Numbersgate, Inauguration - Five Pinocchios For Spicer

Here's my summary of a report by Brian Stelter of CNN at Reliable Sources:

NBC's Katy Tur notes that Spicer, in his statement, also objected to two specific tweets by reporters. This is what happened during the campaign too. "Trump's obsessed with tweets -- campaign hardly dinged me for my on-air reporting but they'd call/email to say Trump found my tweets 'disgraceful,'" Tur tweeted. She also recalled how Kellyanne Conway tracked and printed out reporters' Twitter timelines...

The Boston Globe's Matt Viser: "The White House is trying to take us into post-factual America. The press, and the public, cannot let that happen."

The Economist's David Rennie: "Why it's alarming Sean Spicer was sent out" to misstate the facts: It "implies his job is to reassure Trump loyalists, not inform USA."

WashPost's Dave Weigel: "The man who forced Spicer to give that statement controls our nuclear arsenal. Enjoy your Saturday!"

Toronto Star's Daniel Dale: "Trump's lying has always been a central story. It's not a sideshow, it's the show. Big media still largely unprepared to deal with it."

Is this what every single day will be like?

Mika Brzezinski: "Sean Spicer's first hostage video ... that was pathetic. Embarrassing. Bad. Just bad."

Joe Scarborough: "A president who speaks from hallowed ground at Langley about crowd size and press coverage may soon see his ratings drop into the 20s."

If you guessed that the inauguration would draw 30.6 million viewers, you were right! It was "significantly lower than the crowd that turned out for Barack Obama's first inauguration in 2009," Variety's Daniel Holloway reports. But it was higher than the audience for Obama's second inauguration in 2013. These #'s are for the full-day coverage, not just the swearing-in.

Click here for an article at The Washington Post, by Glenn Kessler, entitled "Spicer earns Four Pinocchios for false claims on inauguration crowd size." It points out that low numbers for the inauguration of a Republican president can be partially explained by the fact that D.C. votes solidly Democratic:

The Washington area leans left. Trump earned only 4 percent of the vote in the District of Columbia. Among the areas served by the Washington Metro, Trump received 8 percent of the vote in Prince George’s County, less than 15 percent of the vote in Montgomery County, less than 17 percent of the vote in Arlington County and less than 30 percent of the vote in Fairfax County.

I've read (unsubstantiated because I'm too lazy to look up the reference right now, but I think it's true) that for one of Reagan's inauguration speeches -- I'm not sure which one -- D.C. voted Democratic, but all the surrounding counties voted Republican, meaning attending the inauguration for lots of Republicans was as simple as crossing a bridge. Republican support in the D.C. area diminished every election since then, to the point that this year, all the counties surrounding D.C. voted for Obama; the nearest counties that voted Republican were 27 and 43 miles away from the center of D.C.

The article says:

Marcel Altenburg and Keith Still, crowd scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain, analyzed photographs and video taken of the Mall and its vicinity for the New York Times and concluded that about 160,000 people were in those areas in the hour before Trump’s speech. By contrast, they said, at least 470,000 people were in those areas for the Women’s March as of 2 p.m. on Saturday, the time of the march’s peak density.

The article itemizes Spencer's "alternative facts," as Kellyanne Conway put it, formerly known as "lies":

“This was the first time in our nation’s history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall. That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past the grass eliminated this visual.”

“We know that from the platform where the president was sworn in, to 4th Street, it holds about 250,000 people. From 4th Street to the media tent is about another 220,000. And from the media tent to the Washington Monument, another 250,000 people.” [True, but it's dishonest to imply that these areas were full -- they weren't.]

“We know that 420,000 people used the D.C. Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama’s last inaugural.”

“This was also the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the Mall, preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being able to access the Mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past.”

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.”

I won't bother to refute all of these statements: Go to the article, which concludes with a section entitled "The Pinocchio Test," giving Spicer WaPo's lowest grade, four Pinocchios:

This is an appalling performance by the new press secretary. He managed to make a series of false and misleading claims in service of a relatively minor issue. Presumably he was ordered to do this by Trump, who conjured up fantastic numbers in his own mind, but part of a flack’s job is to tell the boss when lies are necessary — and when they are not.



Spicer earns Four Pinocchios, but seriously, we wish we could give five.