Sean Spicer's weekend presser helped undermine years of work in exposing media bias

Here’s the problem: by sending out Spicer to scream about the press about a trivial issue while getting all the facts wrong, Trump has undermined years’ worth of legitimate criticism of the media by conservatives. Now, when we talk about Big Media bias, and try to make the case to undecided voters that they should reject slanted stories from the giant newspapers and networks, Big Media can simply point to Spicer’s press conference as an object example of how all of our complaints are (supposedly) bogus.

The stupid way Spicer came out swinging over nonsense, with all the facts against him, shows he is willing to be loyal to Trump — but not, unfortunately, to the truth.

Fundamentally, it’s wrong to stand at the White House podium and tell stupid, provable lies (or, in the memorable words of Kellyanne Conway, “alternative facts”).

But behind that, it’s hard for me to believe that this is an effective way to win over undecided voters. Smashing your own credibility is not usually thought to be an effective communications strategy.