Soldiers And Press As Protectors?
[guest post by Dana]
A few days ago, an op-ed writer, University of Notre Dame management professor Joseph Holt defended CNN’s preening Jim Acosta (and by extension, the press at large), who complained about Trump supporters treatment of him at a rally last week. Not content to let the issue of the president’s condemnation of the press stand, Acosta asked Sarah Sanders to clarify whether the president truly believes that the press is indeed the “enemy of the people”. When Sanders declined to answer directly, Acosta left the presser in anger.
Here is the transcript of the exchange:
QUESTION: I just wanted to follow up on a — on Sarah’s question from NPR. She asked you about Ivanka Trump’s statement the press is not the enemy of the people, and she asked you whether or not the press is the enemy of the people. You read off a laundry list of your concerns about the press, and then things that you feel like are misreported. But you did not say that the press is not the enemy of the people, and I — I — I think it would be a good thing if you were to say right here at this briefing that the press, the people who are gathered in this room right now, are doing their jobs every day, asking questions of officials like the ones you brought forward earlier, are not the enemy of the people. I — I — I think we — we deserve that.
SANDERS: I think the president has made his position known. I also think it’s ironic…
QUESTION: (inaudible) you mind telling us — Sarah, if you don’t — OK, well, if…
SANDERS: I’m — I’m trying to answer your question. I — I’ve politely waited, and I even called on you, despite the fact that you interrupted me while calling on your colleague. I said it’s ironic…
QUESTION: Well, you (inaudible) which is why I interrupted.
SANDERS: I’m trying…
QUESTION: But if you — if you finish — if you would not mind letting me have a follow-up, that would be fine, but…
SANDERS: It’s ironic, Jim (ph), that not only you and the media attack the president for his rhetoric, when they frequently lower the level of conversation in this country. Repeatedly — repeatedly, the media resorts to personal attacks without any content other than to incite anger.
The media has attacked me personally on a number of occasions, including your own network; said I should be harassed as a life sentence, that I should be choked. ICE officials are not welcomed in their place of worship, and personal information is shared on the Internet. When I was hosted by the Correspondent’s Association, of which almost all of you are members of, you brought a comedian up to attack my appearance, and call me a traitor to my own gender.
QUESTION: (inaudible)
SANDERS: In fact, as I know, as far as I know, I’m the first press secretary in the history of the United States that’s required Secret Service protection.
QUESTION: No, that’s not what I said. People (inaudible)
SANDERS: The media continues to ratchet up the verbal assault against the president and everyone in this administration. And certainly, we have a role to play, but the media has a role to play for the discourse in this country, as well.
QUESTION: And — and Sarah, if you don’t mind, if I — if — hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
If I may follow up — if I may follow up — excuse me. You did not say in the course of those remarks that you just made, that the press is not the enemy of the people. Are we to take it, from what you just said — we all get put through the wringer. We all get put in the meat grinder in this town, and you’re no exception, and I’m sorry that that happened to you. I wish that that — that had not happened.
But for — for the sake of this — this room, the people who are in this room, this democracy, this country, all the people around the world are watching what you’re saying, Sarah, and the White House for the United States of America, the president of the United States should not refer to us is the enemy of the people. His own daughter acknowledges that, and all I’m asking you to do, Sarah, is to acknowledge that right now and right here.
SANDERS: I — I — I appreciate your passion. I share it. I’ve addressed this question. I’ve addressed my personal feelings. I’m here to speak on behalf of the president. He’s made his comments clear.
Holt, in his essay, makes a concerted effort to defend the press and convince readers of its (and Acosta’s) important place in our society:
Journalists are uniquely qualified to perform that vital role of discovering truth and combating falsehood. They have the unique skills, training and resources required; the courage and commitment needed; and an obligation under a demanding code of journalistic ethics to be responsible for the accuracy and fairness of their statements in a way that other sources of news and opinions not bound by the code — including a President who impressively averages 7.6 mistruths a day — are not.
To which I say, meh. I don’t care about the wounded feelings of Jim Acosta, the wounded pride of President Trump, or the sick, symbiotic relationship in which the press and the White House find themselves willingly entangled. As I’ve noted before, both entities happily used one another when it served their specific purposes. They greedily fed off the other. And as a result, each saw their individual agendas met: CNN’s ratings went through the roof as they gave Trump gobs of airtime, and Trump was gifted with lots of free airtime to blather, and ironically, now sits in the Oval Office condemning the very entity who helped get him there, while those who helped get him there condemn him in turn. Win-win! They deserve each other. In the worst way possible.
Anyway, what I wanted to focus on was Holt’s comparison made at the end of his effort to convince us of the media’s worthiness, because they, like soldiers, are our protectors:
We thank soldiers for their service because they devote themselves to protecting our freedoms, and we should. But we should also thank the media for the same reason — especially when the stakes have never been higher.
While Holt received an avalanche of criticism for equating journalists with soldiers, Brian Flood over at Fox News gave Holt the benefit of he doubt:
While the professor’s final paragraph sent readers flocking to mock it on social media, it appears Holt meant to acknowledge simply that reporters are doing a service with little-to-no recognition. Despite being labeled an opinion piece, the backlash to his over-the top comparison was harsh at times.
Maybe that was Holt’s intention. I don’t know. To be honest, the whiny Acosta, Sanders’ stubborn digging in, and Holt’s ambiguous statement of defense have caused me to focus on a real journalist who wrote about real soldiers while on the front lines with them in a very real war: Ernie Pyle. Pyle spent years embedded with troops, facing many of the same dangers they did from any number of theaters and from the trenches. And while in danger, Pyle managed to write column after column about the soldiers he saw doing their jobs under extraordinary circumstances so the people back home could know the unvarnished truth of what their loved ones were doing for them and for country. As a result of his commitment to telling their stories and chronicling the war, Pyle met his death on Ie Island when he was hit by Japanese machine gun-fire.
In his eloquently titled column, “The God-Damn Infantry,” Pyle wrote:
IN THE FRONT LINES BEFORE MATEUR, NORTHERN TUNISIA, May 2, 1943
We’re now with an infantry outfit that has battled ceaselessly for four days and nights.
This northern warfare has been in the mountains. You don’t ride much anymore. It is walking and climbing and crawling country. The mountains aren’t big, but they are constant. They are largely treeless. They are easy to defend and bitter to take. But we are taking them.
The Germans lie on the back slope of every ridge, deeply dug into foxholes. In front of them the fields and pastures are hideous with thousands of hidden mines. The forward slopes are left open, untenanted, and if the Americans tried to scale these slopes they would be murdered wholesale in an inferno of machine-gun crossfire plus mortars and grenades.
