'If I threaten someone, you'll know it': Kellyanne Conway is sounding like Donald Trump

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/25/if-i-threaten-someone-youll-know-it-kellyanne-conway-is-sounding-like-donald-trump/


White House counselor Kellyanne Conway listens as President Trump talks to reporters Friday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

By Erik Wemple Media critic

Oct. 25, 2019 at 6:27 p.m. EDT

Kellyanne Conway doesn’t want reporters to say that she threatened the Washington Examiner reporter whom she threatened. “So, listen, if you’re going to cover my personal life, if you’re going to cover my personal life, then we’re welcome to do the same around here,” said Conway in a phone call recorded by the Washington Examiner’s Caitlin Yilek.

It’s the media story of the week, thanks to all the hostile, condescending and imperious comments that Conway made in the call. The audio is intoxicating.

Here’s the quick summary of the proceedings: Yilek on Tuesday aggregated a story from Bloomberg News claiming that President Trump had considered replacing acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney with Conway, counselor to the president. Trump later denied the report, as if that’s relevant. In contextualizing Conway’s alleged candidacy for a promotion, Yilek noted that she had unique circumstances tugging at her professional life:

Conway has been in the middle of Trump’s barbs with her husband, George, a conservative lawyer who frequently makes headlines for his criticism of the president. George Conway said earlier this month that White House aides should resign unless they can ‘have some moderating or blunting effect’ on Trump. He refused to discuss his wife, who has worked for Trump since the 2016 presidential campaign.

It was that passage that Conway couldn’t abide, so she rang up Yilek. A key part:

So I just am wondering why in God’s earth you would need to mention anything about George Conway’s tweets in an article that talks about me as possibly being chief of staff. Other than it looks to me like there’s no original reporting here, you just read Twitter and other people’s stuff, which I guess is why you don’t pick up the phone when people call from the White House because if it’s not on Twitter or it’s not on cable TV, it’s not real.

There’s so much delicious filling in that polemical empanada — generational haughtiness about trends in info-tech, reportorial nitpicking, “wondering” as camouflage for bullying, and so on. The counselor goes on to ask Yilek, in essence, to justify her professional existence. The Washington Examiner identifies Yilek as a “breaking news reporter,” which served as Conway’s jumping-off point: “I’m just trying to give you a chance to explain why you think what you wrote qualifies as breaking news or reporting,” said Conway.

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Eff her - her career will soon be over. Good thing for her her husband won't be a pariah...

[MFM008]

2. I think its a ruse

The louder she yells she hopes no one will find out she is "Anonymous "...or George is.

[struggle4progress]

3. ...