CNN's Subliminal Ad for Hillary

Last night, I watched Fareed Zakaria’s one hour show on CNN entitled, “Vladimir Putin-The Most Powerful Man in the World”. On the surface, it was dedicated to the idea that Putin is a malevolent dictator, but one who is crafty, shrewd, and more than a match for Trump. It was also designed to convince the viewer by implication that Putin, indeed, swung the election to Trump. The reason, according to Zacaria, is that Putin despised Hillary Clinton, mostly because she spoke out against him and how he won election as Russia’s president.

The soft-spoken Zacaria is a clever talking head. He comes across to the casual viewer as reasoned and fair. He is anything but. He is very adept at getting the viewer to draw inferences from his statements.

Last night’s show was very adept at portraying Hillary Clinton as a great woman who stood up to Putin. The visuals of Hillary were impressive. She was all but portrayed as riding in on a white horse, the great leader who would have been a match for Putin on the world stage.

If only Putin hadn’t swung the election for Trump, who, in Zacaria’s own words is “no Vladimir Putin”.

I also noted that Hillary’s clips were short because, as we all know, the longer you see and hear Hillary speak (like anything more than ten seconds), the faster you are turned off by her.

Is Putin the world’s most powerful man? Debatable since Russia is not the world’s most powerful country.

Is Zacaria correct when he says that Trump is no Putin? It depends and remains to be seen. Trump is not a dictator. He has never ordered anyone to be killed as it is widely believed that Putin has. Trump presides over a democracy. He may show public contempt for the press, but he cannot shut them down. CNN and Zakaria are free to produce dishonest programs such as the one last night whose real purpose was not to slam Putin, but to glorify Hillary Clinton and tear down Trump.