May 27, 2018

Maggie Haberman has a unique platform, for which she is utterly and tragically unable to do well.

As the designated Trump-whisperer for The New York Times, Haberman has been the beneficiary of the Leaker-in-Chief, as Trump has enjoyed calling Maggie personally and giving her all of his hot takes, truthful or not.

But reporting Trump's lies as "lies" is apparently not part of the deal.

So when Trump tweeted this ridiculousness yesterday.

Haberman's response was this:

"Demonstrable falsehoods"? How sweet and sanitized. A point that wasn't missed by much of Twitter, telling her that the word she was searching for was "LIE".

But Haberman was unrepentant. Because she's not sure that Trump is actually lying, which would require knowledge of the truth and an active motive to want to deceive and after more than 3,000 recorded lies as POTUS, she's just not willing to give him anything less than the benefit of the doubt.

Funnily enough, actor John Cusack was one of those tweeting his desire for Haberman to actually use the most accurate terminology, and that caused Haberman to lash out in the dumbest possible way.

Pro-tip, Mags: if a romantic dramedy from the 80s is ruined by an actor telling you to use the word "lies", you've gotten way too damned comfortable being a stenographer for the biggest liar in the world.

Trump is a liar. He pretended one of his aides didn't exist to slam your employer. He insisted that the First Lady was standing at a window watching him address the press spray, when she wasn't (And she hasn't been seen in public since returning home from the hospital for surgery on an allegedly benign kidney condition). There is no actual service done for journalism, the country or the political environment to call it anything other than what it is: LIES.

I know Haberman is capable of it. Look at how eager she is to use the word here, for an arguable assertion:

Come on, Haberman, do your damn job better.

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