{"id":5252,"date":"2017-05-15T09:19:56","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T14:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5252"},"modified":"2017-05-15T09:23:05","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T14:23:05","slug":"two-scoops-of-weak-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5252","title":{"rendered":"Two scoops of weak man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Two scoops for Trump\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ixEahmx0Btw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Time magazine ran a bit about how President Trump got two scoops of ice cream for desert after a dinner interview, while everyone else got just one.\u00c2\u00a0 CNN then ran a few stories about it.<\/p>\n<p>So far, not<em> fake<\/em> news.\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, but that&#8217;s not the issue.\u00c2\u00a0 The issue is how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/big-journalism\/2017\/05\/14\/watch-cnn-devotes-two-segments-trump-executive-privilege-eating-two-scoops-ice-cream\/\">Breitbart<\/a> and Hannity are responding to the story.\u00c2\u00a0 Here&#8217;s Hannity&#8217;s tweet:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/seanhannity\/status\/862781377342836737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&#038;ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fbig-journalism%2F2017%2F05%2F14%2Fwatch-cnn-devotes-two-segments-trump-executive-privilege-eating-two-scoops-ice-cream%2F\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/seanhannity\/status\/862781377342836737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&amp;ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fbig-journalism%2F2017%2F05%2F14%2Fwatch-cnn-devotes-two-segments-trump-executive-privilege-eating-two-scoops-ice-cream%2F<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The implication is that the story isn&#8217;t newsworthy, so CNN (and Time) are undercut as news organizations for running with it.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing is a version of the <a href=\"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=2082\">weak man<\/a> point.\u00c2\u00a0 Judging a news organization on the basis of its weakest story is uncharitable, especially if it&#8217;s a slower news day.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Puff pieces happen when you&#8217;ve got a 24-hour news channel.\u00c2\u00a0 One nut-picked puff piece does not a case against a network make.\u00c2\u00a0 So long as it&#8217;s not made up, poorly sourced, or misleading, how exactly is this bad journalism?<\/p>\n<p>The second thing is that I&#8217;m not sure what the argument against the story is beyond the implication that it comes off a little petty.\u00c2\u00a0 But here&#8217;s the thing: the character of the President of the United States is a matter of significant import. (I&#8217;d <a href=\"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=3971\">posted<\/a> something on this point about <em>ad hominem <\/em>a little while back.)\u00c2\u00a0 And what we seem to keep getting is a picture of a very selfish person.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, it&#8217;s not a scoop on whether there are &#8220;tapes&#8221; of the conversation Trump had with Comey, and it&#8217;s not a discovery of evidence of collusion with Russia.\u00c2\u00a0 But it is yet one more story confirming what we&#8217;d had a pretty good idea of to begin with, and that the office has had no change on the character of the man inhabiting it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Time magazine ran a bit about how President Trump got two scoops of ice cream for desert after a dinner interview, while everyone else got just one.\u00c2\u00a0 CNN then ran a few stories about it. So far, not fake news.\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, but that&#8217;s not the issue.\u00c2\u00a0 The issue is how Breitbart and Hannity are responding &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5252\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Two scoops of weak man<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,571],"tags":[1978,1273,2061,2182,412],"class_list":["post-5252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ad-hominem","category-weak-man-straw-man-fallacies-of-relevance-fallacies-argument-problems","tag-ad-hominem","tag-non-fallacious-ad-hominem-arguments","tag-trump","tag-two-scoops-ice-cream-a-lago","tag-weak-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5252"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5254,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5252\/revisions\/5254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}