NY Times Publishes Hot Garbage Take on How Scrubbed Space Launch Ruined Trump’s Victory Over Coronavirus
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The New York Times twisted itself in knots to turn Wednesday’s scrubbed SpaceX launch into a loss for President Donald Trump, writing that the weather delay ruined Trump’s “chance to rewrite the story line from tragedy to triumph.”
On Wednesday, the Times published an article entitled “At Cape Canaveral, Trump’s Search for a Heroic Narrative Is Thwarted” that offered a tasting menu of stupid right in the first few paragraphs.
“The president had hoped to watch the first launch of NASA astronauts into orbit from the United States in nearly a decade. Nothing would say the U.S. is back with more verve than a rocket’s red glare,” read the article’s subtitle, itself an overheated premise.
But the authors really made it sing by positing the rocket launch as a patriotic answer record to the hellish pandemic that has now claimed more than 100,000 lives:
For President Trump, it was a chance to rewrite the story line from tragedy to triumph. Even as the United States reached the grim milestone on Wednesday of 100,000 dead from the coronavirus pandemic, he would help mark the nation’s trailblazing return to human spaceflight from American soil.
On what planet, pun intended, is a SpaceX launch supposed to “rewrite the story line” of a hundred thousand dead Americans and counting “from tragedy to triumph?” That’s the kind of thing you’d almost think Trump is too stupid to say.
And according to the rest of the article, he didn’t say anything like it. This was all NYT’s concoction, a nation of pandemic-weary Americans huddled around their screens waiting for the latest leg of the space race to slake the misery of the coronavirus catastrophe.
Absurd premise established, they ramp up the absurdity in the next paragraph by practically mocking Trump for — I don’t know what, sucking the storm clouds out of the air?
But Mr. Trump’s hopes of demonstrating that America was back with the verve of a rocket’s red glare were doused by lightning-filled storm clouds that forced flight controllers to scrub the long-awaited launch of the SpaceX rocket even as the president watched helplessly from the Kennedy Space Center.
He just watched helplessly! What a loser!
I’m down for a good Trump roasting as much as the next guy, but seriously, what was the guy supposed to do? Kick his way through the guards at mission control and push the big red “LAUNCH” button himself? And if America truly were hanging their hopes for a morale reversal on this launch, could they not wait until Saturday? I hope Brad Parscale tears them a new one for that, just for giggles.
And when you consider Trump’s weird obsession with space stuff, he didn’t really hype the launch all that much, giant “LAUNCH AMERICA” countdown clock notwithstanding. He spoke for about two minutes before the launch.
In fact, the one thing that they could have very fairly and very lustily ripped Trump for — his failure to mention the 100,000 Americans whose deaths the Times believes would be turned into triumph by the launch, during his remarks or at any point that entire day — was instead briefly mentioned and excused.
“The president made no public mention of the virus death toll as it passed 100,000,” they wrote, then added “in keeping with his habit of not focusing on those who have been lost to the pandemic.”
Yeah, it’s just a habit — like picking your toes or misspelling hard words like “choked” — or “not focusing on” the death toll, which Trump actually did do the day before yesterday. But he brought it up to whine about the political cost to himself, and to congratulate himself.
So, who exactly is this article for? That line about Trump ignoring the death toll is pure propaganda, but the stuff about him helplessly letting the weather defeat his plan to reverse our national tragedy would get laughed off the editorial Slack channel at RawStory.
The fact is that a successful launch would be a minor, perhaps welcome distraction to some people, but the American people are overwhelmingly worried about catching the coronavirus from the maskless marauders Trump has been encouraging, and Trump’s helplessness to change the weather in Florida is the least of anyone’s concerns, now and forever.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
