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Reader question: Please explain this headline, particularly “go to the tape” (Washington Examiner, February 13, 2017): Democrats ‘go to the tape’ to discredit Trump’s Cabinet. My comments: Tape? What tape, you wonder? Rightfully so. Today, of course, we don’t see any tapes around or at least don’t see them as often, as in the past. Today, audio recordings and video images are stored digitally in tiny SD cards. In the past, however, decades past to be specific, audios and videos were recorded and stored in cassette tapes. Before the prevalence of the Internet, DVDs and even VCDs and CDs, audio voices and songs were all recorded via the tape. The tape was also known as, well, film, because the tapes were the same flimsy material used in film making. Sounds like we’re talking ancient times, but (indeed, things change so fast) at any rate, Democrats going to the tape means literally they are using the video tape, i.e. providing video film or footage as evidence. All in an effort to discredit Trump’s Cabinet, or key members of Donald Trump’s government or administration, as Americans prefer to say. Let’s rewind a bit. Trump is, in case some of my readers live under a rock and are uninterested in world politics and current affairs in general, at this moment President of the United States. He is a Republican or a member of the Republican Party, one of two political parties in that country. | 
