateurish.

    Of more interest is what some folks were able to dig up as a result of this botched scoop.  In 2005, Donald Trump had a personal income of 150-million dollars.  Remember when Hillary hinted during the campaign that Donald Trump wasn’t quite so rich as he let on?  Apparently, he is.  Trump’s success in business is proven once again.

    Then, a comparison was made between Trump and a couple of very popular leftists who have been critical of Trump.  In 2005, Trump paid 38-million dollars in taxes, for an effective tax rate of over 25-percent.  In 2015, Barack Obama paid only 19% of his income in taxes, while the socialist, Bernie Sanders, who constantly gripes that the rich should pay their fair share, paid only 13.5 percent in 2014.

    This all serves as a lesson that visceral hatred can lead one to mistakes that are personally and professionally embarrassing.  Maddow, and the rest of the MSNBC rabble, are so blinded by their hatred of Donald Trump, that not only can they not report fairly, but they can’t even conduct a partisan witch hunt with any effectiveness.  All they can do is carp and harp the same tired old tune.  A tune that few Americans want to hear, so their ratings are always at or near the bottom.

[Dave Gunn is the nom de plume of Dr. David E. Gonnella, Pastor of the Magnolia Springs Baptist Church in Theodore, Alabama.  The opinions expressed are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the church or its membership.]