What bothers me about the trump veterans brouhaha
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Let's go back to when McCain was alive. The man was a royal pain in the ass, and was one of the main reasons the republicans couldn't get their shit together and stand up to the democrats. Republicans were to the point of openly hoping he would lose his next election. A commonly expressed sentiment was "I'd call him an ass hole but he's a war hero so I'll sit on my thumbs", in so many words.
The only reason most republicans didn't say it openly was because they didn't want to be "politically incorrect". One of the very reasons Trump is now and was then the man needed for the job was precisely because he wont be politically correct just to make you feel better. McCain was a sorry assed jerk who was constantly a turd in the republican punchbowl, and Trump said what 90% of republicans were thinking but didnt dare say. He says what needs saying, and if you dont like it well fuck you. I like that.
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Let's go back to when McCain was alive. The man was a royal pain in the ass, and was one of the main reasons the republicans couldn't get their shit together and stand up to the democrats. Republicans were to the point of openly hoping he would lose his next election. A commonly expressed sentiment was "I'd call him an ass hole but he's a war hero so I'll sit on my thumbs", in so many words.
The only reason most republicans didn't say it openly was because they didn't want to be "politically incorrect". One of the very reasons Trump is now and was then the man needed for the job was precisely because he wont be politically correct just to make you feel better. McCain was a sorry assed jerk who was constantly a turd in the republican punchbowl, and Trump said what 90% of republicans were thinking but didnt dare say. He says what needs saying, and if you dont like it well fuck you. I like that.
@Larry said in What bothers me about the trump veterans brouhaha:
Let's go back to when McCain was alive. The man was a royal pain in the ass, and was one of the main reasons the republicans couldn't get their shit together and stand up to the democrats. Republicans were to the point of openly hoping he would lose his next election. A commonly expressed sentiment was "I'd call him an ass hole but he's a war hero so I'll sit on my thumbs", in so many words.
The only reason most republicans didn't say it openly was because they didn't want to be "politically incorrect". One of the very reasons Trump is now and was then the man needed for the job was precisely because he wont be politically correct just to make you feel better. McCain was a sorry assed jerk who was constantly a turd in the republican punchbowl, and Trump said what 90% of republicans were thinking but didnt dare say. He says what needs saying, and if you dont like it well fuck you. I like that.
You are such a pain in the ass bringing up context. The argument was nearly won.
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But he didn't call him an asshole, despite his military record. That's exactly what he should have done. Instead, he criticized his military record, specifically his being a POW, which has nothing to do with his politics.
@Loki So you think then that it's okay to insult a former POW for being a POW because he's politically a royal pain in the ass? Context makes it okay to confuse a military record with politics?
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But he didn't call him an asshole, despite his military record. That's exactly what he should have done. Instead, he criticized his military record, specifically his being a POW, which has nothing to do with his politics.
@Loki So you think then that it's okay to insult a former POW for being a POW because he's politically a royal pain in the ass? Context makes it okay to confuse a military record with politics?
@Aqua-Letifer said in What bothers me about the trump veterans brouhaha:
But he didn't call him an asshole, despite his military record. That's exactly what he should have done. Instead, he criticized his military record, specifically his being a POW, which has nothing to do with his politics.
@Loki So you think then that it's okay to insult a former POW for being a POW because he's politically a royal pain in the ass? Context makes it okay to confuse a military record with politics?
Never. It was really fvcked up on Trump’s part. Trump however is pretty transparent who he is and is almost always a counterpuncher. The MSM is the most transactional bunch of the ends justify the means and I can’t believe have given up a lifetime of trust building, but worse try to trick people into believing lies and justifying those lies. Every lie is a debt to the future.
