Who's Not Coming to Dinner -- the Trump Press Pool

I often think, by the time Friday rolls around, that TGIF says it all. Thank God it's Friday. And, I suspect that by the time Tuesday evening rolled around this week, eight days into a grueling transition schedule of discussions, interviews and decisionmaking -- punctuated by Progressive anti-Trump rallies using young people as cannon fodder and by the Democrat elite and mainstream media pounding every aspect of the man even more viciously than during the campaign with attacks couched in fawning smiles and cynical calls to let him "catch up" to how the presidency operates -- President-Elect Donald Trump felt that same way. So, he did what any normal American would do -- he rounded up his very tight-knit family and took them out for a relaxing dinner. Now, we might have thought that even the MSM would see the value in letting the President-Elect relax and enjoy a couple of hours with his family. But NO, not at all. • • • The media went ballistic. Why? They weren't invited. One online headline read "Trump's dinner dash sparks backlash from ditched reporters." Yes, dear readers, there was a "wave of protests from many in the press" because Trump had "ditched his press pool." He had actually taken the family to the 21 Club, an iconic Manhattan steakhouse close to Trump Tower, without dining room windows so the public wouldn't stare at the Trump family as they ate, and small enough to be shut off for the time Trump was there -- he chose a later hour, surely to spare the restaurant the need ot turn away already-booked customers. His Secret Service detail was with him. BUT, HORROR OF HORRORS, pool reporters who are responsible for covering the President-Elect "at all times were not informed." That self-important "at all times" bit came from the MSM, not me. • • • The entire journalism community reacted immediately. White House Correspondents' Association President Jeff Mason said in a statement : "Pool reporters are in place in New York to cover the President-Elect as he assembles his new administration. It is critical that they be allowed to do their jobs." On cable news, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow broke into her 9 p.m. show with the news of Trump's dinner and the press being left behind : "It is a matter of tradition, a matter of security, a matter of national interest that you don’t go dark...you don’t get to be a private person anymore. People get to know where you are at all times...You may resent that you’re not allowed to have a private life anymore, but it’s a matter of national security and national interest. You really don’t get to just go anywhere you want. It’s too important to the country." • • • Now, to be perfectly honest, I don't need to know where the President is "at all times." Breakfast table, shower, men's room? I really could not care less -- unless the President, any President, were being served breakfast after showering and relieving himself in a hospital room, any hospital room. Then, I would care -- enormously. • • • As for Jeff Mason's vapid comment that it is "critical" that presidential pool reporters "be allowed to do their jobs," my observation is that they do their self-defined jobs -- not well but with the gusto of starved pit bulls -- attacking Trump all day long. They do not need to report on what the President-Elect is eating for dinner -- they certainly are not invited into the White House private apartment to watch while the First Family has dinner. What President-Elect Trump and his family eat is their business, not America's, unless they take to eating ground glass or flaming torches. Then, America would need to know, ASAP. But, in that improbable situation, the entire First Family would undoubedly already be in the hospital and we would know. • Rachel Maddow? Well, we all know that MSNBC is just about as wild-eyed crazy as a group of journalists can be and still hang on to their FCC license to telecast. Maddow's assertion is proof. Her statement that having the presidential press pool with Trump while he eats is "a matter of national security...national interest...you're not allowed to have a private life anymore" is simply, laughably, infantile and stupid. Is Rachel suggesting that the pool sleep with Donald and Melania? Does she think America needs to know, as a matter of "national security" that Melania said, "Not tonight, Donald, I'm tired"??? • • • AND, unless I have my facts and tasking completely wrong -- it is the Secret Service that is charged with keeping tabs on the President in the interests of national security -- and I seriously doubt that they need help from the bungling press pool that can't even keep tabs on President-Elect Trump when his entourage, SS and all, leave Trump Tower from the underground parking lot, in plain view -- James Bond the press pool is not. • • • Of course, President-Elect Trump's decision to leave his press pool behind is not unprecedented. In December of 2008, then-President-Elect Obama did the same while vacationing in Hawaii. The New York Times reported then : "In the news-free zone that is Barack Obama’s preinauguration Hawaiian vacation, this passes for a bulletin : The President-Elect ditched his 'press pool' of media minders to take his daughters to a water park on Friday morning. In making his dash -- with his Secret Service security detail, to be sure -- Mr. Obama drew attention both to the seemingly odd but important rituals of the presidential (and prepresidential) bubble and to just how much this very private public man chafes under its constraints." Then -- although it pains me to mention her name now that she is a "former" -- Hillary Clinton also ditched her press pool after becoming overheated and leaving a 9/11 memorial although amateur video showed her stumbling into a van. Clinton's press pool was not aware of her whereabouts for 90 minutes. Her doctor later announced the then-Democratic nominee had been diagnosed with pneumonia. • • • Dear readers, the silliness that passes for political journalism has hit a new low -- the real issue is that Donald Trump has decided to be his own man, to create his own relationship with a press pool that hates him and takes every opportunity to lie and fantasize about his motives, his actions, and even his intelligence. But, for Heaven's sake -- let him have a quiet family meal in peace. Keep your noses out of his home and hearth. America does not appreciate this latest tempest-in-a-teapot used to attack President-Elect Trump. It only makes us love him more. Guess who's not coming to dinner? -- the press pool.