1. An honest debate over Thursday's New York Times interview with President Donald Trump must broach what few journalists want to broach: racism as a mediating force in how they do their jobs.
2. In an honest debate, it must be said that no journalist would have let Barack Obama say what Trump said without challenging him. The former president was asked to explain everything, to justify everything.
3. Everything—right down to his choice of suits.
4. There is no doubt in my mind the injustice of Obama's experience colored the reaction to reporter Michael Schmidt's impromptu interview with Trump at the president's Florida resort.
5. The pain of that experience remains vivid, and because that pain was deepened by the election of Obama's antithesis, the natural—and understandable—reaction is outrage.
6. Here's America, allowing a white president to say whatever falsehood he wants while a black president can't speak truth plainly.
7. I deeply sympathize with this. It is honest, and truth is above all else necessary to freedom. But it's out of a need for honesty that we must keep asking questions: Is the issue how journalists treat Trump—or is it how they treated Obama?
8. The press should have treated Obama better. But that does not mean Schmidt should have been more aggressive with Trump. It does not mean Schmidt should have nipped his lies in the bud. It does not mean he should have demanded the president explain his delusions.
9. My point here rests on a plain truth. Trump is not Obama. Obama would never have stopped an interview because of tough questioning.
10. Obama is a thinker and writer, a man who thrives on complexity, nuance and ambiguity. Confident in his abilities, humbled by the presidency, Obama could handle any question, even if he had to fudge it.
11. Trump is not Obama. He can't handle questioning. His ego is a desiccated husk. He can't lie well. He would end an interview. Faced with this, Schmidt had to choose: Let him say whatever he wants or risk losing the interview.
13. You could say Schmidt was cowardly. You could say he's hopelessly biased for being a part of the Times team that made a fetish of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's email server. You could call him a racist.
14. All of that is fair game, I suppose, but none of that adequately explains his decision; it does not take into account circumstances informing a journalist's choices, nor the trade-offs inherent in those choices.
15. Is there a social cost to giving Trump a (small) platform to lie? Yes, obviously. But there are also benefits. We are going to be talking about the president's reedy mental capacity long after we stop debating this Times interview.
16. What if Schmidt had been more assertive? My guess is Trump would have stopped the interview—as it was taking place at his resort, among his guests, including Schmidt—and there was no pressure to keep talking, as there would have been had Trump been speaking on live TV.
17. Then we would not know he truly has no idea how health care works, among other things. We would not know that his cognition appears impaired, nor that he is clearly freaked by special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
18. Bear in mind that journalism is about shedding light on things hiding in shadow. Power and corruption thrive in darkness. So does evil.
19. Liberals blasted the Times last month for profiling a neo-Nazi. What most don't know is the neo-Nazi, Tony Hovater, paid a price for seeking the light: He and his wife lost their jobs, and they had to leave town.
20. Liberals feared profiling Hovater would "normalize" fascism. I'm sure someone somewhere thought it must be normal if fascism is in the Times, but mostly people reacted as they should: with utter horror.
21. Again, there is a social cost to doing journalism, but there is also much to gain.
22. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that democracy is prone to damaging fits of passion and error. Even so, he wrote in 1835, it is still an opportunity for participants to learn.
23. Learning can't happen without journalism, however, without people willing to illuminate shadow. Schmidt's light was dim, but it was still light.
