Flake Lives Up to His Name Yet Again

I think it was yesterday that I heard Jeff Flake, U.S. Senator from Arizona, commenting on President Trump's fake news awards which the President presented last night.

This morning I find an MSN article about these awards. The article include the quote I heard plus another Flake quote:

"The free press is the despot's enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy," Flake said in a speech on the floor of the Senate. "When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn't suit him 'fake news,' it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press."

What could possibly have triggered me?

I suppose as a starter I am old school when it comes to freedom of the press. In the first quote Flake seems to imply that it is the function of the press to defend a consensus-defined government. Whatever the consensus of the "democracy" is, it is the job of the media to defend that consensus. You might argue with me by saying Flake doesn't make that implication but in the second quote, if you take the flip side of the coin he describes, then if you should distrust any leader who questions the press, then you should trust any media that agrees with our leaders. That's what he's getting at, isn't it? Trust the media? Don't trust President Trump?

However you wish to spin it, though, it's the original premise that is in error. The free press isn't charged with defending the government. It was the hope of the Founding Fathers that the press, when reporting the truth, would not be suppressed. The truth would not be suppressed. That's the key. You don't throw out the baby with the bath water. You tolerate "fake news" because you don't want to suppress the truth when it hopefully does get published. There's nothing at all about freedom of the press that should stop anyone from bashing fake news, Senator Flake.

Flake's comments are as flakey as it gets if you ask me. But who am I to say, eh?