Michael Reagan: Media coverage of Trump flaps gets overblown again
What's the mainstream liberal media's most overblown Trump crisis of the week?
First, it was the president's tweet calling former staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman a "dog" for betraying him and his administration with her new book, "Unhinged," and her stash of secret White House recordings.
Then came the president's revocation of the security clearance of John Brennan, Obama's former CIA director and full-time Trump basher.
From the liberal media's reaction, you'd have thought President Donald Trump had sentenced Brennan to death and declared himself dictator for life.
The New York Times called it "a striking act of retaliation against an outspoken critic."
Poor hysterical Andrea Mitchell of NBC, who pretended to worry that the president was "denying his own CIA ... access to the wise counsel of Brennan," said the action was "akin to the Nixon enemies list."
Trump's action was, as usual, pure Trumpian. Brennan definitely deserved to have his security clearance taken away.
Instead of acting like a respectable ex-government servant and keeping his partisan comments to himself, he's been acting like a political hack or MSNBC talk show host.
After the Trump-Putin news conference in Helsinki, for example, Brennan tweeted that the president's performance "rises to & exceeds the threshold of 'high crimes & misdemeanors.' It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???"
Other former Obama partisans with security clearances who've been investigating or critiquing Trump and his staff are reportedly being considered for the same treatment - including James Clapper, James Comey and FBI super villains Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Bruce Ohr.
The whole security-clearance issue for former intelligence officials has been blown out of proportion by the media.
There's a long history of allowing the clearances for certain officials to continue from one administration to the next. It's practical. It has worked. That's why it was done.
But in the past, the officials from the previous administrations were not professional public enemies of the new president.
Some people apparently think that Brennan and the others with security clearances are able to walk into their nearest federal building and start looking at top-secret stuff.
No, they can't do that. They have to be invited by the current administration to look at material or give them advice based on their experiences or knowledge.
Even Mitchell knows there's no way the Trump administration is going to ask any of those partisans to come in to help.
As usual, the president messed up. He managed to turn a decision he had every right to make into a vindictive political and personal act. If he's going to pull security clearances on Obama alums, he should have done it on everyone at the same time and done it a long time ago.
My problem with revoking the clearances is that once a president goes down this road, it's bar-the-door Sally.
We Republicans may all be happy and excited about what Trump did to Brennan, but one day, we're going to be angry and upset when a Democrat president does it to one of our guys.
We obviously live in a different presidency today than ever before. Can anyone ever remember a former CIA director pointing a finger and speaking ill of a sitting president?
We've lost complete respect for everything and everyone in Washington.
We're now at a point where no one in D.C. works together. No one looks for common ground.
The reality is, while this is going on in D.C., the American economy is growing at 4.1 percent, unemployment is down dramatically and taxes and regulations have been cut.
What gets lost in big media's over-the-top coverage of petty D.C. beltway stuff like the Omarosa tapes and revoked security clearances is that America is doing pretty great - again.
© 2018 Michael Reagan/Cagle Syndicate