Consequently we don’t do it that way. We have fallen back to the old warfare of first pulverizing the enemy with artillery, then sweeping around the ends of the hill with infantry and taking them from the sides and behind.
I’ve written before how the big guns crack and roar almost constantly throughout the day and night. They lay a screen ahead of our troops. By magnificent shooting they drop shells on the back slopes. By means of shells timed to burst in the air a few feet from the ground, they get the Germans even in their foxholes. Our troops have found that the Germans dig foxholes down and then under, trying to get cover from the shell bursts that shower death from above.
…
Now to the infantry – the God-damned infantry, as they like to call themselves.
I love the infantry because they are the underdogs. They are the mud-rain-frost-and-wind boys. They have no comforts, and they even learn to live without the necessities. And in the end they are the guys that wars can’t be won without.
I wish you could see just one of the ineradicable pictures I have in my mind today. In this particular picture I am sitting among clumps of sword-grass on a steep and rocky hillside that we have just taken. We are looking out over a vast rolling country to the rear.
A narrow path comes like a ribbon over a hill miles away, down a long slope, across a creek, up a slope and over another hill.
All along the length of this ribbon there is now a thin line of men. For four days and nights they have fought hard, eaten little, washed none, and slept hardly at all. Their nights have been violent with attack, fright, butchery, and their days sleepless and miserable with the crash of artillery.
The men are walking. They are fifty feet apart, for dispersal. Their walk is slow, for they are dead weary, as you can tell even when looking at them from behind. Every line and sag of their bodies speaks their inhuman exhaustion.
On their shoulders and backs they carry heavy steel tripods, machine-gun barrels, leaden boxes of ammunition. Their feet seem to sink into the ground from the overload they are bearing.
They don’t slouch. It is the terrible deliberation of each step that spells out their appalling tiredness. Their faces are black and unshaven. They are young men, but the grime and whiskers and exhaustion make them look middle-aged.
In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory – there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else.
The line moves on, but it never ends. All afternoon men keep coming round the hill and vanishing eventually over the horizon. It is one long tired line of antlike men.
…
There is an agony in your heart and you almost feel ashamed to look at them. They are just guys from Broadway and Main Street, but you wouldn’t remember them. They are too far away now. They are too tired. Their world can never be known to you, but if you could see them just once, just for an instant, you would know that no matter how hard people work back home they are not keeping pace with these infantrymen in Tunisia.
None of this remotely reminds me of Jim Acosta, et al. Not the soldiers and their relentless determination and steadfast courage, and certainly not Ernie Pyle himself. Not one goddamn bit.
–Dana
[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]
Intrepid reporters such as Sharyl Attkisson who are subjected to government attempts at ruination and professional ostracization for going after protected politicians and the State most certainly are worthy of high regard and praise. They truly perform a constitutional service. A vital and essential service.
I took journalism classes at Ernie Pyle Hall, so I am well aware of the extraordinary abilities and courage of that remarkable man. Yet, I would not use him as a standard or a bar for measurement. Neither would I use Bill Russell for basketball and civil rights.
It would have been appropriate, thugh, for Ringling Brothers to name a tent in their Clown College after Acosta.
Ed from SFV (6d42fa) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:13 amYes, the media are like soldiers: If the soldiers are Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee and we’re the State of Georgia.
nk (dbc370) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:25 amI pointed out in the last link, how cnn covered menendez with a pillow, and through rocks at Collins,
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:42 amwait how can this be, squirrel?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/emails-show-2016-links-among-steele-ohr-simpson-with-russian-oligarch-in-background
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:59 amSoldiers of democrat fortune is what the media is.
mg (9e54f8) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:01 amLock and Load brothers and sisters as they are coming for you and your words.
While the professor’s final paragraph sent readers flocking to mock it on social media, it appears Holt meant to acknowledge simply that reporters are doing a service with little-to-no recognition. Despite being labeled an opinion piece, the backlash to his over-the top comparison was harsh at times.
You know who does a “service” that makes my quality of life better? The garbage men. They come twice a week to remove, empty, and return the giant garbage bin that unhappily sits right next to my bedroom window. Because of their dedication to their craft, I don’t have a putrid smell emanating into my condo like I probably would in some third world hellhole like San Francisco.
So does that mean that I celebrate the garbagemen and dust off my tuxedo and purchase tickets to attend their annual gala and write op-eds about how they are protectors of our democracy? Not hardly. I recognize that as much as I appreciate the job they do, they are compensated fairly for their work and if they didn’t do the job someone else would. And I also understand that historically in many parts of the country the garbagemen were members of corrupt unions and compromised by the mafia and other organized crime elements. So I’m back to the point where when I see my garbage on the job I will smile and wave and greet them with a friendly “hello,” but I really don’t view them a bunch of heroes, just some men doing their job.
JVW (42615e) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:03 amWhen I was in high school and on my way to 6:00 am swim practice one snowy winter morning, a bunch of garbagemen helped push my car out of the snowbank. No journalist has ever done that for me.
JVW (42615e) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:04 amThe media are obviously one of the institutions that help preserve our liberties.
Of course, their jobs (at least in the U.S.) are much safer than those of front-line soldiers. I wouldn’t compare being a reporter in the U.S. to being in the infantry anymore than I would compare dodging the draft to get laid with my daddy’s money in Manhattan to being a combat soldier in Vietnam, if you get my drift.
Neither the media nor the military are perfect, and neither should be immune to honest criticism. But they are both essential to our freedoms, and anyone who insists otherwise is working to weaken our republic and undermine our freedoms.
Dave (445e97) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:07 amThat local reporter who is uncovering the way that the city councilman has steered city contracts to that local developer who in turn has hired the councilman’s daughter-in-law to do legal work for the company — that guy is essential to our functioning democracy.
That Washington-based reporter who is married to a well-placed lobbyist and talks to various administration and Congressional sources as they all drop off their kids at the tony private school, then lunches at The Palm with various “off-the-record” sources before heading over to the television studio to get into makeup for his appearance on the 4:00 newshour and then heads back to his suburban home — that guy is far less important to our functioning democracy than he wants us to believe.
JVW (42615e) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:22 amThis is moving the goalposts, isn’t it?
Wasn’t the choice between “enemy of the people” and “just some men doing their job”? In fact Acosta used nearly identical words (emphasis added):
You presumably do not consider the garbagemen your enemies just because they aren’t “heroes”, do you?
