How to Know When You've Lost the Argument

Yesterday morning, a friend sent me a note about how efforts being made by the White House to spin Trump's actions the day before, using the military, a church and Bible for a PR photo op.

Here's the problem with their effort, no matter how good they may think they are at spin -- 

When you're caught in the position of trying to defend that your actions of having the military shoot and gas American citizens peacefully rallying, you've already lost the argument.  But worse, the visual of it nails the opposing argument down since that is much too visceral, makes the point too clearly and is what people remember over your theoretical debating points.

There's a famous story CBS reporter Lesley Stahl tells about a harsh, 6-minute-long story she did on the Evening News about how then-President Reagan's words didn't match his actions.  When she got a phone call the next day from Richard Darman, one of Reagan's advisers, she was sure he'd be furious and  read her the riot act.  Instead, he said what a great piece it was and how everyone loved it.  She was shocked and asked if they'd heard what she'd talked about.  Darman's famous, oft-quoted reply was, "Nobody heard what you said."  He then explained -- the report, as critical as it was, showed upbeat images, like Reagan talking in front of national monuments. "You guys in Televisionland haven’t figured it out, have you?," he said.  "When the pictures are powerful and emotional, they override if not completely drown out the sound. I mean it, Lesley. Nobody heard you.”

The pictures in Washington with the military shooting and gassing a peaceful protest, before Trump showed up holding a Bible in front of a church, were powerful and emotion.  They will override if not completely drown out the sound of any White House attempts to explain it all away.

There were two other things yesterday which show the trouble Trump is in with this story.

The first was a montage that MSNBC put together of reporter Kasie Hunt asking Republican senators their comments on Trump's orders with the military, as they walked past her down a Senate hallway -- and almost every one literally ducked their heads to avoid having to answer.  When almost every senator of your own party goes to that extent to avoid a camera and microphone, or says (as many of the others did) "I wasn't there and didn't see it" -- something most of the world saw, even though they "weren't there" -- you have a serious problem in your hands.

And if anything explains what the real public reaction to the story is, regardless of how much the White House tries to spin – that’s it.

Unless it's this -- that the White House lost right-wing nutjob loon Pat Robertson on this story.   On his TV show, The 700 Club, Robertson actually, really, honestly said about the tragic conditions facing so many in America that's lead to the protests and rallies, "It seems like now is the time to say, ‘I understand your pain, I want to comfort you, I think it’s time we love each other.'  But the president took a different course. He said, ‘I am the president of law and order,’ and he issued a heads up.”

When you're a Republican, and you've lost Pat Robertson on a story that involves the military, police, rioting, protests and law and order, you've lost the story.

It doesn't help, too, that you've lost the Episcopal Church.  And I don't just mean Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde, spiritual leader of the Episcopal diocese in Washington, D.C., overseeing 88 churches, including St. John's where Trump stood raising his prop Bible.  "Let me be clear," she told CNN, "the president just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese without permission as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our churches stand for.  And to do so... he sanctioned the use of tear gas by police officers in riot gear to clear the church yard. I am outraged."

No, when I say Trump lost the Episcopal Church, I also mean he lost the respected Bishop Michael Curry who is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.  Bishop Curry is the clergyman who lead the funeral of President George Bush and officiated at the wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.  He released a statement excoriating Trump and which accused him of using “a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes.  This was done in a time of deep hurt and pain in our country, and his action did nothing to help us or to heal us,”

But that is just bonus material.

Because when senators of your own party skulk away from cameras and plead ignorance of not seeing a military attack of U.S. citizens in the very city where they are (which, if that were even remotely true, would be considered almost dereliction of duty) and when Pat Robertson dresses you down, and "you" is the Republican Party -- you have not only lost the argument...you have been dominated.