((From BBC News))
The alternative to “facts” is “fiction.”
But President Trump’s special adviser Kellyanne Conway proposed something new on Sunday: “alternative facts.”
The strange phrase entered the lexicon when Conway told NBC’s Chuck Todd that the numerous misstatements in press secretary Sean Spicer’s angry statement to reporters Saturday were actually “alternative facts.”
The phrase called into the question Conway’s understanding of the word “facts” and caused widespread mockery on Sunday.
But Conway’s remarks were reflective of something real — a new administration which feels, on day three, that it is already under siege from unfair reporters. Trump himself spoke about his “running war with the media” on Saturday.
Spicer, Conway and other Trump aides are “planting a flag, saying they’re not going to tolerate this,” a longtime Trump aide told CNN on condition of anonymity.
The aide blasted alleged media “obsessions,” using some of the exact same language Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus used on “Fox News Sunday.”
“I’m saying there’s an obsession by the media to delegitimize this president, and we are not going to sit around and let it happen,” Priebus said on Fox. “We are going to fight back tooth and nail every day, and twice on Sunday.”