Dave (445e97) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:25 amremember when they covered this up, when they went on the ‘hands up’ craze:
http://dailycaller.com/2018/08/09/rick-lovelien-steven-stewart-blm-bundy/
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:37 amYou presumably do not consider the garbagemen your enemies just because they aren’t “heroes”, do you?
I would consider them enemies if they actually left other people’s garbage in my garbage bin instead of picking up my garbage. And it would be even worse if they compounded that act by flouncing around insisting that they are the true protectors of the realm. Apply that to our modern media however you want.
JVW (42615e) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:54 amAny person who controls my information is potentially my enemy. When he feeds me misinformation, he is definitely my enemy.
nk (dbc370) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:59 amThat Acosta, et al are using their broad platforms for partisan activism and not reporting the facts, it is simply impossible for them to in any way to fulfill what Holt sees as their mandate:
Dana (023079) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:59 amthe problem is when the journalist, and/or the rizzotto tray press, are repeating the same story, using the same worlds, covering with a cloth on one end, beating with bats on the other,
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:02 amThe press that Dave loves are definitely soldiers. Their army is antiFA and they are definitely anti-First Amendment, but have no problem hitting people over the head with deadly weapons and then getting off free due to crooked agreements with sympathetic government officials.
NJRob (b00189) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:02 amThe worst press corps in my lifetime. Monkeys on parade…
Colonel Haiku (b5bc8f) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:06 amConDave loves him moar acosta…
Colonel Haiku (b5bc8f) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:07 amI won’t link it, but in the recent Sarah Palin vs. the NYT libel suit, the editor-in-chief of the NYT proffered the excuse that he had a deadline to meet and that’s why he did not fact-check the slander he had written about Palin even though all he needed to do was check the NYT’s own archives. The judge said that was sufficient excuse, or to paraphrase General Sherman: “Journalism is barbarity. It cannot be refined.”
nk (dbc370) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:09 amDana #14 —
Acosta is wedded to drama, and his role as a member of the Truth Tellers of the Resistance to lower himself to actually reporting something. CNN (and Fox) just may not be able to fulfill the role Holt gives them, and continue to attract eyeballs to their programming.
Yet the role Holt describes is important — Trump would seem to be a great subject for hard reporting — given his history, his prior business, and the way his business interests and US government interest collide. And yet — what are the big stories? Well, they come from a Russia tale that is worn out in the telling and fruitless speculation on what Mueller might be up to.
There is some great reporting to be done out there on Trump — but they are financial stories, and the media has a hard time with those. Sex sells — but with Trump, it’s just the same old infidelity with Playboy bunnies and old accusations. Plus, looky looky, he just tweeted something, can you imagine — a tweet with 3.1415 lies in it!! (Maybe that will square the circle, huh?)
Appalled (96665e) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:12 amand they are fed from fusion, from senate intelligence staff, (whose reliability is dubious) from rogue bureaucrats in the fin sec division of the treasury, and anonymous sometimes non existent sources. whereas with democrats, the layer of varnish is four layers thick, no prosecutor ever comes calling on Charlie rangel, or john Corzine, that’s unheard of,
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:18 amIf journalism wants to fancy itself as a priesthood, then let them act like those who have consecrated their lives to their profession. This means that they can’t be married to (or sleeping with) politicians, bureaucrats, or lobbyists, they can’t go to work for politicians as spokespeople or advisors, and they really shouldn’t be taking gigs outside of their main job. Under the present circumstances, it’s impossible to see Washington journalists as anything other than some of the bottom-feeders of the Beltway swamp.
JVW (42615e) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:30 amWhen people chant at you that “you suck” do you ever occasionally wonder if perhaps you could improve your performance and do a better, more fair job of reporting?
Or do you, like Jim Acosta, immediately assume that these people hate you irrationally, and want to hurt you?
My advice to Jim and his ilk – you can’t control the actions of others, and whining like a little kid to mommy about it doesn’t change that equation. The only thing you can possibly do, is do better. So go and do that – do better.
George Orwell's Ghost (ba96d1) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:32 amabe Rosenthal, had a particular sharp way of making that point, it might be particular to miss Watkins, and for that matter miss butina,
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:33 amSoldiers And Press As Protectors?
Yes.
End of story.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?8666-1/president-nixons-farewell-staff
44 years ago today ‘our long, national nightmare’ was over thanks to good journalism and a free press.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:38 amAcosta may well be a showboating hack, but he asked a valid question and Ms. Sanders punted.
Paul Montagu (84878a) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:43 amAppalled (96665e) Indeed.
What I find appaling is the continuing laziness and partisanship of the media.
Today I heard a long NPR discussion of the events in Portland, where alt right supporters clashed with Antifa. I would say a solid 90% of the discussion was about the alt-right. Much of it seemed…ill-informed. For example they interviewed an alt-right member who was biracial. Then speculated for a solid 3 minutes on how a biracial man could be alt-right because clearly they were all racists. They then threw up their hands and said, well, there must be a lot of fractions in the alt right. It never occurred to them that a universal characterization of the alt right as racists might be incorrect. That a large fraction never was racist in the first place, that was just a label put on them by their opponents, to whom every one and everything is racist.
Antifa, the violent ultra far left, consisting of communists and assorted lunatics, was described very quickly as “counter protesters”. No introspection. No discussion. Here you have an organized, violent group, clad in back, assaulting speakers…burning cars, smashing windows…ho hum.
Now, I say a pox on both houses, both alt right and antifa. But again, The “reporting” sounded fumblingly ill-informed. And yet was done with such a pompous air of authority. And the end result was to make me LESS informed than when they started. Who was the alt right fighting WITH?
George Orwell's Ghost (ba96d1) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:44 am@26. Acosta is doing a damn fine job at CNN on their payroll; Tammy Faye Huckabee-Sanders is not doing hers on America’s payroll.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:46 amThe noisy, rude, arrogrant, loudmouth pack of snarling hyenas we see on TV during White House briefings are exactly what Trump called them: enemies of the people.
And, anyone willing to acknowledge the unmistakable evidence of the media’s mob animosity can’t but conclude that the established media is openly and energetically antagonistic to the interests of American citizens.
Jim Acosta and apologists like Joseph Holt want to wrap themselves in the 1st amendment and defend journalists and journalism as noble defenders of freedom essential to protecting uniquely American virtues and values.
Yet when they betray the nation and the guiding principles of their own profession in service to the unAmerican goals of a totalitarian political party attempting to force an alien Socialist agenda on an unwilling citizenry – they cease to be defenders of freedom and become enemies of the people.
ropelight (dbf1dc) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:51 amAcosta may well be a showboating hack, but he asked a valid question and Ms. Sanders punted.
