Two takes on the Acosta/Miller kerfuffle

Steve Miller is a lizard person (stole that from haggis ).  If this were Hogwarts, he'd be a Slytherin prefect.

Acosta did a bit of grandstanding, but Miller was a cartoon villain twirling his mustache.

Should reporters just take nice quiet notes during a press briefing and only ask nice questions rather than challenging ones?

I don't dispute Acosta was a bit over the top.  But the policy Miller was announcing flies in the face of most of our history (a few dark periods excepted).

Btw, most economists think limiting legal immigration in this way will be a disaster for businesses, and that immigration spurs growth and is good for the economy, including immigrants who don't have special higher level skills.

www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/us/politics/legal-immigration-jobs-economy.html

www.marketplace.org/2017/08/03/economy/economists-think-immigration-boosts-growth-so-why-does-trump-want-cut-it

money.cnn.com/2017/04/12/news/economy/economists-immigrants-economy-trump/index.html

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/02/its-a-grave-mistake-for-trump-to-cut-legal-immigration-in-half/?utm_term=.6300dbd3ebd0 

www.bradford-delong.com/2017/08/open-letter-from-1470-economists-including-me-on-immigration.html

 Also, btw, I have faith it will never get past Congress.  It was rotting red meat for Trump's alt-right base.

-- CassandraW, granddaughter of four immigrants who came here with little money or English, took jobs most Americans wouldn't touch, contributed to the economy, sent their kids to college, and whose granddaughter made it to Yale Law School.  That, my friends, is what America is supposed to be about, and we forget it at our peril.  

Acosta was a bit dramatic.  But Miller was despicable and dishonest, and his comments on the message of the Statue of Liberty illustrated it.

ETA: I didn't check "both acted like schmucks" even though Acosta was a bit schmucky, mostly because his schmuckiness was a speck of dust compared to the massive beam that was Miller's schmuckiness. 

I think what he did, though perhaps a bit overly dramatically, was highlight the essential un-American-ness of the proposed policy.

Past presidents, Democrat and Republican alike, proudly quoted Lazarus's poem. This words, "bring me your tired, your poor...". www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/bushtext071001.htm -
www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=37550

- they might fight illegal immigration, but they championed these words as the essence of what America is about.

For Miller to diss them, and then double down on it, really highlights how far this administration is departing from previous ones, and how ugly its motivations are.  Acosta pushing him on it is what caused him to do that.  Just asking questions would simply allowed Miller to give lip service to his "'Merica can't spare the jobs and they'd be a burden" bullshit.

I think the media needs to push back at this administration.  Otherwise, they are helping to normalize what is not (or shouldn't be) normal. 


So, yeah, Acosta was maybe a bit much, but in comparison to Miller...

No, our hat was 1848, with the feather

I agree -- Acosta's petulance at the end was annoying.

But he's being weighed against lizard dude.

Steve is tied with Bannon as my least favorite Trump administration person so far. At least the Mooch was good for a few laughs.

ETA:

OK, Kellyanne Conway is tied with them.

Pfft. You just enjoy shooting people.

 

Waste not, want not.