Control Freakout

"I'm gonna pick up my marbles and go home," said the spoiled brat who couldn't get his own way.

   Donald Trump has decided he won't attend the next debate among Republican presidential candidates, because Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly will be one of the moderators.
   During an earlier session, Kelly challenged Trump on various disparaging remarks he had made about women. This prompted a next-day remark from Trump that Kelly must have been menstruating at the time, and that's why she wasn't being "fair" to him.
   Curiously, for several weeks before the earlier debate, the candidate sent numerous complimentary messages to Kelly, praising her abilities. Kelly's response was to point out that he was trying to get on her good side so she would ask only easy questions.
   It didn't work.
   To the network's credit, Fox News said that Trump should know that he does not get to pick the journalists or the questions.
   Not that he doesn't try.
   Many reporters have pointed out that at campaign events, journalists are penned in at one side of the venue so they cannot get near the candidate or those who attend the rally.
   Recently, after the British Parliament debated whether Trump should be banned from the United Kingdom for his anti-Muslim remarks, the developer-candidate threatened to withdraw his investments in Scottish golf courses. He would pick up his golf balls and go home.
   Common among real estate agents and developers is the attitude that if someone -- especially a journalist -- is not an advocate for their position, that reporter is therefore an adversary, and to be treated as such.
   Reporters are neither. They ask tough questions because they need to be asked. Megyn Kelly -- a news anchor at a major American TV network -- asks tough questions.
   Claiming that anyone who does that or disagrees with anything he says is "unfair," only shows a bully's propensity to attempt to control everything.
   That is not the attitude of an American presidential candidate, but that of a third-rate dictator.
   And the more this particular candidate tries to control the media as well as the message, the tougher the questions from journalists will be.