Paul Montagu (84878a) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:43 am
What Acosta was asking is “Will you contradict the thing your boss just said here in this press conference, where your only job is to speak on his behalf, and potentially lose your job?” She wisely declined his idiotic offer.
If I asked a police chief spokesman “The police chief says the shooting was by the book. Will you contradict that publicly, here and now?” The answer is “Uh, no.”
George Orwell's Ghost (ba96d1) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:53 amPaperback writer!
He’s got a steady job at CNN
But he wants to be
A paperback writer!
Reporters are are would-be novelists who can’t write. Sorry, kids, there was only one Max Brand, and he got killed in 1944 covering the war in Sicily at age 51. (Google him.)
nk (dbc370) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:56 am“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.” Thomas Jefferson
George Orwell's Ghost (ba96d1) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:57 am@29. You want paid in rubles or dollars this month, comrade?
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 10:57 amShe punted. Ivanka said one thing just a few days earlier and her dad said something else. It’s a valid question to ask the Leader of the Free World and his press secretary whether the American press, or which of the American press, is the “enemy of the people”, especially when the term “enemy” is not even used by Trump against the guy who launched a multi-pronged cyberattack on our democracy.
Paul Montagu (84878a) — 8/9/2018 @ 11:01 amReporters are are would-be novelists who can’t write.
Wrong.
Thanks for playing.
What do we have for him, Johnnie?
A set of steak knives and the several works by journalist/writers Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemmingway, William L. Shirer, Hunter S. Thompson, Christopher Hitchens, Bob Woodward, Ken Follett… and Ernie Pyle.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 11:19 amThere is a special place for those who claim a sacred virtue in their tasks but consciously engage instead in deceptions.
The damage they do is exponentially greater than if the harms were performed by enemies. The Holy Roman Catholic church is the supreme example, in my mind. The Progressives and Statist Leftists have, and continue to, destroy the greatest civilization ever devised. All the while they proclaim greater and greater virtue.
Ed from SFV (6d42fa) — 8/9/2018 @ 11:20 amTrump clearly said enemy of the people.
It’s entirely unnecessary to ask Sarah Sanders what Trump said. Attempting to strong-arm Sanders into verifying Trump’s statement or to personally endorse it is yet another example of Acosta’s ongoing antagonistic bullying of a woman he wants to push around.
ropelight (dbf1dc) — 8/9/2018 @ 11:20 am36.There is a special place for those who claim a sacred virtue in their tasks but consciously engage instead in deceptions.
Fox News.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 11:27 am25, only this time, whether it happens next week, 2021 or 2025, I bet some rascals will want to down the forest green chopper after the wave goodbye…i don’t blame the man for wanting a space force, if only to expand the options for exit craft and next destination.
urbanleftbehind (07ab46) — 8/9/2018 @ 11:31 am“That Washington-based reporter who is married to a well-placed lobbyist and talks to various administration and Congressional sources as they all drop off their kids at the tony private school, then lunches at The Palm with various “off-the-record” sources before heading over to the television studio to get into makeup for his appearance on the 4:00 newshour and then heads back to his suburban home — that guy is far less important to our functioning democracy than he wants us to believe.”
And years earlier in their career they were in all likelihood a “local reporter who [was] uncovering the way that the city councilman has steered city contracts to that local developer who in turn has hired the councilman’s daughter-in-law to do legal work for the company.” —
Then and now, “that guy is essential to our functioning democracy.”
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 11:35 amhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMVz5C38yi0
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 11:49 amA set of steak knives and the several works by journalist/writers Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemmingway, William L. Shirer, Hunter S. Thompson, Christopher Hitchens, Bob Woodward, Ken Follett… and Ernie Pyle.
I note that you list a bunch of writers who pre-date the 24/7 TV News era. Do you really think that the Jim Acostas of the world can write a coherent paragraph or develop a written narrative?
Have you ever read old sportswriting, not only from the pre-TV but also even the pre-radio era? Guys like Damon Runyon and Ring Lardner had to pretty much recapture an entire nine-inning baseball game or fifteen-round boxing match, since the only people who knew what had happened there were the people who had bought a ticket and sat in the stands. Their writing is crisp, focused, witty, and interesting. Today, in sports as in politics, everyone has seen what happened on the boob tube or the internet, so all you get any longer from journalists is opinion and spin, whether it is marked as such or whether it is disguised as news.
JVW (42615e) — 8/9/2018 @ 12:20 pmI’d love to think of the press as protectors of the country, but then The New York Times goes and prints a stupid editorial with this as the closing paragraph:
How can they possibly claim they’re protecting us when they won’t even protect the Constitution?
Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71) — 8/9/2018 @ 12:27 pmPlease, this thread is about the media, not Trump
Davethulhu (fab944) — 8/9/2018 @ 12:33 pm“As I’ve noted before, both entities happily used one another when it served their specific purposes. They greedily fed off the other.”
TERRIBLE METAPHOR, DOES NOT MATCH REALITY. Both were ‘feeding’. Only Trump was succeeding.
Donald Trump knew his journalist enemies’ weak points and exploited them to win big. The press thought Trump would be the beatable one, walked right into his trap. Only one person is feasting here, the press are more like the starving and increasingly rabid dogs yipping around his heels that need putting down.
“And as a result, each saw their individual agendas met: CNN’s ratings went through the roof as they gave Trump gobs of airtime, and Trump was gifted with lots of free airtime to blather”
CNN got ‘ratings’ for a season, Trump got the Presidency of the United States of America (at incredible risk to his already established brand and businesses, I might add.) I really think this equivalency is dumb, sour grapes, low-wattage.
“and ironically, now sits in the Oval Office condemning the very entity who helped get him there”
OUR GREED, SHORTSIGHTEDNESS, WILLINGNESS TO OVERREACH, HISTORY OF TYRANNICAL BEHAVIOR, AND EXTREMELY WELL-DESERVED REPUTATION AS ENEMY OF THE COMMON MAN GOT YOU IN OFFICE, HOW *DARE* YOU CRITICIZE US FOR IT NOW THAT YOU ACQUIRED THE CAPACITY TO CRACK DOWN ON oh wait…
“while those who helped get him there condemn him in turn. Win-win! They deserve each other. In the worst way possible.”
This is the worst trade comparison made in the history of trade comparisons, maybe ever.
As a former soldier who was actually deployed to a combat zone, I say that Trump’s an incredibly daring, and yes, All-American hero for doing what he did, and continuing to do it at the risk of not only his own life, but his fortunes, his family, and his honor. His audacious achievements in the face of the implacable hatred of his enemies have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is, in fact, a man worth fighting and dying for, and the established press absolutely is not.
