Some things, once broken, can never be fixed

I’ve thought for a long time that the O.J. Simpson case ruined the American criminal justice system forever. Despite weeks of trial and a mountain of evidence – albeit highly technical evidence – jurors could not overcome the spectre of reasonable doubt and find in favor of the prosecution. Interviewed today, many of them will tell you they thought O.J. was guilty, but Marcia Clark and her lineup of shady cops, Cato Kaelin and monotonous DNA experts didn’t prove their case.

After all, the glove didn’t fit.

Since then, time after time, we’ve watched as seemingly guilty defendants get acquitted because juries can’t determine the difference between “reasonable doubt” and “any tiny smidgen of doubt the defense attorney might have conjured up and planted in our brains, regardless how unreasonable it might be.” Frankly, I’m surprised when anybody gets convicted any more.

That brings me to the faux presidency of Donald J. Trump.

There are at least two things that Trump has given us that I don’t think can ever be repaired. One is the possibility that anything the President of the United States says is a lie. We know that’s true of Trump, who has averaged 4.6 lies and/or distortions every day since he took office. Trump lies with such impunity that I no longer believe anything he says. Lies roll off his tongue like butter off hot corn or rain off a sloping roof.

When he isn’t lying to us in person, Trump sends out people like Sean Spicer to lie to the media on our behalf, starting with his crowd estimate on Inauguration Day. That was Day 1, Episode 1, Chapter 1 of Trump’s presidency. Not a great start.

When we quit buying Spicer’s lies, Trump rolled out Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who kept the ball in the air with a barrage of lies so thick it choked the air – and the cameras – out of the White House press room. After Spicer resigned, Sanders took over his job and promised us she’d always tell the truth. Then she was asked another question and she lied in her reply. Didn’t take long to violate that truce.    

Now we have some shady looking guy named Scaramucci who picked right up where Spicer left off. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. After work, I suspect he sits out front of the Washington version of Satriale’s meat market sipping espresso out of tiny cups and talking about “this thing of ours.” His old tweets make Trump sound like a Sunday School teacher.

And on and on it goes.

Someday we’ll have another president. Maybe in four years, maybe fewer. It might be a Republican or a Democrat, a man or a woman, black, white or brown, who knows? The problem is, after Trump, there will still be a segment of the population that doesn’t believe a single word that comes out of the new POTUS’s mouth. It’ll be more lies, damned lies and whoppers, with apologies to Mark Twain. The lies might just be left-handed the next time around.

Thing Two is this: The news media will never again be respected because it sold its values for the fool’s gold of Donald Trump and the ratings that came with it. Oh, sure, there are still good, solid journalists digging for news instead of digging their own graves, but Trump installed the term “fake news” so deeply into our vocabulary that no one knows what real news looks like any more. You see a story on Facebook. Is it real? The New York Times quotes an unnamed source. Is that true?

Liberals believe what they want to believe. Everything else is a lie. Conservatives just flip the coin.

I have used this analogy before – more than once – but it’s mine and I like it so I’m using it again. The media was Dr. Frankenstein and Trump was the monster they created. They loved him when he brought in the revenue but seemed shocked when he escaped and started roaming the countryside killing sheep.

Presidents who lie and the fake news media…these are the gifts from Trump that can never be returned. They’re the gifts that keep on giving. You might as well throw away your receipt.