Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Comments I don’t understand from Jim Geraghty in an otherwise good bit
Jim Geraghty posted in The Corner at National Review Online. Mostly, he is laying out the lame excuses for Biden to dodge the debate. I agree with how those are just excuses. However, I don’t understand a couple of bits.
He quotes David Frum who :
argues that Joe Biden should decline to debate Donald Trump this autumn, urging the president and his team to issue a statement declaring: “The Constitution is not debatable. The president does not participate in forums with a person under criminal indictment for his attempt to overthrow the Constitution.”
Now, as far as I am aware, no one has been charged with an attempt to “overthrow the Constitution”. I have no idea what it is that Trump did that was an attempt to “overthrow the Constitution”. He certainly has not been charged with that by anyone. That would be an actual insurrection. I think Geraghty ought to spend a sentence noting that Frum’s charge is baseless.
Second. Geraghty says:
Yes, Trump is a giant hypocrite for skipping the GOP primary debates and then turning around and insisting that Biden has “an obligation” to debate him.
Um, I thought the RNC demanded candidates sign a pledge stating they would not engage in debates with the Presidential Commission?
Beyond the fundraising and polling requirements, the RNC has said candidates must also sign the pledge agreeing to support the eventual party nominee as well as agreeing not to participate in any non-RNC sanctioned debate for the remainder of the election cycle. The RNC is boycotting events organized by the Commission for Presidential Debates, alleging bias.
Trump’s response:
In addition to voicing opposition to the loyalty pledge, Trump has suggested he is opposed to boycotting general election debates hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates. “You have, really, an obligation to do that,” he said in a radio interview this spring.
I am not sure Trump can both be a hypocrite for refusing to sign that pledge and then calling for Debates now. Indeed, it seems to me that Trump is being consistent here with his statements from before.
What am I missing?
Published in General
Just ask Taras. Jim Geraghty is “Always Wrong.”
A lot of pointless pearl clutching and NT excuse making. I like Jim Geraghty. I find the Three Martini Lunch to be a passably good podcast and generally like his appearance’s on the Editors; however, while he is less infected with rabid NT -ism, he does tend to buy the Democratic/ Elite Republican arguments about Trump’s culpability for Jan 6 and what that means for the country. It is a pity actually.
Jim’s infection might not be rabid, but he didn’t vote for Trump in the general either time and I don’t expect him to this year.
When the podcast requested listener questions last year, I asked if Jim had any conservative news sources. When Abe was assassinated, Jim pedaled the Trump overfeeding koi story, which was debunked by conservatives within 24 hours of the media lying. Quoting David Frum doesn’t help that.
We have a president* using the Department of Justice to try and jail his opponent, buy votes with an unconstitutional student loan forgiveness ploy, refuses to defend the border, just for starters and “elite” Republicans think that Trump is the threat to the Constitution. This is a frustrating part of Jim’s thought process. He always asks why Biden does the things he does when they don’t make sense. Joe (and/or his handlers) hate the country as founded and want it destroyed. Try to keep up Jim. As was said about Obama, “Once you realize he’s on the other side, it all makes sense.”. I don’t think Jim wants to pull back that curtain.
I would love to ask a million questions to David Frum. Total establishment / statist tool. I’m sure it pays well. That’s what happens to all those Republicans on MSNBC.
NT has always been playing small ball. They don’t understand the magnitude of the threat. In fairness I don’t think Trump does either, but he is the weapon to hand at the moment.
Yeah…quoting from David Frum was his first mistake.
And I love this: “The Constitution is not debatable.” I realize Frum is Canadian, but he should have seen enough School House Rock to know there is big neoclassical building in D.C. with people in black robes walking around it, and debating the Constitution is all they do from October to June.
Which part of reliably feckless opposition stooge is unclear?
I was about to write “quoting the execrable David Frum was his first mistake.” A nasty piece of work.
Frum seems to have, over the course of his career, declared a whole series of things as not being debatable, so that he could declare those he disagreed with as being beyond the pale and thus avoiding the need to address their actual evidence and reasoning.
For what it’s worth, I was actually thinking of David Brooks, but David Frum still applies. I would think Frum would be pretty impolite about it, though. lol
There are so many Republicans that are this dumb.
I’ve said this about 14 times already, but I was highly ignorant of what the actual role of the bar associations, attorney’s general, and prosecutors are until I heard all this stuff about Trump. This is an outrage.
I have no idea how that happened in that last post.
It was the man, man.
Man.
Looks like you somehow clicked on (or keyboard-shortcutted) the “plain text” option in the tool bar.
@rufusrjones Did you cut and paste that from somewhere?
When I looked at that comment on the backend this is what I saw:
I’ve never seen HTML code tags pop up in a comment before.
I have no idea how I did that. lol
Relevant:
What Precisely Was the Big Lie?
Undocumented keyboard shortcuts in the Ricochet interface?
Isn’t that more or less what the “T” tool/button does?
I don’t know, they all seem like drunkards to me. They’re angry because Trump won and they said he couldn’t. I’ve never heard them say who can win; every cycle it was always stuff about why we can’t win.
Newsflash: they want to be proven right, so they just throw stuff against the barn to see if anything sticks.
Because it could not possibly be that there are moneyed interests keeping them in style to write anything as long as it meets their requirements regarding political issues. Cuz that couldn’t possibly happen here in the City on a Hill.
NR is also in NYC…. NYC is home to Leticia James, a Soros plant…..James just used lawfare to kill V-dare for writing about the bad open borders and illegals….she could turn her eyes elsewhere….is this something NR fears? I would be leaving NY.
If you’re saying the monied interests have always desired Republican loss, I agree. D’s are more predictable and don’t like the chaos of the market where you have to produce something novel, or something better than it was made before. Who wants all that effort? Just prop up some politicians and reap the rewards from government largesse. Some R’s, too, are happy to go along.
Very interesting.
She is a socialist psycho that is totally out of bounds. The legislature and the bar should be outraged and they aren’t. This is the aspect of government that I never fully appreciated.
So any thoughts on the second question?
Elections are like sports, a game with strategies to choose from. You don’t pick one play and run with it every time. The quarterback looks over the defense then calls an audible, if necessary. Jim is smart and nice. He shouldn’t play quarterback.
The entire staff at NR refuses to contemplate that the last “mail in” election had sufficient shenanigans to have over turn the election. So until you gather them all in a locked room and the irrefutable evidence manages to appear anyway, and they are forced to check out the wounds in the hands, feet, and sides of the elusive truth that millions of questionable votes from questionable real people, by questionable un checked procedures and process to count
votesballots, they will remain doubting Thomasas.