Steppe Nomad (b5377a) — 8/9/2018 @ 1:13 pmlol
Davethulhu (fab944) — 8/9/2018 @ 1:36 pmEnemy of the people, vermin, scum, slime whatever you want to call them. The other side says the same thing about fox news and conservative talk radio and wants to ban them as terrorist organizations.
wendell (b17265) — 8/9/2018 @ 1:56 pmDo you really think that the Jim Acostas of the world can write a coherent paragraph or develop a written narrative?
Yes.
Don’t sell the cable era reporters short. MSNBC’s Katy Tur’s Unbelievable immediately comes to mind and CNN’s Anderson Cooper’s Dispatches from the Edge was a number one NYT bestseller.
OTOH, cable news opinionators perched on comfy couches spouting text from a teleprompter always have their poison pens at the ready- as Coulter, Hannity, O’Reilly, Levin, Ingraham et al., will gladly tell you from any radio or TeeVee invite to plug their latest tome.
Today, in sports as in politics, everyone has seen what happened on the boob tube or the internet, so all you get any longer from journalists is opinion and spin, whether it is marked as such or whether it is disguised as news.
That really depends on which information product is chosen to consume. Attacking the messenger because you don’t like the message is an old and empty ploy. Those bastards on the Weather Channel are so biased against wind and rain, aren’t they ;-). Stove-piping to reinforce existing beliefs says as much about the consumer as it does the content, too. The 24/7 cable news cycle is still relatively young -30 years or so. The ‘rolling deadline’ is increasingly dominating the global news cycle and formats have to change year by year along w/the growth in new media platforms. But any outlet that keeps pitching 1+1=11, not 2, will be spun out to the fringe with their core consumers where they belong.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 2:00 pmhttps://journalism.nyu.edu/about-us/news/the-100-outstanding-journalists-in-the-united-states-in-the-last-100-years/
So many journalists; so many books. Wow. They can walk, they can talk and can write and chew gum at the same time, too.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 2:08 pmIn early 1972, the 101st Airborne Division, was the last American Road Dividion to leave Viet Nam. As we were pretty much the only American story left, we had no end of “journalists” around all of the time, looking for the “truth.” I had been a rifle company commander for about five months before I was assigned as the commander of HHC 2nd Brigade in order to get ready for redeployment to the states. It was during this time that I learned a life lesson that has served me well over the past forty five years. That is, don’t beieve anything, merely because it has been reported in the press.
Phu Bai Phat (325d1e) — 8/9/2018 @ 2:40 pmAlright, DCSCA. I had already had mentioned Max Brand, the creator of, among other things, Destry and Doctor Kildare. I’ll make it “Reporters are would-be novelists who, except for one out of every thousand, can’t write”. And they’re all still f-f-fictioneers.
nk (dbc370) — 8/9/2018 @ 2:55 pmFact: The Outpost, by CNN’s Jake Tapper; f-f-fiction: The Hellfire Club by CNN’s Jake Tapper. He can doodle cartoons, too. But can a former network news reporter-turned cable TeeVee anchor walk and chew gum at the same time?!
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 3:08 pmThat is, don’t beieve anything, merely because it has been reported in the press.
Yeah, them there Pentagon Papers printed in America’s free press were such a lie– which is why the 101st was still in Vietnam in 1972.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 3:12 pm“So many journalists; so many books. Wow. They can walk, they can talk and can write and chew gum at the same time, too.”
Noo Yawk Journalism dot ee dee you lumps people like Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and other peerlessly talented novelists in with a bunch of mostly forgettable or unread recent personalities and grades them all on the highest end of the curve.
WE ARE VERY IMPORTANT, AS YOU CAN SEE BY THE REWARDS WE GAVE OURSELVES.
Steppe Nomad (a5b86f) — 8/9/2018 @ 3:18 pm@54. Your rubles are on deposit. Steppe-and-Fetchit, Red.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 3:24 pmThey didnt include Eddie Adams, because he regretted that picture, rachel Carson how much death has she responsible for in the third world, halberstam was fooled by a vietcong mole, the depth of his category error was revealed by mark moyar.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 3:29 pmThen there’s the Gell-Mann effect.
Four presidents have been assassinated. That’s about 9%. Reagan was shot, TR was shot. So if we consider what would get a soldier a Purple Heart, that’s about 13%. Now, if we start with Lincoln, that’s 21%. FDR was shot at, Ford was shot at. There may be some I haven’t thought of offhand.
Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e) — 8/9/2018 @ 3:31 pmSomebody said Colin Powell would have run but his wife thought he’d been in enough major danger.
@39. Astronaut Mark Kelly says Trump’s order to create a Space Force ‘is a dumb idea’
Mark Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut and Navy veteran, tweeted that it was “a dumb idea” because the US Air Force already has a Space Command and a space force.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-space-force-is-dumb-says-nasa-astronaut-2016-6
Ditto.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 3:32 pmYes he only had to pretend his wife want shot by a psycho let free by sheriff duffuss.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 3:39 pmTo see who was reading from which script:
https://apelbaum.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/the-mechanics-of-deception/#comments
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 3:41 pmThat’s Gabby Giffords’s husband? The media and their sources on Rolodex when they need a quote. That’s news-gathering for the protection of our democracy, don’t you know? Like soldiers in the Ardennes. Snorfle.
nk (dbc370) — 8/9/2018 @ 3:55 pm42. .JVW (42615e) — 8/9/2018 @ 12:20 pm
Maybe you get spin or commentary, but aren’t there people who missed the game? I think every sports article I have read goes over what hapepned in the game. Maybe it is not as good as in the pre-1926 or pre-1932 era.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/9/2018 @ 4:09 pmNo more like skorzeny and kaempners infiltration units:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/sarah-jeong-boring-typical-product-higher-education/
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 4:10 pm@61. No, that’s Mark Kelly:
‘… a retired American astronaut, engineer, and retired U.S. Navy Captain. A naval aviator, Kelly flew combat missions during the Gulf War. He was selected to become a NASA Space Shuttle pilot in 1996 and flew his first mission in 2001 as pilot of STS-108. He piloted STS-121 in 2006 and commanded STS-124 in 2008 and STS-134 in 2011. STS-134 was his final mission and the final mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour.
