Kaplan says Times got it wrong: Reliably told that this is Thanksgiving, we're going out to clean the pasture spring. We don't expect to post again until next Monday.
That said, we want to offer an instant correction of our last award-winning post. According to Fred Kaplan, Donald J. Trump didn't tell the New York Times that he has changed his mind about torture.
Here's the shocker. According to Kaplan, the New York Times managed to misreport its own meeting with Donald J. Trump! Kaplan's report at Slate appears beneath these headlines:
Trump Has Not Changed His Mind About TortureOur intention to clean the pasture spring keeps us from reading the transcript ourselves. But Kaplan describes the Times' latest bungle thusly:
The transcript of the New York Times interview contradicts the paper’s own story.
KAPLAN (11/23/16): There’s a notion out there that, after talking with Gen. James Mattis, who might be the next secretary of defense, President-elect Donald Trump is suddenly opposed to waterboarding. In fact, this isn’t true at all.According to Kaplan, the New York Times' transcript of the event contradicts its own news report. Trump didn't say that he'd taken a hike. "He explicitly said the opposite!"
The notion arose from a story in the New York Times about Trump’s hourlong meeting on Tuesday with the paper’s editors and reporters.
[...]
However, the full transcript of the session, which the Times published on its website, reveals a different bottom line. Trump is quoted as telling the same story about Mattis, adding, “I was surprised [by his answer], because he’s known as being like the toughest guy.”
But Trump then goes on, “And when he said that, I’m not saying it changed my mind.” (Italics added.) Let me repeat that: Contrary to the Times’ own news story, it is not the case that “Mr. Trump suggested he had changed his mind about the value of waterboarding.” In fact, he explicitly said the opposite.
We've tried to tell you about the depth of the New York Times' cultural / journalistic / intellectual dysfunction. People assume that we must be embellishing, joking around for effect.
"But dearest darlings," some are inclined to say. "It's such a wonderful brand!"
In the weeks to come, we plan to return to Kaplan's report about the Clinton emails and the assessment of same delivered by Comey the God. Last July, our mugging/clowning cable stars completely ignored that report.
Despite the intellectual brilliance and moral greatness which we of course all acknowledge, could that have been one of the three million ways we managed to get ourselves defeated in the recent presidential election? We think you should ponder the various things our self-dealing stars left unsaid.
Breaking! Despite the praise we heap on ourselves, our tribe just isn't especially sharp. The pass we took on Kaplan's report is one small part of a pitiful story which extends back many years.
On the brighter side, Rachel was very amusing last night, and ratings remain fairly good.
Bob, if the problem is that liberal media isn't "sharp" enough, by which I think you mean smart and precise, why doesn't Rush Limbaugh and Fox News hurt Republicans? Serious question.
ReplyDeleteIt is easier to lie than to tell the truth because writing about the truth means your story must match the facts, which requires research. When you are making things up, no verification is required by the writer or the reader. Republicans are postmodernists. They don't believe in science, facts or truth (except their own truth). No one checks Rush or Fox.
DeleteIf sharp means understanding what their goals are in advocating their ideals and communicating them in a successful way that achieves their desired ends, Rush and Fox are sharper. It's like Muhammad Ali against Mason Reese. 1972. Represent.
Delete11:15. Also remember fox doesn't have to lie about the hapless Donna brazillle or the idiotic deplorables comment. And as Bob points out. Liberals don't have anyone to defend actions like Comey'/s this summer where Fox would actively defend conservatives against a similar attack. No question. This is not sharp. Not sharp at all. But there's many examples.
DeleteI think you should have taken a right instead of a left at the last signpost. You have mistakenly wandered into a liberal blog.
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DeleteForget this crap and focus on the important questions you raised yesterday.
ReplyDelete“How did we liberals manage to lose this year's presidential election?”
By being rightly perceived as cowardly suckups and stooges to corporate power. Stop running candidates who are only an inch to the left of the plutocrat worshiping Republican Party--the kind who lost three of the last four presidential elections. All were far to the right of Eisenhower. With this 75% failure rate you've got nothing to lose by trying candidates who defend the New Deal like Ike did. Try people like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
“To state the obvious, we can't learn why 62 million people people voted for Trump by speaking with two such women.”
It’s far more important to learn what happened to the 69 million voters who voted for Obama in 2008 and who failed to show up for Hillary. With population growth that number should be in the 70 millions and we should be talking about Trump’s landslide loss today. Running pro-plutocrat candidates and leaving this vital fact out of our discourse remains the true unspoken reason for these defeats.
Hillary should have tried harder to be black. That would have brought out more of the African American vote for her.
DeleteHillary wasn't a charismatic agent of communication like Obama. She was unlikeable and uninspiring. She was a horrible candidate really. People don't get jazzed for uninspiring, horrible candidates.
DeleteThat's probably why she won 2 million more votes than Trump -- that likeability thing.
