Monday afternoon the corrupt DC Media whipped out the old 2008/2012 Playbook, dusted it off, opened it up to Page Gotcha, and were sure they had finally “got” The Donald. But once again, the DC Media was playing a lazy game of checkers while the Trump campaign played chess. For eight years I’ve watched the following unfold. This is the very first time, though, it ended with a Republican win.

We all know how the Obama-Media operates. In order to put Democrats in the White House, a narrative is created where the Democrat can do nothing wrong and the Republican can do nothing right. The way this is done is through relentless, partisan gotcha-journalism specifically designed to keep the Republican on permanent defense, especially when the Republican is looking to go on offense.

If the Republican wants the story to be about this, the DC Media finds an excuse, a “gotcha,” to make the story about how stupid/dishonest/racist/sexist the Republican is.

A good example is chief left-wing fraudster at the Washington Post, “fact”-checker Glenn Kessler. Hillary Clinton is caught red-handed lying about Benghazi, Kessler calls Marco Rubio a liar for correctly pointing out that Hillary lied. Mitt Romney correctly reminds voters that a president (Obama) who never visited Israel never visited Israel, Kessler calls Romney a liar. Carly Fiorina correctly points out that she rose from secretary to CEO, Kessler calls her a liar.

This dishonest, partisan DC Media tactic has effectively been used for two presidential cycles to blunt every GOP attack … that is, until this week.

Monday afternoon looked like the same ole’ same ole’ from these “fact”-checking cretins. The Trump campaign had just released a very effective ad making the candidate’s closing argument in Iowa. The ad included disturbing black and white surveillance footage, a birds-eye view of dozens of people rushing towards a border wall. The voiceover says, “And he’ll stop illegal immigration on our Southern border with a wall that Mexico will pay for.”

Desperate to undermine the effectiveness of the ad, the left-wing gotcha-queens at PolitiFact went to work and discovered that the black and white footage was not from our southern border but from Morocco. PolitiFact immediately branded Trump a liar, and naturally, the King of Fact-Check Fraudsters, Glenn Kessler, immediately did his part to spread the news.

In 2008 and 2012, this kind of cheap gotcha would have dominated the news cycle for at least 72 hours. The gotcha would have led the top of every cable news hour, and every Democrat under the sun, including Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, would have received sweet DC Media softballs inviting them to pile on. By the end of the day, the Republican Campaign would have been on defense, looking feckless, weak, incompetent, and not ready for primetime — which is the real goal of the media’s gotcha game.

Only this time that didn’t happen. In fact, the story is already fading out. What should be consuming the news cycle this morning is almost nowhere to be found.

Why?

Because Trump and his people were ten steps ahead of the Hillary’s Palace Guards in the media. They saw this coming– no, actually, they used this footage intentionally, and I’m guessing they did so in order to manipulate the media’s predictable partisan corruption as a way to invite a desired controversy.

The horrible, awful, biased, and not-very-bright Katy Tur of NBC News was the first to fall for it. On the campaign trail, she immediately asked Trump’s campaign manager about it, and this is the answer she received:

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TRUMP CAMPAIGN MNGR: “No shit its not the Mexican border but thats what our country is going to look like if we don’t do anything.” — Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) January 4, 2016

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The campaign later released an official statement stating the use of the footage was “intentional,” a means to illustrate the problem on our southern border.

This is not a debate our corrupt, left-wing media wants to have. They love how our porous southern border allows thousands of Democrats into America every day, and do not want to air video representative of this problem because they know it freaks people out, and does so for good reason.

This, though, is the exact briar patch the Trump campaign wants to be thrown into.

Trump continually puts the media into this no-win situation. They can either strengthen him by covering the issues he wants to cover, or they can not criticize him. In the past these cheap gotchas always ended with the Republican apologizing and removing the ad, or standing helplessly by as the media brutalized him.

In a 50/50 country, competence wins presidential elections. This is why the DC Media coordinates the “Republicans cannot do anything right” narrative. Trump understands this. He has said more than once that 2016 will be about competence. And time and again he proves his competence by shoving the corrupt DC Media’s corrupt Playbook right up their corrupt backsides.

In the political environment created by our cheap, biased, serially-dishonest, and hopelessly shallow Obama-Media, this is the only way a Republican wins the White House.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC