TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2024
None are for Candidate Trump: Today, it's the New York Times' David Leonhardt who's rolling down Storyline Road.
Perhaps for perfectly good reasons, Leonhardt has long been branded as one of the brainiest scribes at the Times. For the record, he prepped at Horace Mann, then went on to Yale.
Today, he's 51 years of age, and he's fallen in line with the narrative. This morning, he published a list of 21 questions. Dual headline included, his presentation starts like this:
21 Questions for Harris
We’re asking unanswered questions for her potential administration.
Kamala Harris has largely avoided answering questions since her campaign began: She hasn’t participated in a town hall or given an extended media interview.
She and her aides say she will do one soon. In the meantime, I’ve worked with my Times colleagues to put together a list of 21 questions that could help the country understand how she would govern. Here they are, separated into four categories.
The journalist lists 21 questions. That said, each question is for Candidate Harris, and for her alone.
He lists no questions for Candidate Trump. Scrolling all the way back to the start of the year, we see no sign that he has ever proposed any such grilling for Trump.
Briefly, let's be fair. It's true that Candidate Harris has "largely avoided answering questions since her [brief] campaign began." It's also true that she "hasn’t participated in a town hall or given an extended media interview."
That said:
When's the last time Candidate Trump ever "gave an extended media interview" to a serious journalist? To those who live along Storyline Lane, do those phone-ins to Fox & Friends count?
When's the last time Trump did a "serious journalistic interview" with a high-end reporter? Does this take us back to the widely lauded interview with Jonathan Swan, way back in August 2020. with the praise all going to Swan?
We don't want to belabor a remarkably basic point. It's been a long time since we've seen Candidate Trump placed in a situation where he's actually forced to answer serious questions.
When he does submit to taking questions, he more commonly takes that as an opportunity to launch one of his favorite filibusters. No connection to the actual question need apply!
We don't want to belabor a fairly obvious point. For the record, Leonhardt starts his list of questions for Harris with eight questions on economic policy. Below, you see the first five:
Economic policy
1. Madam Vice President, your agenda revolves around helping the middle class—such as offering a credit of up to $25,000 for first-time home buyers and increasing the child tax credit. You haven’t said much about some big related issues, though, including paid leave and universal preschool. Will you try to revive President Biden’s plans?
2. You support raising taxes on households that make more than $400,000. But these tax increases may not be large enough both to pay for your agenda and to reduce the federal debt, as you’ve promised. How would you reduce the debt?
3. Biden has been more populist than other recent Democratic presidents. He’s skeptical of free trade and has subsidized manufacturing. Are you as populist as he is? Or are there any policy areas in which you would return to a more market-friendly, neoliberal approach?
4. Biden has cracked down on monopoly power, and a central player in this fight is Lina Khan of the Federal Trade Commission, who has focused on Big Tech. Some of your campaign donors in Silicon Valley want you to fire her. Would you?
5. The Biden administration made an important change on climate policy, emphasizing subsidies for clean energy rather than taxes on dirty energy. This approach is more politically popular. Is it delivering fast enough climate progress?
The third question strikes us as perhaps a bit fuzzy. The fourth seems to possibly take us off into the weeds.
That said, when has Candidate Trump ever taken or answered any actual questions about his own economic policies? For example, about the crazy way he keeps describing his proposal for expanding tariffs? For another example, about the size and shape of his proposed tax cuts, and about the effect they would have on federal deficits and debt?
Answer:
To the best of our knowledge, Candidate Trump has never answered any such questions! Nor has he ever been forced to answer any real questions about his repeated, ongoing, furious claim that the 2020 election was stolen, or about his bizarre palette of behaviors leading up to the events of January 6.
(Leonhardt's fifth question concerns climate change. Dear readers, don't even ask!)
When has Trump ever agreed to answer any such questions? We'd be inclined to say that the answer is "never"—but along the way, his extremely strange behaviors seem to have been thoroughly normalized in the minds of some.
Journalists like Leonhardt are able to see that Candidate Harris hasn't answered their questions to date. By now, such journalists seem to be blind to a second fact:
Candidate Trump has never answered their questions either! So where are the questions for him?
David Leonhardt is a good, decent person. That said, it doesn't seem to have occurred to him that he's asking Candidate Harris to engage in behaviors that Candidate Trump has relentlessly shunned over a much longer stretch of time.
Way back when, certain people couldn't see their emperor's new suit of clothes. Today, our major journalists can't seem to see Candidate Trump's assortment of strangely disordered behaviors.
Yet we still have clowns here in the comments preaching the media is liberal.
ReplyDeleteWorst-kept secret in the World: the media wants Trump to win the Presidency back. They've been stacking the deck in his favor since Biden's inauguration. Of course they don't want to subject Trump to scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteque the posters that will somehow twist this blog entry as evidence that somerby is pro-trump and anti-harris.
ReplyDeleteSomerby says Harris has been dodging the press. How is that favorable to her?
Deleteque = cue
Deletethe majority of the article is about how trump has not answered any tough questions, with an acknowledgement that harris should also answer questions. when taken punch for punch i would say the blog entry is a much bigger stab at trump than harris. and are we saying that harris shouldn't answer tough questions, do interviews, or post a platform to her website? somerby is correct on those points in my opinion. sorry about my misspelling, but the point stands.
DeleteWe have a pretty good idea of how Trump would govern because we have four years of actual experience as President. That’s even better than a press conference. A candidate can lie in a press conference, but his/her actual behavior is what it is.
ReplyDeleteWell now, that's very true. And it's the reason why I'd vote for a pile of laundry over Trump.
DeleteOk. I’ll buy that. 250 days at his golf resorts, 40/44 appointees saying he won’t get their vote, 8 trillion dollars added to the debt, S&P 500 growth half of Biden’s, chickenshit withdrawal announcement from Afghanistan, leaving the heavy lifting to his successor, 40% more Covid deaths than necessary per Lancet study compared with comparable western countries, deserting the Turkish Kurds, leaving them high and dry, net job losses, rooting on an insurrection based upon the lies of his cronies, disappearing government documents in bathroom at Mar a Lago, acting like best friend to communist dictators, cheering on Putin after the invasion of Ukraine, lining his pocket with millions (over 8, republicans blocked further discovery) from various countries, 30,000 lies documented, etc. etc. etc. Yeah we have some data.
DeleteOh yeah I forgot reversing Roe v Wade.
DeleteThis is a funny way of reversing it.
Deletehttps://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/03/19/1238293143/abortion-data-how-many-us-2023
Oh yeah impeached for trying to coerce Zelensky into helping him attack Biden, via threatening to withhold arms needed to defend themselves.
DeleteAnd of course blocked bipartisan immigration bill for personal gain.
DeleteBut Trump's the one who caught the stolen election.
DeleteEveryone else was asleep at the switch but Trump studied the data very carefully and figured out something wasn't adding up.
So we have him to thank for that.
Cecelia, the court decision on Roe v Wade was reversed, not the ability of states to decide whether to provide abortion. The red states have eliminated abortion rights while the blue ones have not. So, yes, Roe v Wade was definitely reversed. This stupidity is more evidence that you are most likely not a native English speaker, since most people familiar with our language would not have gotten confused about this.
DeleteTrump has now been indicted for dozens of felony charges by five separate grand juries. He's a convicted felon. He's been found guilty of fraud and sexual abuse in civil trials. He cheated during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns in multiple ways (most of which I listed in a comment recently). He utters lies and nonsense every time he speaks publicly. He and his family used his presidency to enrich themselves. He reneged on an extremely hard- and long-fought nuclear deal the Obama administration made with Iran. He undermined NATO and has signaled that he will abandon our ally Ukraine in its fight against America's arguably worst enemy. He has signaled that he would support even greater aggression by the Netanyahu government. In addition to stealing dozens of boxes of classified documents on his way out of office, he dealt carelessly with sensitive intelligence information while in office (sharing a classified high-res satellite photo on twitter that the intelligence community didn't want him to share, and blithely discussing sensitive intelligence with Russian officials in the Oval Office), causing the intelligence community to be panicked about the prospect of a second Trump term. Republicans can't wait to vote for him again.