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This is how every Trump pig pile works. The current issue is about a claim that Trump called veterans losers and refused to visit a war memorial in France because he thought they were losers. Then those who were there in the room say it never happened, including one guy who wrote a book trashing Trump. The canceled trip was said to be about the weather. Having lost the argument over what he did or didn't say, the trashing turned to how he's lying about the weather. Then it was proven using documentation that it WAS canceled due to weather. Now the claim about what he said is shown to be a lie, the claim that weather was just an excuse is shown to be a lie, so to keep the whole thing going it becomes "yeah, but it sounds like something he would say, just look at what he said about McCain!" Just don't bother to put what he said about McCain in context, because "Orange man bad" and once you tear down that bit of out of context bull shit the Trump bashers will just deflect to some other way of feeding their mindless hate.
Damn.
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Oh - and whatever you do, don't point out to the Trump bashers all the many times Trump has attended events honoring the war dead, or what He's done for veterans, or the two pay raises he's given the military, or how he has rebuilt the military, or how he has made it possible for soldiers to actually do their jobs, or how he regularly, with no public fanfare, visits Walter Reed hospital to visit the soldiers who are wounded.
Don't mention any of that, or they'll start talking about the whore that tried to shake him down again.
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@Aqua-Letifer said in What bothers me about the trump veterans brouhaha:
But he didn't call him an asshole, despite his military record. That's exactly what he should have done. Instead, he criticized his military record, specifically his being a POW, which has nothing to do with his politics.
@Loki So you think then that it's okay to insult a former POW for being a POW because he's politically a royal pain in the ass? Context makes it okay to confuse a military record with politics?
Never. It was really fvcked up on Trump’s part. Trump however is pretty transparent who he is and is almost always a counterpuncher. The MSM is the most transactional bunch of the ends justify the means and I can’t believe have given up a lifetime of trust building, but worse try to trick people into believing lies and justifying those lies. Every lie is a debt to the future.
@Loki said in What bothers me about the trump veterans brouhaha:
Never. It was really fvcked up on Trump’s part.
Yep, all I'm saying. I understand Trump's motivations and the problem with the MSM, and don't disagree with your analysis. Just saying it's still screwed up what he said is all.
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No, I don't think it was cool, Aqua. But if you look at what his administration has tried to do for veterans it is clear that he respects them greatly. What he has said pales beside that.
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No, I don't think it was cool, Aqua. But if you look at what his administration has tried to do for veterans it is clear that he respects them greatly. What he has said pales beside that.
@Mik said in What bothers me about the trump veterans brouhaha:
No, I don't think it was cool
It was obnoxious AF.
It was wrong.
Despite the animus between him and McCain, the statement transcends that, insulting every soldier who's been taken POW (Has he ever read "Unbroken"? I doubt it).
This is one of those enforce errors that Trump is prone to. Say something off the cuff that's going to haunt you for a long time. I was not a hube fan of McCain (though I preferred him to what's-his-name), but this was just plain wrong.
Go ahead and complain about the man's policies, positions, whatever. But when you make a comment like that, it's a wide net you've cast, catching many innocents with your insult.
It was wrong.
And, @Mik , actions do, indeed, speak louder than words. Unfortunately, these words were pretty damn loud, and resonated with many people as an insult to POWs everywhere, as they should. As I said, unforced error, and wrong.
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The POW thing was a clear, early proof positive that this guy has no integrity.
I get that he’s doesn’t like McCain, but that his mind would even think to go that POW comment says a lot about the sort of person he is.
@xenon said in What bothers me about the trump veterans brouhaha:
I get that he’s doesn’t like McCain, but that his mind would even think to go that POW comment says a lot
There are things one thinks, and there are things one says. The first should be a much smaller subset of the second.
Nekulturny....
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@jon-nyc said in What bothers me about the trump veterans brouhaha:
Even FoxNews confirmed the reporting.
Glenn Greenwald, another person who's certainly not a fan of Trump comments:
Goldberg claims that “four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day” — whom the magazine refuses to name because they fear “angry tweets” — told him that Trump made these comments. Trump, as well as former aides who were present that day (including Sarah Huckabee Sanders and John Bolton), deny that the report is accurate.