Kelly’s identical twin brother, Scott Kelly, is also an astronaut. The Kelly brothers are the only known siblings to have both traveled in space. In 2015, Scott Kelly began a mission spending a year in space on the International Space Station. He returned to Earth on March 1, 2016, after 340 days in space. During and after Scott’s year-long mission, the brothers were studied to find physical differences caused by living in space versus a baseline on Earth.’ -source, wikibio An he also happens to be married to Gabby Giffords.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 4:18 pmStephen Miller
harkin (e4ec42) — 8/9/2018 @ 4:19 pm@redsteeze
A mob getting a NYT writer to apologize over a tweet about Sarah Jeong after a week of saying Sarah Jeong shouldn’t apologize for tweets is some grade A galaxy brain twittering.
___ _
@62. Meh. Reagan admitted faking play-by-play calls for long stretches of time during his radio sportscasting days when ‘the wires went down’ back in them days.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 4:21 pmNothing to see here:
https://freebeacon.com/politics/mccaskill-campaign-paid-lawyers-critical-opponent/
narciso (d1f714) — 8/9/2018 @ 4:32 pm@64 DCSA Almost the entirety of the Department of Defense were apoplectic when Reagan insisted on SDI (Star Wars) defense systems. Impossible! Pipe dream! Waste! Unrealistic! Unnecessary! And on and on and on. Reagan was a prophet.
For once, a POTUS is demanding we prepare for the next war, and not the past wars. And he is vilified by most, who almost universally have turf/power and budgets to protect. I have no idea how DJT pulled this out his behind, butt alllll power to him for having the inspiration and the guts to follow it up.
Ed from SFV (6d42fa) — 8/9/2018 @ 5:30 pm“I note that you list a bunch of writers who pre-date the 24/7 TV News era.“
Don’t be so judgemental… that’s the old broke-dick’s point of reference. My God, Carter’s Little Liver Pills and Tucks are the only things keeping ASPCA relatively ambulatory.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2018 @ 6:08 pmIf he wants to talk about Jake Tapper’s literary talent, he must love Glenn Beck for all his bestsellers.
NJRob (b00189) — 8/9/2018 @ 6:18 pmIt is Leonard pinth garnell bad.
Narciso (036d91) — 8/9/2018 @ 6:25 pm@68. Almost the entirety of the Department of Defense were apoplectic when Reagan insisted on SDI (Star Wars) defense systems. Impossible! Pipe dream! Waste! Unrealistic! Unnecessary! And on and on and on. Reagan was a prophet.
In fact, “Lieutenant “Brass” Bancroft” was a thief.
Reagan swiped the concept of “SDI” from a 1940 Warner Bros., film, Murder in the Air which starred himself, John Litel, Lya Lys, James Stephenson, Eddie Foy, Jr., Robert Warwick and Victor Zimmerman. ‘The plot: Reagan, as Lieutenant “Brass” Bancroft of the U.S. Treasury Department Secret Service, foils fifth columnist bad guys from stealing/sabotaging a newly developed secret weapon called the “Inertia Projector,” which consists of an airplane-mounted death-ray/laser gun… the prototypical celluloid incarnation of SDI; (Strategic Defense Initiative) a governmental concept later to become known and actualized as: “Star Wars!”‘ – source, wikifilm
“Unfortunately, even after billions of dollars were spent developing [SDI] technologies, [it] had yet to shoot down a single ballistic missile in flight [source: New Scientist]. And before the technologies could be refined and modified to take advantage of ever-increasing computing and tracking systems, the Cold War had ended and “Star Wars” was phased out for a new approach to missile defense.’ -science.com, The only ‘profit’ associated w/it went to DoD contractors and, of course, the cost added massively to the Reagan era debt.
‘Space Force’ is dumb. And it’s redundant; the USAF Space Command is already doing much of it; other branch services maintain space ops and black ops at dark agencies fill the void. And given America’s $23 trillion debt, a redundant proposal like this should alarm everyone, left, center or right.
But if it’s prophecy that catches your fancy there’s this:
“[S]pace science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again.” – President John F. Kennedy, Rice University, September 12, 1962
Considering the source, ‘Space Force’ is a dumb idea, just like building a border wall. And Mexico won’t be paying for either.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 6:46 pmNo Edward teller, moron, the fellow who came up with the h bomb devised It, it came from his 1979 visit to Cheyenne mountain, where he asked the base commander, this is all that can be done?
Narciso (036d91) — 8/9/2018 @ 6:51 pm@73. No, Colludin’ Cuban, Warner Bros. did and RayGun stole it, twit.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 6:53 pm@69. Haikhrushchev! Brehznevheit!
Time for your daily dose of Trump-on-the-rocks, Red Colonel! Still ever so Helstinki. It’s been a month, Red and you’re ripe; honor America: shower.
Repeating this over and over for you and all Colludin’ Putinites – as is Traitor Trump’s ‘modus operandi:’
Traitor Trump strode on to the global stage in Helsinki, Finland, stood just five feet from Russia’s Putin, a trained KGB agent, dropped his pants, and sh!t on every American citizen in front of a worldwide audience, then to Vlad’s utter delight, wiped his azz w/t U.S. flag.
_______
Wake up and smell yourselves; snap out of it, Traitorous Trumpanovs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60YeQtMAH0U
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 6:56 pm“Unfortunately, even after billions of dollars were spent developing [SDI] technologies, [it] had yet to shoot down a single ballistic missile in flight [source: New Scientist]. And before the technologies could be refined and modified to take advantage of ever-increasing computing and tracking systems, the Cold War had ended and “Star Wars” was phased out for a new approach to missile defense.’ ”
Wow, after accomplishing the goal of ‘intimidating the US’s Number One Geopolitical Enemy into exhausting itself’, the program was phased out. Such HORRIBLE waste, all it did was advance some research in the ballistics field and end a 50-year nuclear standoff with, uhhh….RUSSIA, which I’m sure was a total waste of time and not at all related to a high-profile program like that.
You sure showed us something about the seriousness of your convictions and your grasp of who the actual priorities. DCSCA is not at ALL a guy who’s sanguine about a gigantic Communist threat with millions of deaths under its belt and mendaciously over-the-top about a corrupt kleptocracy at worst.
Steppe Nomad (50c50c) — 8/9/2018 @ 7:16 pmYes he’s as sensible as space 1999:
https://youtu.be/0jXTBAGv9ZQ
Narciso (036d91) — 8/9/2018 @ 7:18 pm@76. Your rubles remain on deposit.
Steppe-and-Fetchit, Red.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 7:28 pmIndeed, DCSCA’s robotic repetition of talking points against “Russia” specifically and extremely not-against the USSR in particular indicates that he himself may be a (poorly made and outmoded) Soviet bot, like Max Boot, Julia Ioffe, or EKATERINA Young.