Delete“Republicans can’t wait to vote for him again.” It is reminiscent of the GW Bush two term presidency. First term: 9/11 followed by starting the Iraq war and war in Afghanistan. And ill - advised tax cut that even conservative economists criticized. Yet somehow, despite these blunders, the tribe got behind him and re-elected him. Second term: worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Bush’s first term had all the markings of an administration that , like Trump’s , was deeply flawed but no matter to republicans.
DeleteThe Republican Party is too old and in cognitive decline.
DeleteThey can't even explain how the 2020 Presidential election was stolen, when you put them under oath in a court of law.
I can't wait to hear how this posting proves that Somerby is surreptitiously trying to persuade gullible liberals to vote for Trump. I guess Trump's "bizarre palette" of "extremely strange" and "strangely disordered behaviors" is Somerby's key selling point.
ReplyDeleteSomerby used this essay to point out that Harris has been dodging the press. He did not explain why she, as a presidential candidate, needs to respond to anything the press says about when, where and how she should communicate with the electorate. The press is not the boss of her, although Somerby clearly argues it is. And how will she communicate strength while running around trying to please the guys in the press pool? Harris would be a fool to be guided by Somerby's demands or those of the media, and so is nobody's fool, thank God.
DeleteSomerby has you going, though.
Somerby sounds like a fricking mainstream pundit these days.
DeleteAgree.
DeleteAnonymouse 3:13pm, the media is liberal and they know that Trump will stand there and jaw with them all day. They know the more he stands there and shoots the bs, the more exposure he gets and they worry they’re doing him a favor. They are horrified with the knowledge that comes from experience that if they get into an adversarial stance with him, that he’ll start to mock and chide them and they look like belligerent partisans and that this plays to the average Joe.
ReplyDeleteThe media understands that when they put Trump in front of a camera they’re generally helping him no matter how rough they treat him. They’re right. He’s not a NY real estate wiseguy/businessman for nothing.
Best to stick with brief clips that they can set up.
Wiseguy, Cecelia? Sister, please. That fucking lying conman coward wouldn't have lasted a day on my 3rd grade school playground.
DeleteHe's a "businessman" who owes New York a cool half a billion. LOL, you people see him through rose colored maggot glasses.
Anonymouse 5:01pm, you sharp little Disney Princess you, when it comes to our takes on Trump’s personae we’re almost simpatico.
DeleteSure, Cecelia, you'll just let us know about it later.
Delete"Donald Trump is being mocked for suggesting the White House "rigged" the 2020 presidential election, which he lost. Trump was President in 2020, as critics rushed to remind him."
DeleteThe press only needs to let Trump dig his own hole and sh*t in it.
No so long ago, Anons were saying that anyone who suggested that Biden had lost a step because of age could not possibly be a liberal. I'm wondering: Have any of these Anons ever done an Emily Letitia?
ReplyDeletePP, it seems anonymices are far more concerned about what is said by an “obscure blogger” than they are about what is accomplished via Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
DeletePP is making things up now and he's got Cecelia all confused too.
DeleteDoes PP perhaps mean Emily Litella from SNL? Spell check is your friend, PP. Or perhaps you may want to say "never mind" yourself?
PP, Anonymouse 7:21pm, didn’t do a “never mind…”, she did a “never you mind…”.
DeleteIt isn't clear what you are trying to say, but Emily Litella said "never mind" not "never you mind". She was an Italian immigrant not from the South, where your suggested expression is common.
DeleteYou use "never you mind" to tell someone not to ask because you won't be answering their question. It is entirely different than "never mind" as Emily Litella used it, admitting that she was wrong and was abandoning her current rant because of her own misunderstanding.
If you don't get that, perhaps you never saw Gilda Radner's sketches on the SNL show.
Are you as stupid as PP is?
Anonymouse 8:18pm, yours is a classic anonymouse post. In responding to PP, I made a distinction between the Emily Litella character and anonymices in general. I also distinguished the difference between the statements “ never mind” and “never you mind”.
