Barack Obama may have been under-qualified and under-experienced when he ran in 2008, but his election allowed the country to feel good about itself. Democrats should be having a cakewalk to 2020 by giving Trump voters a candidate they could feel good about voting for to signal an end to the Trump experiment. That’s not the election we seem to be getting. And the media aren’t helping.
Numerous outlets this week deceived themselves when they referred to Mr. Trump’s “racist tweets” as if their racist nature was an established fact that good reporting had nailed down. They think they are being brave when they are being the opposite. Brave was a dissenter: Keith Woods, National Public Radio’s diversity chief, who argued on NPR’s website that reporters should report facts and do interviews and leave the moralizing to people they quote.
He’s right. It is simply an assertion by Mr. Trump’s critics that he had racist intent. It can never be more than that unless Mr. Trump decides to declare himself a racist. No fact is available to belie him if he denies the intent ascribed to him. How is this a good position for news organization to be in?
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