The USSR mass-produced a whole bunch of different propaganda, oligarch, and commissar bot lines before, during, and after the Cold War, often setting them to destroy kulaks, Ukrainians, and other people they thought needed killing that day. Oftentimes they would just set them at killing each other. Some appreciated the job so much that when the time came for THEM to die, they took it as a personal affront long after they escaped, and continued instinctively attacking Russia for betraying them long after the reason for their original function ceased to exist. “We had it good under Stalin, at least we were the ones ordering the urges at one point!” they told their progeny.
Steppe Nomad (62e901) — 8/9/2018 @ 7:42 pm78:
All right, you pompous ass, if you’re going to respond to everything with snark and copypasta rather than engagement, I’ll just add one of my own for every post you make:
“Do I think Russia is spying on us and being sneakily provocative? Hell yes. Do I trust their government or their leader? 100% no. But…
The Russian intelligence services aren’t recording and storing every call, text, and e-mail made in the US. That would be our own NSA, which stores all that in their yottabyte(!)-capacity facility in Utah.
Putin and the Russian army didn’t fund, train, and encourage ISIS, that would be elements in our own intelligence community, some say CIA, but really, who cares exactly who it was (is). It sure as hell wasn’t Spetznaz.
The Russians didn’t decide, while US troops were busily engaged in a long, exhausting counterinsurgency, that those very same fighters were the most likely people to engage in domestic terrorism. That would have been Janet Napolitano and Homeland Security.
GRU agents weren’t the ones harassing and targeting honest (if a little naive) tea party people. That would have been our very own IRS.
Russian internal security people aren’t the ones pulling old ladies and little girls aside at the airport and molesting them – we have our own TSA to thank for that.
Russia Today/Pravda/TASS/etc weren’t the ones that told us that Trayvon was an innocent 12 year old, that Mike Brown was a gentle giant, that Bruce Jenner had always been at war with Eastasia, er, been a woman, or that Mitt Romney(!) wanted to kill your grandmother. Our very own MSM was quite capable of that all on their own.
Russia’s foreign ministry wasn’t the agency that decided that Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, etc. needed to be destabilized and turned into nightmarish abbatoirs. That was OUR own Department of State.”
Steppe Nomad (3a659d) — 8/9/2018 @ 7:45 pmHe’s clearly a t 600 model, yes put in has had people killed, in the big scheme that waa an afternoon at the lubyanka
Narciso (036d91) — 8/9/2018 @ 7:47 pmYou’re mischaracterizing the issue and moving the goalposts again.
Acosta protested that journalists are simply people doing their job. He did not (at least in this instance) make any claim to special or privileged status, or (LOL) membership in any “priesthood”.
If I make a false accusation that every Trump supporter at patterico.com is a Russian-paid traitor, and one of you objects, does that mean you “fancy yourself a priesthood”?
It is wrong for the President of the United States to collectively demonize and vilify whole groups, races or professions of people simply to keep his base in a state of hate and frenzy. It is shredding the fabric of America, and it’s precisely why our real enemy (Putin) bent over backwards to help put him in office.
Dave (445e97) — 8/9/2018 @ 7:54 pm@80. Red Steppe wants ‘engagement’; give Donnie Jr., a call and set up a meet and greet, dear.
He’s divorcing now, but dating ex-Fox flash-thigh Kimberly Guilfoyle. Show a little leg and he may give you a look/see. Remember, pink panties, Red.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:00 pm@70. Glenn Beck is not a journalist.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:04 pmNeither is Jake tapper, the Soviets had thirty two divisions on the east side of the filda gap.
Narciso (036d91) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:05 pmDo you remember, back in 1981, when Reagan said that no one who broke decorum in a press conference would be called up again?
Kevin M (5d3e49) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:18 pmI really think that they should give some of these clowns a Time Out until they learn manners. And if they conplain and talk about how they are the first defense of freedom, put the tape on YouTube with a background (a la Mystery Science Theater) discussion of the various faults of the reporter.
Kevin M (5d3e49) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:20 pmAfter two years, I think the shock collars are about where we should be, careful though Acosta might like it.
Narciso (036d91) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:25 pm@87. Attacking the messenger and not the message means you’re only shooting blanks.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:29 pm@86. The real question is, did he?
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:30 pm“Acosta protested that journalists are simply people doing their job. He did not (at least in this instance) make any claim to special or privileged status, or (LOL) membership in any “priesthood”.”
‘Doing their job’ means ‘writing clickbait’ in most rank-and-file cases, or ’emoting in an embarrassing and counterproductive fashion at sensitive diplomatic events’ in Acosta’s case. Neither are things we should respect them for even if they do get paid for it! They’re asking for ‘professional respect’, we say that their profession itself is extremely disreputable (and disposable) from beat reporter to top editor, and is so compromised by lefty bias and opportunistic politics of personal destruction that it’s not worth engaging with in good faith.
“If I make a false accusation that every Trump supporter at patterico.com is a Russian-paid traitor, and one of you objects, does that mean you “fancy yourself a priesthood”?”
DCSCA does that regularly, of course. We fancy ourselves Americans and we fancy the robotic RUSSIA accusers are much more likely to be be a) butthurt government agents/clueless Baby Boomers easing their own guilty conscience about how little they did in the Cold War b) Shareblue shills c) Russian immigrants or descendants thereof who want Big Daddy USA to fight the wars they wouldn’t fight themselves.
“It is wrong for the President of the United States to collectively demonize and vilify whole groups, races or professions of people simply to keep his base in a state of hate and frenzy.”
Trump did not FORCE the press to slant their coverage and talking points in more and more transparently left-wing directions. He simply said “Fake News is the Enemy Of The American People”, and that bears repeating until the mainstream press either gets destroyed or learns to behave like civilized human beings who won’t backstab and slander you for ratings at the smallest provocation just because it’s technically legal. You were always the problem, long before Trump.
“It is shredding the fabric of America, and it’s precisely why our real enemy (Putin) bent over backwards to help put him in office.”
Putin’s influence is negligible. If he had done precisely nothing, your derangement would not change one iota, though it might find slightly different targets.
Steppe Nomad (f41f19) — 8/9/2018 @ 8:58 pm“Glenn Beck is not a journalist.”
Glenn Beck is a mediocrity and an embarrassment who continually gets upstaged by his guests on his own show, but yes, he is a journalist. The title doesn’t require you to get paid by an editor.
