WASHINGTON, Sept 7, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – It’s been six days and Donald Trump
and the US media can’t seem to let go of a tit-for-tat involving the danger
Alabama faced during Hurricane Dorian.
The bizarre episode has taken on an even more bizarre mascot — a Sharpie
marker used to alter a map of the storm’s trajectory.
Trump has insisted via Twitter to his more than 60 million followers that
he was correct about the danger the southern US state had faced. He has
brandished a mysteriously altered weather map in the Oval Office. He has
deployed a rear admiral.
And the US media has lapped it up.
On Friday — a day when survivors in the Bahamas and other places where
the hurricane actually did hit were trying to rebuild their lives — the US
president once more took to Twitter to argue about Alabama.
The media “went Crazy, hoping against hope that I made a mistake (which I
didn’t),” he wrote.
“Still without an apology.”
The spat might seem insignificant as one of the most powerful Atlantic
hurricanes on record wheels up the edge of the US east coast after
pulverizing the Bahamas.
But in terms of attention given by Trump, what’s become known as “Sharpie-
gate” is no sideshow.
The strange tale began when Trump tweeted on Sunday that Alabama was among
the states facing damage from the still approaching Dorian and would “most
likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.”
Minutes after Trump’s alarming tweet, the National Weather Service (NWS)
counter-tweeted: “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat,
no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system
will remain too far east.”
By Friday, however, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), the agency in charge of the NWS, seemed to vindicate Trump.
“From Wednesday, August 28, through Monday, September 2, the information
provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to President Trump and the
wider public demonstrated that tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane
Dorian could impact Alabama. This is clearly demonstrated in Hurricane
Advisories #15 through #41,” it said.
Furthermore, it stated, “The Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday
morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with
probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”
– Back down? Double down? –
Opponents of Trump pounced on the topic. Trump, as he usually does,
doubled down.
Over and over this week he kept talking about Alabama, even when no other
officials did, and he raged at the media for pointing out that Alabama still
hadn’t been hit and, in fact, never had been in real danger.
On Wednesday, the back-and-forth took a still more curious turn.
In the Oval Office, Trump showed off a weather map showing an earlier —
now completely out of date — forecast of Dorian’s track that predicted the
storm passing right across Florida, rather than turning up the coast.
Added to the end of the path? A large bulge, apparently drawn in black
Sharpie marker, that extended the storm deep into Alabama.
Facing even more derision from TV comedians, satirists and Democratic
opponents, Trump once more doubled down.
Late Thursday, the White House sent out the copy of a somber letter by
Rear Admiral Peter Brown — Trump’s counter-terrorism adviser — saying that
back on Sunday he’d been the one to brief the president on Alabama being a
possible target.
On Friday, Trump accused the media of being “fixated” on the issue.
“This nonsense has never happened to another President,” he said.
But the icing on the cake came in the form of an item now for purchase on
the Trump 2020 campaign merchandise website: a set of “Official Donald J.
Trump Fine Point Markers.”
“Buy the official Trump marker, which is different than every other marker
on the market, because this one has the special ability to drive @CNN and the
rest of the fake news crazy! #KeepMarkersGreat,” Trump 2020 campaign manager
Brad Parscale tweeted.