James Fallows is a great writer and a professional speechwriter. His examination of Trump’s dumpster fire of a speech and the media’s reaction to it is well worth your while. Every journalist and opinion writer needs to read it . The piece begins like this: This post has one central point. It is that the press should give “fair and balanced” attention to what each of the major candidates is revealing about temperament, competence, and cognition, especially in their public performances. Right now we have these opposing, imbalanced narrative cycles: —For Joe Biden, every flub, freeze, slurred word, or physical-or-verbal misstep adds to the case against him. There’s an ever-mounting dossier, which can only grow in cumulative importance. “In another difficult moment for the President….” “Coming after his disastrous debate appearance…” —For Donald Trump, every flub, fantasy, non-sequitur, “Sir” story, or revelation of profound ignorance dulls and blunts the case against him. “That’s just Trump.” “Are you new here? Never heard a MAGA rally speech before?” “It’s what the crowd is waiting for.” “Oh, here comes the ‘shark’ again!” There’s an ever-thickening layer of habituation, normalization, jadedness, just plain tedium. The first five times Trump tells the Hannibal Lecter story, reporters notice and write about it. The next hundred times, they’re checking their phones. Last night a member of the Washington Post editorial board actually put it just this bluntly. Mehdi Hasan, formerly of MSNBC and now of Zeteo, asked Shadi Hamid, of the Post, about the many ludicrous and damaging claims in Trump’s convention speech, which Hamid…