Steppe Nomad (d63ada) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:01 pmIt’s funny that DCSCA should mention Reagan’s SDI initiative (the Big Bold Move that ended the Soviet Union) and not recognize that the press themselves are playing the part of the Soviets versus Trump: ‘Mr. Gorbechav, tear down this wall!’ rattled the Communists and their Socialist allies as surely as ‘You Are Fake News’ rattles the moribund newsrooms.
Of course, if DCSCA and the RUSSIA! (don’t talk bad about Communism plz!) cru were capable of making those imaginative comparisons, they wouldn’t be posting boring agitprop and dead-meme copypasta.
Steppe Nomad (b6d672) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:15 pm@93. Thank Gilligan’s Island, Red.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:25 pm@92. but yes, he is a journalist
No, he’s not. Meet Donnie Jr., in the Russian Tea Room, Red. He and Daddy always have a reserved table. Remember, pink panties.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:28 pmI know that I’ve posted this before, but it’s really worth a look if you haven’t seen it.
Space Force Dance
Tillman (d34303) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:31 pmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnH6NBPh8Ns
You know… It should really be called Outer Space Force. The Air Force as all the “inner” space covered. So that leaves all the outer space, the far out space, to fill with rockets and stuff.
Tillman (d34303) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:37 pmWill President Trump be attending this little refresher course on decorum? Or teaching it?
Dave (445e97) — 8/9/2018 @ 9:38 pm95: I warned you, now you’re going to read it again:
““Do I think Russia is spying on us and being sneakily provocative? Hell yes. Do I trust their government or their leader? 100% no. But…
The Russian intelligence services aren’t recording and storing every call, text, and e-mail made in the US. That would be our own NSA, which stores all that in their yottabyte(!)-capacity facility in Utah.
Putin and the Russian army didn’t fund, train, and encourage ISIS, that would be elements in our own intelligence community, some say CIA, but really, who cares exactly who it was (is). It sure as hell wasn’t Spetznaz.
The Russians didn’t decide, while US troops were busily engaged in a long, exhausting counterinsurgency, that those very same fighters were the most likely people to engage in domestic terrorism. That would have been Janet Napolitano and Homeland Security.
GRU agents weren’t the ones harassing and targeting honest (if a little naive) tea party people. That would have been our very own IRS.
Russian internal security people aren’t the ones pulling old ladies and little girls aside at the airport and molesting them – we have our own TSA to thank for that.
Russia Today/Pravda/TASS/etc weren’t the ones that told us that Trayvon was an innocent 12 year old, that Mike Brown was a gentle giant, that Bruce Jenner had always been at war with Eastasia, er, been a woman, or that Mitt Romney(!) wanted to kill your grandmother. Our very own MSM was quite capable of that all on their own.
Russia’s foreign ministry wasn’t the agency that decided that Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, etc. needed to be destabilized and turned into nightmarish abbatoirs. That was OUR own Department of State.”
And DCSCA thinks that THESE are the people whose egos we need to respect!”
Steppe Nomad (ee64a1) — 8/10/2018 @ 12:16 am“Will President Trump be attending this little refresher course on decorum? Or teaching it?”
Since they’re shameless by nature, journalists only maintain standards when you threaten them, so ‘teaching’, definitely.
Steppe Nomad (559e5c) — 8/10/2018 @ 12:24 amNo offense, but I get tired of these CONSTANT attempts by the Nevertrumpers to play the “you’re both wrong, and I’m right” card.
Yeah, sorry but you’re NOT “The only adult in the room”.
The Nevertrumpers couldn’t tell the difference between Trump and Hillary in 2016, and it looks like 1.5 years later, they still can’t.
Maybe, you or Patterico would explain how you are actually “center-right” because, I don’t see it.
rcocean (1a839e) — 8/10/2018 @ 4:35 pmWell senior and midlevel baath officials who later joined Islamic state, did receive some Soviet training.
https://themarketswork.com/2018/08/10/papadopoulos-mifsud-manafort-coincidence
Narciso (b6a159) — 8/10/2018 @ 7:46 pmHad an English comp prof once who said Pyle was flat and depended on homey stuff for his appeal. I was thinking about reading the “goddamned infantry” piece in class but doubted I could get through it.
Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e) — 8/10/2018 @ 8:53 pmThe top story on CNN is Omarosa’s book. “Soldiers”, snorfle. Clowns and dog and pony shows.
nk (dbc370) — 8/11/2018 @ 5:04 pmI. All it the Rupert pupkin channel, after the deniro character who kidnapped Jerry Lewis in order to get on TV.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/11/2018 @ 5:10 pmIf Huma Abedin ever publishes a scandalous tell-all about Hillary, I’m sure Fox News will ignore it…
Dave (445e97) — 8/11/2018 @ 5:30 pmRip v s naipaul.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/11/2018 @ 5:48 pmIf Huma Abedin ever publishes a scandalous tell-all about Hillary, I’m sure Fox News will ignore it…
Maybe and maybe not. They’re clowns, dogs and ponies, too. But it’s likely that NBC will hire Chelsea at a salary of $27,000 per minute of airtime to make up for it.
nk (dbc370) — 8/11/2018 @ 5:54 pmHuma has been an assistant, ahem for 20 years, that’s twice as long as Michael cohen for perspective sake
narciso (d1f714) — 8/11/2018 @ 5:59 pm“Soldiers” are them ones what cried like little girls when the iranians captured them
it used to be a thing but now the military is just kinda what you do when you don’t have real prospects
and you know what it’s nice those people have a place they can go
and just 20 years they get a sweet pension and health bennies
it’s like medicare for all but just for them
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/11/2018 @ 9:10 pmBecause those were the vekakte rules of engagement, that’s the way it was in Beirut khobar towers the attacks on worker compounds in the kingdom
Narciso (9fd997) — 8/11/2018 @ 9:19 pm@110. it used to be a thing but now the military is just kinda what you do when you don’t have real prospects
Real prospects: Gremlins, Pintos and Pacers, Mr. Feet; like joining up w/a car company in 1975.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/12/2018 @ 12:35 amOmarosa and Agent Orange have known each other since 2004.
Dave (7f91aa) — 8/12/2018 @ 1:45 amInbred democrats and rinos has changed America forever.
mg (9e54f8) — 8/12/2018 @ 5:04 amSo flucking sad. All the soldiers that risked their lives for you pukes to throw up on their service is traitorous. Y’all suc.
Some of those “soldiers” doing their jobs for freedom were attacked by the people they label “anti-hate” at the DC demonstration.
Just when you think the Left cannot becomes more of a walking/talking parody of themselves they raise the bar higher.
Hopefully SHS lays it all out in a briefing just how delusional and biased these nitwits are.
harkin (096d35) — 8/13/2018 @ 9:32 am