Many years ago there was a king in the land of good and plenty. He was kind and generous and was loved by his subjects. Although the king had many nice things, his only real passion was clothing. He invited tailors from near and far to join him in his castle, to sew him the finest clothes. Over time, he became bored with their styles and sought something new. A new tailor arrived, and offered to make the king clothing that he had never seen before. The king agreed, and the man spent all night working in his room. Early the next morning, he presented the king with his new duds, and the king was delighted. Later in the day, on a stroll around the castle courtyard, the king was admiring his new clothes when the court apprentice approached him and complimented his fine taste in clothing. After lunch, the king went for a walk in the city, when he overheard a boy saying – “Momma! The king doesn’t have any clothes on!” That’s right. The new tailor had tricked the king into wearing “invisible” clothing, although in reality, there was nothing there. This is the super short version of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale-“The king has no clothes”. Except in today’s version, the king would have the child killed, his mother thrown into prison, and their house burned down. Because you see, it is good to be king.
This last week was awash with major news events that seem to be happening in an ever quicker pace. It kicked off with a coup in Turkey. Or an attempted coup. Or something. Like Buffalo Springfield wrote long ago – “There's something happening here, What it is ain't exactly clear, There's a man with a gun over there, Telling me I got to beware.” What we do know is that the President of Turkey over the past week has been able to arrest tens of thousands of people, for supposedly being part of the coup. But let’s just think about that for a moment. It is hard enough to keep secrets among a small group of 4 or 5 people. How could tens of thousands of people keep a secret of this magnitude quiet? And if they could, what does it say about Turkey’s security services? Furthermore, Turkey has the second largest army in NATO. Whose side are they fighting on?
And what of the narrative that western media are now spinning? Strange, at best. Early in the attempted coup, MSNBC reported that the Turkish President was seeking asylum in Germany, and was then denied. Weird, right? After all, it was that very same Turkish President who had just negotiated with Germany over taking refugees to the tune of 2 billion euro some months back. Pundits laughed over the sweet irony of Germany accepting millions of refugees, while refusing this one. Of course, this just came from one source, MSNBC, and it used “unnamed sources”. Almost the same thing as the F-16 fighter jets that – “had locked onto Erdogan’s private jet with their missiles, but didn’t fire”. Which makes sense, right? NOT! This too was from one “unnamed source”, as reported by Reuters.
Later on, there was even talk about Erdogan seeking asylum in the UK. And who is the UK’s new Secretary of State? None other than Boris Johnson, who only a few weeks back, in response to Erdogan attempting sue a German comedian for freedom of speech, won a contest, as the Guardian put it –“challenging the crackdown on free speech”. So, what did Boris write? Well, here you go, in all of its glory – “There was a young fellow from Ankara, Who was a terrific wankerer. Till he sowed his wild oats, With the help of a goat, But he didn’t even stop to thankera.” That’s right. Boris Johnson, essentially the new British “head of foreign relations”, said publically that the President of Turkey had sex with a goat. Just let that sink in for a moment.
And while we are pondering that, let’s take a minute to see what just went down in America. Basically, it was very height of that new American art form, the “virtual reality TV show”, except that it wasn’t on TV. This was in real life, or was it? To paraphrase Yakov Smirnov- “In Soviet America – TV watches you!”
As the Republican national convention was kicking off, “Lucifer in the flesh”, as John Boehner would say, or better known to the rest of the world as Ted Cruz, was giving a speech to a crowd of people in which he was trying to explain how he had beat 15 people, but not the 16th, and how the Republican party now had a nominee, when Donald Trump perfectly trolled him live on TV by flying by in his plane, thus making the crowd and the CNN cameraman instantly forget that Cruz was there. Cruz even asked sarcastically – “That was pretty well orchestrated, what, did you email him (Trump) to fly the plane right when I said that?” Of course, the icing on the cake was when the cameraman cut back to the live newsroom, when the CNN hosts covering the event burst out into laughter in disbelief of what they had just witnessed.
Of course, no reality TV show is complete without a second act, and that took place a day later, when Cruz refused to endorse Trump. The crowds reacted instantly, booing him off the stage, while his wife was escorted out of the building by security guards. That night, it was the pundits turn to harp on Cruz, and his actions, while subplot B was introduced. The whole Melanie Trump, did she or didn’t she plagiarize Michelle Obama’s speech. And while talking heads debated what exactly plagiarism is, and whether Obama and others had done it, people went to sleep, only to dream about what the next day would bring.
And what a day it was. Donald Trump emerged to the sound of cheers and, as, one six-year old boy described it, “hero music” played in the background. The crowds literally went wild as Trump stepped to the podium. Embracing the moment, Trump gave the best speech of his life, as many news reports would say the next day. He touched upon topics that many across America would find near and dear to their hearts. And what was mainstream media’s response?
Well, Vox summed it up best when they wrote – “Here is Trump’s problem: Things are not really, really bad. In fact, things are doing much better than when President Obama came into office. Unemployment is 4.9 percent nationally…The deficit has gone down in recent years, and the stock market has gone up. The end of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars mean fewer Americans are dying abroad. A plurality approve of the job Obama is doing.” And, there you have it-The king’s clothes are the most amazing thing that media pundits have seen.
So, what do you think dear listeners – “Does the king have clothes on?”
