Did Carter Page say he had a meeting?

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2017

Well actually no, he did not: Did Carter Page do something wrong last summer? More specifically, did he do something wrong when he journeyed to Moscow in July 2016?

Like you, like the New York Times' Michael Schmidt, we don't know the answer to those questions. Let's make our question a bit more precise:

Has Page now said that he met with, or had a meeting with, or had a private meeting with, Russian government offcials during his trip last summer? More specifically, has he said that he met with, or had a meeting with, Arkadiy Dvorkovich, the deputy Russian prime minister, while he was on that trip?

Because the children are on a stampede, many of the boys and girls are trying to make you think that yes, Carter Page has said that. In reality, he has said no such thing.

How do we know that Carter Page hasn't said that? More specifically, how do we know that he didn't say that to a House committee last week?

How do we know he didn't say that? Let us quote from Senator Ervin, in the sagest reply ever made by a pol:

"Because [we] can understand the English language. It's [our] mother tongue."

We don't know what happened in Moscow last summer. We do know that Page didn't tell the House committee that he met with Dvorkovich when he was on that trip.

We also know that many children, including Schmidt, are trying to make you think different. Before we look at what Schmidt recently did, let's take a look at Gail Collins' new column in search of some comic relief.

The column appears in today's New York Times. What follows is vintage Collins. It also tracks a crackpot archetype, live and direct from the McCarthy era:

COLLINS (11/9/17): The Trump campaign adviser Carter Page made quite a splash with his rambling, six-hour-plus testimony before a congressional committee that demonstrated not only that he had been in contact with Russians during the campaign, but also that the man Trump picked to be one of his top coaches on foreign policy issues is … sort of nuts.

According to Collins, Page was "in contact with Russians!" As the analysts howl in pain, let's try to answer an obvious question:

So who is "sort of nuts" now?

Dearest stampeders, let's understand. There is absolutely nothing "wrong" with being "in contact with Russians!" It's rather hard to go to Moscow without committing such acts.

People are "in contact with Russians" every day of the week! The notion that this would constitute some sort of confession, some sort of offense, comes to us straight from the crackpot days when a Communist was known to be lurking under every bed.

Unless a dog is strapped to the roof of your car, there's absolutely nothing wrong with "being in contact with Russians!" The fact that Collins can author such crap—well, this helps you track the mental horizons of Collins' foppish, ridiculous newspaper.

How foppish is the Hamptonscentric world of the New York Times? This morning, in its Here to Help feature, the great newspaper helps us with this:

Here to Help
ARE FACE MASKS WORTH ALL THE HYPE?

TO SAY THAT FACE MASKS have become popular is a bit of an understatement—Sephora has more than 400 varieties...

And so on. That question comes from the low-IQ world we liberals foolishly regard as smart, chic, intelligent, bright, tres au courant and upscale. Collins' ridiculous statement about Page's offense comes from that same stupid place.

That said, it's true! Carter Page has indeed admitted to "being in contact with Russians!" But has he admitted to having a meeting with Dvorkovich, the deputy prime minister, when he journeyed to Moscow in July 2016?

Not if we're speaking the English language, our own mother tongue! When Page testified to that House committee last week, he said he spoke with Dvorkovich for five or ten seconds, in passing, at a public forum where each man was giving a speech.

He said the "handshake" exchange lasted ten seconds tops. He also drew an obvious distinction about one element of our English language, the one in which Collins pretends to work:

PAGE: Again, I did not meet with him. I greeted him briefly as he was walking off the stage after his speech.

[...]

It was literally— It could not have been more than—it was well less than ten seconds, probably closer to five seconds in terms of that interaction.

That's what Page testified to last week. See pages 36 and 38 of the official transcript.

Like Schmidt, we have no way of knowing if that statement is accurate. But that's what Carter Page actually said. He said he shared a "handshake" exchange with Dvorkovich. He testified that the exchange lasted "well less than ten seconds."

We don't know if that statement is accurate, but that's what Carter Page said. Unless you read the report by Schmidt in yesterday's New York Times, in which he tried to make you think that Page admitted to something else before that House committee.

Schmidt did this by offering clownishly selective excerpts from Page's testimony. Laughably, the cherry-picked excerpts are described, in the Times headline, as "Major Takeaways From Carter Page’s Congressional Interview."

In fairness, the excerpts were certainly "taken away" from all relevant context! The first excerpt appears under this bold-faced heading, in which Schmidt makes a claim which is flatly false:

SCHMIDT (11/8/17): Mr. Page contradicted his previous public statements that he never met with Russian government officials during his trip.

Sad! Schmidt goes on to offer a cherry-picked, extremely short excerpt from Page's testimony. He eliminates the several passages where Page explains that the interaction in question lasted "well less than ten seconds"—all this in the course of claiming that he "contradicted his previous pubic statements" (specifically, those from the Chris Hayes show) during the testimony.

We're sorry, but he didn't do so. We know that because we understand the English language, which may not be the youngster Schmidt's mother tongue.

Here comes a basic fact about our English language. If Person A shares a five-second handshake with Person B in the midst of a public forum, we wouldn't normally say that these two people had thereby "had a meeting" or "had a private meeting," a term Schmidt cherry-picks.

You know that if you understand English—and if you aren't conducting a major stampede.

Like the slippery young Michael Schmidt, we have no way of knowing what Page did in Moscow. For all we know, he devised a plan for World War III with Putin and with Putin's niece!

We don't know if he did that last summer, on his Moscow trip. But we do know what he said to the House committee. He know what he said because a transcript exists, and because the English language is our mother tongue.

We also understand the look of a star chamber. Such chambers are currently being conducted, in stupid ways, all over cable TV.

Chris Matthews conducted one such chamber on Hardball Wednesday night. Long ago, he endlessly ran such operations against Clinton, Clinton, and Gore. Doe to changes in ownership, he now conducts these operations against a whole different set of targets.

Tomorrow, we'll show you what Pettypiece said. As was true way back back then, so too today:

The strivers will make fools of themselves in order to echo the views of their powerful cable news hosts. Either that, or the strivers don't understand the simplest elements of their mother tongue.

Carter Page admitted that he was in contact with Russians! Truthfully, we aren't making that up. The pundit who had the dog strapped to her brain actually filed that complaint!

Meanwhile, are face masks worth all the hype? And had you ever heard of this hype?

The New York Times provides no links to its daily "Here to Help" feature. In fairness, we would be embarrassed too, if we published garbage like that.