DeleteThe poster of this string is talking about a difference of 7 million votes. She was less like able than Obama and trump. You think she was like able? Don't be daft.
DeleteI like her and so do my friends. It took a huge amount of effort to drag her down. That is the measure of her likeability.
DeleteShe beat Obama in terms of number of votes, just as she beat Trump this time. It is the electoral college and caucuses that kept her out of office, not lack of popular votes.
DeleteTrump would have campaigned differently if there was no electoral college and still would have beaten her. I'm glad you and your chums like her but most people dont like her and never have. Most people probably don't like you or your friends too. This is one blogger's theses. People hate the smart cool kids as the guy showed in Nixonland.
DeleteMy friends and I hated her. We voted for her but we more or less despised her. Some less than others. She was running against Trump. We had to vote for her. Her biggest asset was that she wasn't insane.
DeleteTrump didn't beat her. Comey did.
DeleteComey didn't beat her. Voters did. Voters who were always going to vote for Trump regardless of Comey's actions.
Delete2 million people disagree with you.
DeleteYesterday's headline in my local paper was that Trump had changed his mind and moderated his views. Rush Limbaugh OTOH said that Trump had not changed his positions. Limbaugh said it was intentional mis-reporting, in order to reduce Trump's popularity among his supporters. Which story was correct?
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was to trust Limbaugh more than the mainstream media. Bob today confirms that this was the case. (Although I don't know that Limbaugh is correct about the media's motivation to mis-report this story. Hanlan's Razor might apply.)
So, in answer to Occam's Razor, maybe Rush Limbaugh and Fox News didn't hurt Republicans because they were more accurate than the MSM. Or, more precisely, because the MSM were even less accurate than Limbaugh and Fox News.
What about the other things that Trump has already changed his mind about? This Kaplan story doesn't affect those other reports, about not prosecuting Hillary and building a fence instead of a wall, and not repealing Obamacare. Does Rush think Trump has not changed his positions on that stuff?
DeleteEven a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCome back Gravy...potatoes and stuffing aren't the same without you.
DeleteSorry Bob, but I do feel superior to Republicans, especially the ones who are low information in the way they live their lives. I worked hard to become educated and I expend a lot of effort daily to find out about the world. I believe it leads to a better life and helps me avoid pitfalls of living, to the extent they can be avoided. I see no reason to pretend we are all alike in the way we approach the world. I will not pretend that their way is just as good because I don't believe it is. They certainly have the right to believe whatever they want, but I don't have to approve of it.
ReplyDeleteGot to go now. My flight to Peru for preventative health care is waiting at the airport.
Bernie has been talking about identity politics:
ReplyDelete“It is not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman, vote for me.’ No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry.”
Nice! He implies that a woman cannot have that kind of guts and he ignores the importance of perspective and experience in identifying problems. Women have different lives than men and men apparently cannot engage in empathy sufficient to understand what issues and concerns are most relevant to women.
I agree that Wall Street is important. I disagree that it is the most important challenge facing a leader. I disagree that getting tough and standing up is the best way to accomplish change. Sometimes diplomacy and finesse are needed.
Bernie tried to bulldoze his way into the nomination. His supporters became increasingly frustrated by their lack of success and they doubled down on the "standing up" to the DNC. Look how far it got them. They would have done better to understand the process and work the system and take a kinder and gentler approach to wooing Clinton's supporters than the Bernie Bros were capable of doing. People rejected them and they didn't know how to deal with it.
Bernie is still being a loose cannon. He still does not play well with his natural allies. If he had spent a few years being a woman, he would know better. All those guts will only take you so far.
He needs to shut up about identity politics -- it wasn't the problem. He was.
“Look how far it got them.”
DeleteYes, look how far it got them – they were only allowed to participate in writing the Democratic platform and moving it further towards a progressive stance. Bernie’s movement is still ongoing, and he continues to inspire people to take control of our government away from the corporate oligarchy.
You’re all but blaming Bernie for Hillary’s loss. I can only say, thank goodness he “bulldozed” his way into the nomination process. How could he have won 22 states in the primary if his message didn’t resonate with millions of people? Do you think the Democrats could have been pulled to the left any other way? Whether they actually will be remains to be seen, but I’m hopeful.
And he’s right about the Democratic party’s reliance on identity politics. They thought it was “Hillary’s turn,” but they were wrong. Granted, she won the popular vote – but that’s not how Presidents are elected. Maybe that will change, but we have the system that we have.
Until Democrats stop turning their backs on their traditional constituency – labor and the working class – they will lose. It doesn’t matter what their phenotype.
There are all sorts of other issues that need to be dealt with – gerrymandering, voter suppression et. al. but I think your resentment of Sanders is misplaced.
Voted for Hillary btw.
What is the point of writing the party platform if you sabotage the nominee and don't win the election?
DeleteSanders and Comey lost the election. No way around that. Sanders doesn't care.