So we have anonymous sources making claims on one side, and Trump and former aides (including Bolton, now a harsh Trump critic) insisting that the story is inaccurate. Beyond deciding whether or not to believe Goldberg’s story based on what best advances one’s political interests, how can one resolve the factual dispute? If other media outlets could confirm the original claims from Goldberg, that would obviously be a significant advancement of the story.
Other media outlets — including Associated Press and Fox News — now claim that they did exactly that: “confirmed” the Atlantic story. But if one looks at what they actually did, at what this “confirmation” consists of, it is the opposite of what that word would mean, or should mean, in any minimally responsible sense. AP, for instance, merely claims that “a senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments confirmed some of the remarks to The Associated Press,” while Fox merely said “a former senior Trump administration official who was in France traveling with the president in November 2018 did confirm other details surrounding that trip.”
In other words, all that likely happened is that the same sources who claimed to Jeffrey Goldberg, with no evidence, that Trump said this went to other outlets and repeated the same claims — the same tactic that enabled MSNBC and CBS to claim they had “confirmed” the fundamentally false CNN story about Trump Jr. receiving advanced access to the WikiLeaks archive. Or perhaps it was different sources aligned with those original sources and sharing their agenda who repeated these claims. Given that none of the sources making these claims have the courage to identify themselves, due to their fear of mean tweets, it is impossible to know.
But whatever happened, neither AP nor Fox obtained anything resembling “confirmation.” They just heard the same assertions that Goldberg heard, likely from the same circles if not the same people, and are now abusing the term “confirmation” to mean “unproven assertions” or “unverifiable claims” (indeed, Fox now says that “two sources who were on the trip in question with Trump refuted the main thesis of The Atlantic’s reporting”).
And he continues (basically echoing what @bachophile said:
It should go without saying that none of this means that Trump did not utter these remarks or ones similar to them. He has made public statements in the past that are at least in the same universe as the ones reported by the Atlantic, and it is quite believable that he would have said something like this (though the absolute last person who should be trusted with anything, particularly interpreting claims from anonymous sources, is Jeffrey Goldberg, who has risen to one of the most important perches in journalism despite — or, more accurately because of — one of the most disgraceful and damaging records of spreading disinformation in service of the Pentagon and intelligence community’s agenda).
But journalism is not supposed to be grounded in whether something is “believable” or “seems like it could be true.” Its core purpose, the only thing that really makes it matter or have worth, is reporting what is true, or at least what evidence reveals. And that function is completely subverted when news outlets claim that they “confirmed” a previous report when they did nothing more than just talked to the same people who anonymously whispered the same things to them as were whispered to the original outle
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Right. When I said Fox has confirmed the reporting it meant just that. They had found the sources.
So the Grade 1 Trump Defense, ‘liberal rag made up anonymous sources’ needs to be replaced by the Grade 2 defense, ‘disgruntled former staffer talking shit’.
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Right. When I said Fox has confirmed the reporting it meant just that. They had found the sources.
So the Grade 1 Trump Defense, ‘liberal rag made up anonymous sources’ needs to be replaced by the Grade 2 defense, ‘disgruntled former staffer talking shit’.
@jon-nyc said in What bothers me about the trump veterans brouhaha:
Right. When I said Fox has confirmed the reporting it meant just that. They had found the sources.
So the Grade 1 Trump Defense, ‘liberal rag made up anonymous sources’ needs to be replaced by the Grade 2 defense, ‘disgruntled former staffer talking shit’.
Actually, the "Fox Confirms" statement translates to "Our reporter talked to the same people who were quoted in the Atlantic."
As Greenwald says, it's hardly a confirmation.
It's just a reiteration.
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Military Times poll has Biden with a small lead over Trump among active duty soldiers.
I wonder when the last time the troops leaned toward the Democrat. Probably Johnson in 64 or maybe Truman in 48.
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I was very specific. I said they confirmed the reporting. Because Trump likes to pretend that “anonymous source” means a reporter made up whatever he wants.
