Jennifer Rubin

[Commentary] Virtually every time President Donald Trump speaks he raises three possibilities to explain his nonsensical, offensive or flat-out wrong assertions: 1) He doesn’t get basic concepts his aides and lawyers must have explained to him; 2) he understands and then forgets; or 3) he is showing contempt for voters’ intelligence and/or for our democratic system. Republicans can defend this basket-case presidency all they please, but in doing so they reveal themselves to be either dense, dishonest or demagogic. The GOP and President Trump are indeed one and the same. [Jennifer Rubin]

[Commentary] What does the Feb 13 press conference tell us? Well, presidents change — and so does the approach of certain propagandist outlets. And remember, the press people in question are not opinion columnists but people who bill themselves as “reporters.” Welcome to the right-wing media bubble. Designed to counteract some legitimate claims about mainstream media bias — and omissions in coverage — many of these right-wing outlets became cartoonish versions of the mainstream-media caricature they had set out to compete with for viewers and readers.

When politicians, candidates and pundits berate media coverage of the 2016 campaign, we must ask, “Which media?” Blanket accusations from right-leaning media critics against the entire mainstream media presume that there is a singular standard for coverage. Our collective viewing and reading experiences over the past 18 months tell a different story.

The sheer volume and diversity of outlets should caution against generalization. One doesn’t condemn all movies because of, say, “Batman v. Superman.” There is good and bad, serious and farcical coverage even within the same outlet. If nothing else, the 2016 election demonstrated no shortage of responsible and essential journalism — or of ridiculous, phony news. The burden ultimately rests with news consumers to look for quality — and with media to police themselves. That’s the essence of a free, vibrant and, at times, infuriating press.

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” Federalist 51 tells us. “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” So too, if men were angels we’d get better presidential candidates. But since they aren’t, some “internal controls” on candidates and elections might attend to our selection process. We consider three areas in which such controls can be increased:

Disclosure: Donald Trump has demonstrated we cannot rely on historical precedent to induce candidates’ disclosure of basic information about their financial and legal affairs.

Redo campaign finance reform: If the Supreme Court reverses Citizens United (a good possibility if Hillary Clinton is elected and gets to appoint one or more justices), which held that independent spending by third parties could not be regulated as are donations directly to candidates or political parties, there is an opportunity to enhance the power of political parties. Decades of campaign finance reform plus Citizens United has left us with the worst of all worlds: Political parties are diminished; fringe candidates can survive on the largesse of a few billionaires or special interest groups; and more money comes from sources where disclosure is not required than from parties and candidates who are required to disclose their donors.