DeleteOver at Cannonfire, they speculated that Sanders was being funded by Russian money and was acting in service of Trump's campaign, citing Roger Stone's previous use of third-party candidates to weaken the Democratic nominee. They thought Sanders was knowingly participating in that fraud for reasons related to his refusal to release his own tax returns.
I don't think my resentment of Sanders is misplaced at all. I think Sanders use of Republican criticisms of Democrats is continuing.
No one considers a concern over social issues like racism and sexism to be "identity politics" except conservatives. Liberals consider these to be important issues, right along with Wall Street. In fact, most liberals consider these issues to be so tightly intertwined with issues of poverty and polluted water supplies and job loss, that they believe it essential to address racism and sexism along with such issues.
Sanders didn't get that during the election and he doesn't get it now. That is a major reason why he is not much of a Democrat and doesn't belong in the party. His blind over-emphasis on class is most typical of socialists and communists of a different time period. He is a relic. His allegiance with the Right makes him a dangerous relic. He needs to stop this before he hurts more people.
“No one considers a concern over social issues like racism and sexism to be "identity politics" except conservatives. Liberals consider these to be important issues, right along with Wall Street.”
DeleteWall Street does not care about you or me. That’s where class and identity come into play. Perhaps you’re a Wall Street speculator, or worse. And your use of the word liberal is an obvious tell: That’s a dirty word in the mainstream.
Unfortunately, by excoriating Sanders, you expose your true self – a blind partisan, of what stripe I’m sure I don’t know.
That’s okay! But I still have Bernie magnet on my car.
The wingnut trolls who infest this site like cockroaches posing to be concerned Dems hate when Sanders or Warren get mentioned because it burns their antennae. They know that a vigorous New Deal style politics could put an end to their mostly successful attempts to help plutocrats build a third-world style plutocracy here in the USA. They want the Dem party dominated by plutocrat loving candidates who are politically only an inch to the left of themselves, because they know that such candidates generate no enthusiasm and suppress turnout allowing Repubs to win elections. Since Dems are losing elections in droves with this strategy why not change to a pro-working class anti-plutocrat New Deal style party of the kind that actually created the middle class.
DeleteYou keep forgetting that Hillary won the popular vote.
DeleteIt is so odd to hear you talk about New Deal when FDR was himself a plutocrat. Neither Bernie nor Warren could have gotten as many votes as Clinton -- she proved that by beating Sanders in the primaries, where he won only caucuses and not states with voting primaries. Bernie has no appeal for minorities or for women or for the professional middle class or older voters. He was the darling of men and millennials, and there is some evidence he was funded by Russian donations and the creation of Roger Stone, known for creating third party candidates to derail the Democratic nominee. Warren refused to run. This idea that there is some huge mass of Democratic voters, restless and hungry for the right candidate, is fantasy. Most people inhabit the middle. Clinton ran to the left of Obama in 2008 and she was even more to the left this time. It makes no objective sense to imply she was an inch to the left of center when she was the most progressive candidate the Democrats have nominated to date. Read her policy statements.
Trump was right, the election was rigged - by his cohort.
ReplyDeleteActually Bob, Kaplan is wrong on this one. The NY Times report is perhaps misleading, but that is because Trump is so crazy. If you read the full text of the response, it's pretty clear that Trump did change his view on the "value" of torture. He just stated flatly that it wasn't going to change his mind on using it. The Times should have been clearer, but Trump's position is not exactly clear and it is pretty unprecedented. He basically said 'The general thinks it doesn't work. Based on that, I think it has little value. But I'll do it anyway if that is what the American people want." That's a batshit insane position, but it's what Trump stated.
ReplyDeleteHe basically stated that he will torture for political gain. That by itself is scandalous.
Yes, Trump's position on this issue is unclear, as it is on many, many issues. He has a vague way of talking, including contradicting himself, so that one can never be sure what he will do or what his beliefs (if any) really are. I'm not praising this, just observing it.
DeleteBut, the lack of clarity IS the story. The Times should have reported that Trump's position was unclear, rather than guess what he meant and report their guess as fact.
Always accuse Trump of being both for and against something. That way you'll always be at least 50% correct 100% of the time.
DeleteTrump doesn't take ANYTHING off the table openly, even if he does so in his own mind. No good negotiator does.
DeleteFor Trump it is all about negotiating and not about adhering to the deals he makes.
DeleteWhat is the point of negotiating anything if you have no intention of keeping to the terms? You can agree to anything when you have no intention of honoring a deal.
We will find out, about 4 or 5 weeks into Trump's 2nd term that torture took place. No big deal... and THEY WOULD vote for Trump for third turd, I mean term. Just like WE POST ON FACEBOOK about Obama. Too bad Justin Bieber was born in Canada... maybe since they couldn't elect CAIN or CARSON, Kanye? [West's name is an ANAGRAM of KENYA. Wouldn't THAT really piss of liberals? Not me]
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