Today we have a quiz.

Below are two quotes, one by our current President and the other by his predecessor. A prize will be awarded to the person who correctly identifies who said which quote.

Here’s the first quote:

“America needs you and our democracy needs you,”

“We need you to establish a baseline of facts and evidence that we can use as a starting point for the kind of reasoned and informed debates that ultimately lead to progress. And so my hope is that you will continue with the same tenacity that you showed us, to do the hard work of getting to the bottom of stories and getting them right and to push those of us in power to be the best version of ourselves and to push this country to be the best version of itself.”

“You’re not supposed to be sycophants, you’re supposed to be skeptics, you’re supposed to ask me tough questions,”…. “You’re not supposed to be complimentary, but you’re supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power and make sure that we are accountable to the people who sent us here, and you have done that.”

 “And you have done it for the most part in ways that I could appreciate for fairness, even if I didn’t always agree with your conclusions.” …..“having you in this building has made this place work better. It keeps us honest, it makes us work harder. You have made us think about how we are doing what we do and whether or not we’re able to deliver on what’s been requested by our constituents.

That is part of how this place, this country, this grand experiment in self-government has to work,” he continued. “It doesn’t work if we don’t have a well-informed citizenry. And you are the conduit through which they receive the information about what’s taking place in the halls of power. So America needs you and our democracy needs you.”

And the 2^nd set of quotes.

“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @CNN, @NBCNews and many more) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people, “SICK”.

With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!

Why Isn’t the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!”

OK, there you have it, two quotes, two visions as to the role of the 4^th estate. Because there is such a subtle difference to the quotes, I feel compelled to offer up a couple of hints

1. One quote was said by a guy who failed 3^rd grade Civics, but whose father, upon seeing the report card, stormed into the school and threatened to shut down the entire school unless his high IQ son received a grade more commensurate to his class and IQ—the threat was further punctuated with threatened multi-million dollar lawsuits against both the school district and the perpetuator of the outrage, 70 year old teacher Mrs. Dowling who had recently been widowed. (So as not to be accused of being the purveyor of fake news: full disclosure, I have not received confirmation that this little incident occurred in 3^rd It may have been 4^th grade.)
2. The 2^nd quote was from a man who studied deeply our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, and from that scholarship, he came to embrace the fundamentals upon which our democracy is based upon, including the vital role of the press in preserving and nourishing our democracy.

OK ladies and gents, cast your votes.

The winner will receive a DVD of the first 5 seasons of “Keeping up with the Kardashians”.

…I wonder how Kim K did in Civics?

I am going to end this with a quote from Nina Khrushchev, Nikita’s daughter, who ruled Russia though terror, murder, spying and by squashing any semblance of a free press.

“Here, President Trump defined ‘fake news’ the way Joseph Stalin defined ‘enemies of the people’: if they offer a slightest objection to his rule they must be wrong. And they must be silenced,”

“Somewhere on the way to his real estate/reality TV career he forgot his lessons in civics and American democracy from high school. Or maybe he always had an ‘F’ in those subjects; being rich, he didn’t and still doesn’t think they apply to him. For that we are all paying dearly.

And the longer he stays in, offering more and more somewhat Stalinesque amendments to American democracy, the more autocratic erosion to this once wonderful system we will experience.”

OK, when the daughter of a maniacal cold war dictator starts lecturing us about our democracy, well, you might say, ‘something’s rotten in Denmark’.

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P.S. I would be remiss if I didn’t address this week’s hot topic—the Harvey Weinstein cesspool

I believe that because of women coming forward, there is now a web site where men can go and unburden themselves, confess their sins of acts of domestic abuse and sexual harassment of women. When I heard about the site, the first person I thought of was our Emperor. Finally, a safe place Donny John can go to, a sanctuary where he can unburden himself of his sins against women. And once he confesses his transgressions, he can then begin the process of making amends with the ultimate goal of rejoining the human race.

I think it will be a long painful process for him as the number of women claiming to be harassed and abused by him are starting to rival the numbers posted by Harvey…

Here’s the question: who can we send, who will he listen to, who is the one person that can convince him to avail himself of this bridge to redemption?

Steve Bannon…well, maybe not. He appears to have some women issues.

His buddy Bill O’Reily…well, maybe not…some issues there.

Roger Aires? Oh, forgot…diseased, and he posted some Weinsteinesque numbers.

Is there no old white guys we can send? This is a mission of redemption for our President. I think he would totally do this—timing couldn’t be better.

OK, I will reach out to him, make a cold call to the White House—I probably should delete some of my previous Facebook posts but I’m sure he’ll take my call.

If he doesn’t, well, I often call him Emperor but I may have to switch to Predator in Chief.