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Comment by sparkzilla | Hacker News Reader

Since you asked..The New York Times completely made up the story about Trump mocking a disabled reporter, to distract from their reporting of his comments about seeing Muslims celebrating in New Jersey [1]. Freeze framed his arms and completely made up the story to match. That's just one of many, many deliberate misdirections and bogus factchecking fails by the MSM in this election. The New York Times even apologised to its readers for its biased coverage.

[1]https://medium.com/@sparkzilla/trump-and-the-battle-of-the-t...

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Oh come on. I just watched the video again. He says "now the poor guy, you've got to see this guy" and then he starts flailing his hands around and imitating the reporter in a strange voice: "'uh uh uh I don't know what I said ah ah ah I don't remember' he goes like 'I don't remember maybe that's what I said'". I've watched plenty of Trump speeches and have not seen him use hand gestures like that, and I wouldn't associate that gesture with not remembering or hedging on something. I would definitely associate it with a disability like cerebral palsy.

It's definitely not just manufactured by taking a freeze frame. Look at the video.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/08/...

It is completely manufactured. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiUizn19p7o

Unless Ted Cruz is disabled in the same way as the reporter, this video makes a pretty good case for this just being a general Trump depiction of people who can't answer a question.

In the first video, Mr. Trump tucks in his chin, draws back his eyelids, and adopts a "retarded" tone of voice.

In the second video, Mr. Trump just moves his hands around a bit, as you say.

I had not seen the first video until now, and I am unfamiliar with the disabled reporter, but I concluded right away that he was embodying someone with a physical/mental disability -- something like Parkinson's or cerebral palsy.

If he was not, then Donald Trump has only himself to blame, for behaving in a misconstruable manner.

Except that the disabled reporter doesn't behave like Trump's mockery at all. He has no outward shaking or hand waving at all. [1] So the situation is actually worse: The Times not only falsely painted Trump as someone who mocks the disabled, they used a reporter's disability as a prop to attack Trump, AND they took advantage of a stereotype of disabled people to mislead their own readers. You can either accept the evidence that they lied and manipulated the reader, or continue to follow the narrative. Choose wisely.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baUuXQ443fA

Depends on your take. Was he re-enacting the disabled reporter? Obviously not. Was he ridiculing him in a mocking caricature? For the audience, who is mostly unexposed to the subject, it seems likely.

Such exaggerated mimicry is a regular occurrence in American secondary schools. I saw his exact performance targeted at the "special" kids, some of whom were quite normal, many times in my youth. If Mr. Trump was raised in America, he would know not to use those kinds of expressions.

> You can either accept the evidence that they lied and manipulated the reader, or continue to follow the narrative. Choose wisely.

No, those are not the only narratives. Here's a third: Donald Trump, regardless of his intentions, briefly acted the part of the fool. The media, acting in their own self-interests, covered the story -- with dramatic embellishment -- which had practically been handed to them. Either way, it's his own damn fault.

This is quite interesting. I actually thought that Trump mocked the disability of the reporter before, but looking at this video it seems like it was unintentional. I don't know why you are being downvoted this much, since it's a valid point.

>The New York Times completely made up the story about Trump mocking a disabled reporter

There is video (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34930042) and it was very widely reported by both conservative and liberal media.

There's video of him mocking said reporter. That's really what you went with?

Trump mocked the reporter, but he didn't mock him for his disability. Trump uses the same mocking motions all the time [1], but The New York Times, decided to freeze the image and write a story to say he was specifically mocking the reporter's disability. Big difference. And it worked, because so many people believe it. But it was a lie plain and simple. That's why so few people trust the media any more.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiUizn19p7o

Memo to somebody: A refutation talks louder than a downvote. See GabrielF00's reply to sparkzilla's earlier comment to see how it's done.

Y'know what works better than a downvote, or a "refutation"? Actual video that shows that Trump has mocked multiple non-disabled people in exactly the same way. Which means that he did not specifically mock the reporter's disability, and that the NYT story and freeze frame was manufactured to lead gullible and easily-led people to believe that Trump is the kind of guy who mocks the disabled. What a monster! So watch the video and decide what you are going to believe -- your own lying eyes, or the narrative.

This is the comment I had to read in order to finally understand the point you were making. I saw the video of the alleged mocking you are now calling into question, and the one about seeing people in NJ celebrating months ago. For me, hearing him say stop-and-frisk was a good way to police was enough to end my interest.

Some things aren't worth the electrons it takes to refute. As it is, even a downvote generates a request/response, and even that is a questionable use of such minimal resources.

"Oh, come on" will never be a refutation of anything. That phrase, along with "oh, please," "you can't really expect me to believe," and "you can't really believe" doesn't have any place in a reasonable discussion.

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