Tea at Trianon: To Censor and Edit the President

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 25, 2018

To Censor and Edit the President

From The Conservative Review:

Monday on his nationally syndicated radio program, LevinTV host Mark Levin called out reporter Carl Bernstein and CNN for suggesting that the media should edit President Trump’s press conferences, rather than airing them live. Levin played a clip in which Bernstein said presidential press conferences should instead be treated “like a news event,” with reporters sharing just the parts they deem newsworthy with the public. “It is a big deal. It gives you insight into how fools like this think. He’s a reporter — so-called — right? What is better news than a live event? A presidential press conference?” Levin went on to explain to listeners what Bernstein is really saying: “Because the president is a propagandist and a liar, we in the media have to take the actual news of what he’s saying and edit it and decide what is our view of the news, with our liberal values.” (Read more.)