About that AttendanceGate Conspiracy: Trump Is Right This Time

by Scott Creighton

Let me first start off by saying a president has more important things to worry about than turnout at his rallies or the attendance of his inauguration. But what do you expect from a guy who spent the last 12 years looking for validation through Nielsen ratings? He’s a carnival barker. Ticket sales are his life.

I heard a little about the AttendanceGate conspiracy yesterday evening when I accidentally turned on CNN for a minute. They showed the New York Times comparison photos of Trump’s inauguration on Friday verses one from Obama’s 2009 event. They frothed with pretend outrage over the fact that he dared bring it up while standing in front of the wall of stars at CIA headquarters.

Notice they didn’t use his 2012 pics? Not by accident.

They went on to provide “evidence” that Trump’s event was poorly attended and chastised Trump’s Press Secretary for coming out before the pompous press and scolding them for under-reporting The Donald’s box-office draw appeal.

It was too silly for words so I ignored it… til now.

Turns out the Times photo comparison isn’t totally dishonest. The photos were from the various inaugurations they claim to represent. Just at different times.

If you go to CNN’s Gigapixel 360 deg photo of the inauguration taken at the moment Trump started his inaugural address and you pan around to the crowd, then zoom in a bit… you see a very different turnout than the one presented in the photo above and it’s quite sad that CNN decided to jump on the Trump-bashing bandwagon on this one because the proof of the deception is right there on CNN’s own website… so it’s not like they would have had to work very hard to find it.

This guy took a screenshot but I suggest you follow the link to CNN’s own photo and judge for yourself.

The photographic evidence does make it clear that more attended Obama’s first inauguration than showed up for Trump’s. He was a lot more popular at the time and especially with the kinds of folks who could afford to take time off from work and travel to D.C. to attend. Lots of Trump’s supporters aren’t in a position to do that just now and that is in part thanks to former president Obama himself and the people he really works for.

But it makes you wonder why such a sophomoric trick like this was pulled in the first place.

Probably because they knew it would get under his skin a lot sooner than the truth of the matter would get to the people. They were counting on his reaction to be juvenile and self-absorbed and for the most part, that’s exactly what they got.

Needling. Baiting. Antagonizing. Like a pack of ants biting grasshopper. This is the role of the press these days I suppose.

It’s pathetic and at least as embarrassing as Trump’s Press Secretary’s statement yesterday. It’s like watching 6th graders squabbling in the lunchroom. None of these people belong in the professions they ended up in but sycophancy has its rewards now doesn’t it?

But if you are one to be keeping score, truth is, the press was being deceptive with their comparison photos of the two events. Trump, in his childish self-absorbed way, was right on this one.

He still should have been big enough to let it go. But he was right.