DeleteSo an anonymouse then rushes in to explain the character of Litella and to note the difference between the two phrases to me.
Thanks, anonymouse 8:18pm. Glad you got the setup even as you pretend to miss the point.
Why do you suppose people think you don’t know what you’re talking about?
Delete7:21 - Spellcheck is what screwed up the spelling! Ironic. Never mind.
DeleteAnd it’s so righteous of you to start name-calling over a misspelling. After all, this mistake is similar to Twain’s observation about the difference between lightning and lightning bug.
DeleteAnd as far as my point goes: Have you ever said “Never mind!” for berating Somerby for suggesting that Biden is old? I didn’t think so. Nobody has.
DeleteNever mind that Bob Somerby repeats Right-wing talking points at TDH.
DeleteI don’t mind anonymices name-calling for any reason. They’re anonymices. Of course they’re going to pretend a misspelling leaves them completely in the dark as to my point. Just like they must explain to me the distinction between “never mind” and “never you mind” when it was a distinction that I made in the first place.
DeleteNo one ever accused an anonymouse of being swift or honest.
Cecelia will vote for Kamala.
ReplyDeleteComma La will do an interview, but it has to be with Walz.
ReplyDeleteWalz will ask good questions.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:48pm, Walz is there to hold her hand.
DeleteDana Bash will interview Harris and Walz Thursday evening.
Deletehttps://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/08/27/politics/kamala-harris-cnn-interview
Kamala is the player, Tim is the coach.
DeleteThey are both players and the coaches are hired campaign managers and experts of various sorts on their campaign staff.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:31pm, I bet he ends up being both.
Deleteor vice versa
DeleteAnonymouse 9:19pm, that is a distinct possibility. It’ll be interesting to see.
DeleteDid the Biden administration exert pressure on Facebook in 2020?
ReplyDeletehttps://jabberwocking.com/please-note-there-was-no-biden-administration-in-2020/
This is relevant here too:
Delete"Donald Trump is being mocked for suggesting the White House "rigged" the 2020 presidential election, which he lost. Trump was President in 2020, as critics rushed to remind him."
Back in the real world, here is some actual media criticism from the blog No More Mister Nice Blog:
ReplyDeletehttps://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-incumbent-trap.html
Trump’ campaign is denying this happened but the Arlington National cemetary has confirmed it and filed a report on it:
ReplyDelete“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony," Cheung said, according to the outlet.
Despite Cheung's full-throated denial, the cemetery told NPR in a statement there was an incident and a report was filed. It said political campaigns are banned under federal law from election-related activities while in Army National Military Cemeteries.”
Trump believes rules don’t apply to him.
David in Cal will vote for Kamala:
ReplyDeletehttps://jabberwocking.com/trump-plan-blows-up-the-debt-gives-most-money-to-the-rich/
"To those who live along Storyline Lane, do those phone-ins to Fox & Friends count?"
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, he did a Q-and-A with noted journalist Dr. Phil.
😁
Deletehe did a Q-and-A with noted journalist Dr. Phil - in which he explained (while playing the accordian) how he actually would have won California but they cheated him. Dr. Phil sat there with his mouth open.
DeleteThe new Sarah Palin finally booked her interview - with Dana Bash (the equivalent of Trump doing an interview with Hannity.) But even in that friendly environment she needed a chaperone! Her handlers don't trust her to be on her own and I don't blame them. The question isn't if she comes across poorly, it's how poorly will she come across. Welcome to the post post convention bounce.
ReplyDeleteYour problem, with this criticism, is that this is a comparative game, and her competition is Trump. She will do fine compared with the demented orange codger.
DeleteI hope Harris tells Bash that Mexico will pay for the USA's Universal Healthcare.
DeleteI want to see the press report her answer and demand their next question, about climate change, is addressed by her.
Overturning Roe v Wade has made the GOP a rump party.
ReplyDeleteI bet they wish they' come up with a sneakier way to treat women as second-class citizens.