In-the-tank-for-Donald-Trump Breitbart.com is livid — livid, I tell you, as in hissy-fit livid — that the NYT's Maggie Haberman is so "in-the-tank for Hillary-Clinton" that her understanding of plain English has corroded. Yesterday, Haberman's lividity-inducing lede was this:
Under assault from Democrats and Republicans alike, Donald J. Trump on Friday drew back from his call for a mandatory registry of Muslims in the United States, trying to quell one of the ugliest controversies yet in a presidential campaign like few others.
Here's the supporting Trump-reporter exchange, helpfully quoted by Breitbart, which proves, asserts Breitbart, that Trump "called" for no such thing:
Reporter: Should there be a database system that tracks Muslims who are in this country?
Trump: There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems, and today you can do it. But right now we need to have a border, we have to have strength, we have to have a wall, and we cannot let what’s happening to this country happen any longer.
Reporter: Is that something your White House would like to implement?
Donald Trump: I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.
So Breitbart is now attempting to disprove the provable by quoting self-evident proof of the blatantly proven. It's a clever tactic, because its readers will buy it, simply because it has nothing to do with the facts but everything to do with media-bashing. That is now the right's answer to all that's provable — and it comforts an exceptionally receptive base.
This is not news. I realize that. But it is perhaps the most flagrant instance of the right's journalistic surrealism yet.