I generally like the RawStory website. They tend to have a good compilation of news stories, including summaries of stories from websites that have pay walls I couldn’t otherwise read. I do have a few quibbles with the site, though. One is that they have far too many typos and mistakes than a respectable new site should have. To their credit, they have a link after every story for readers to send in any corrections they think are needed. I’ve used this often – so often I’ve thought of requested staff status – and to their addition credit, they not only tend to respond quickly and make the corrections. The other is that they much too often have headlines that have absolutely nothing to do with the story itself. There have been many times I’ll see a headline that looks interesting and read the article – and then skim it again and again for the point mentioned in the headline, only to realize it’s not there. In the early days, I’d read an article that same “again and again,” and then again and again and again. Over time, though, I eventually glommed on to this “quirk” of the site, and it's helped me cut down my “agains.” Every once in a while, not often, they’ll do something pretty egregious that truly bothers me. And that was the case yesterday. It was this headline – I was aghast, and find that incredibly irresponsible. Saying that someone “shirked” their “responsibly” means that they had a responsibility in the first play to “shirk.” After all, you can’t shirk a responsibility you never have. Cassidy Hutchinson was an assistant. Her boss Mark Meadows may have had a huge amount of authority, Chief of Staff. And she may have had a lot of responsibility in her job as his assistant. But…she was his assistant. She wasn’t even “Deputy Chief of Staff.” She was an assistant. His principal assistant, to be sure, but assistant. In fact, she later got a new title while working for Meadows, “Special Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Legislative Affairs.” So, even that had “assistant” in the title. And RawStory’s headline suggests that she had the “responsibility” to “stop” the President of the United States in the midst of him trying to overthrow the government! It should be noted that Trump has been indicted for his actions (as have some of those around him) specifically because none of those around him – including his Chief of Staff (Hutchinson’s boss), the Acting Attorney General, his lawyers and top advisors – couldn’t, wouldn’t and didn’t stop him. But RawStory seems to think that this 24-year old assistant had the “responsibility” to do what no one – with actual responsibility -- else would do. Actually, if you read the article, there’s really nothing in it to support their headline – which isn’t uncommon for RawStory. (This is different from that, though, since it’s not that information was totally left out, but rather that the headline damned someone for something that not only wasn’t remotely their fault, but that the article later does address and contradicts the headline.) What the article quotes her saying at the very end is – “I felt it was our responsibility to stop January 6th from happening. And I felt that, you know, if I could go down to Florida and help relish whatever sort of legacy there was left to relish, that was still my job to help do so." To which she then added -- “looking back now I realize it's completely irrational and I should not have felt that way. January 6th was the president's fault, and there were a series of enablers that helped it happen, but it wasn't my job and it was the wasn't of anybody else actually rational to stop what is clearly an irrational man, Donald John Trump.” She’s right. Her personal thought that she had any responsibility to stop Trump was completely irrational, and she’s right, she should not have felt that way. And further, January 6th was Trump’s fault. And there were enablers that helped him. And, as she said, stopping Trump wasn’t her job. But to RawStory, it was her supposed responsibility that she shirked. As if 24-year-old assistant to the Chief of Staff could have stopped the Trump coup attempt by…what? Saying, “Hey, people, this is wrong, Don’t Do This!!”? To be clear, the problem here wasn’t a click-bait headline to get you to read the article. The problem is that the headline was a smear and irresponsible. When I was watching the interview live, and she brought up at first feeling she had a responsibility, my initial reaction was, “Hunh? Say what??? You had zero responsibility.” Fortunately, she went on to say she realized that thought was “completely irrational.” The person responsible was clearly an irrational man. Trump. This was not RawStory’s finest hour. The best I can hope for is that they don't understand the meaning of "shirk." And "responsibility."
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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