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It sounds like Noah Rothman has reached a
Moderator Note:
Off topic.[Redacted.]
I haven’t seen “awful, corrupt, or incompetent”. I am not conceding stupid, but I find that difficult to measure.
So, please tell me again how this is “natural truth”?
I ask because it sounds like your opinion, and if I have learned anything in the first year of the Great Clarifier’s* Presidency it is that the opinion of our so-called ‘thought leaders’ is no better than my own.
*my own term, I am going to write a post that while President Trump is no Great Communicator, he is absolutely the Great Clarifier.
Doesn’t it violate the Rules here to close debate by calling anyone who disagrees an idiot?
And if Trump’s administration has been incompetent, then I’m for incompetence.
And we’re off to a great start….
The thing is that the view is the same looking the other direction. A sea of dangerously insane cranks who probably should be wards of the state, a far cry from someone with pretensions of seriousness.
Why can’t we admit the natural truth: The neocons have collapsed into a particularly ugly kind of paranoid hysteria, utterly divorced from anything remotely approaching a coherent reality, and at this point aren’t intellectually, morally, ethically or even philosophically distinct from the worst excesses in the comments of places like zerohedge except for choice of brand name.
It doesn’t matter if they are offended, they are idiots.
This game is fun.
The irony of the OP is kinda comical.
Trump deserves criticism and we’d all be better for it. However, the embarrassing spectacle that has become “Never Trump” vs “Trumpkin” is destroying us. This post is worthy of a snarky Democrat plant, bent on little more than sewing division in the enemy’s camp. Criticize if you must but don’t post such un-seriousness as this and then refer to others as idiots. Poor form.
Moderator Note:
Bad faith.It’s not off topic. This is about immigration. [Redacted.]
Much like Kevin Williamson, this guy. At least he I honest about he feels about people with whom he disagrees. I like the honesty.
Actually, smart people are jut as easy to dupe as dumb people. I would argue that the GOP has been duping us for 7 years with empty promises of “repeal”.
I don’t doubt we are duped a lot.
Conrad Black. Dupe.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454101/roy-moore-al-franken-climate-frenzy
Read it all as they say.
Obama Derangement Syndrome is a serious disease and talk radio seemed to show full syphilis-esque symptoms sometime in the second term.
Trump says and tweets some things that make me cringe but is way better than President Clinton. There is my admission.
I guess I have a weird standard because Obama, Bush and Clinton all had moments that made me cringe as well.
Trump is awful, incompetent and stupid? What standard are we using to judge this. The economy, as judged by GDP and the stock market, is doing very well. Regulations have been cut, judges have been appointed, the fight against ISIS is improving. Border crossing were down. Pipelines are being built. For year one, on things only Trump can control, this is way better than I expected and does not seem awful or incompetent.
Hold on. The NY Times reports, based on unnamed sources, that the President privately questioned the tape’s authenticity. That’s not reporting – that’s gossip.
What does President Trump have to say about the “reporting”? According to CNN “President Donald Trump stands by his original apology for his remarks” and “Trump apologized for the video that surfaced weeks before the 2016 election. When asked if that position has changed, Sanders said “No.”
So, once again, we have people with a narrative reading into and extrapolating wildly from gossip reported as gospel truth. I’m not impressed.
I believe that is Trump’s voice on that tape. I don’t believe it was an admission of actual assault; I believe it was bawdy locker room talk. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, to learn that the tape was faked. Nothing would surprise me anymore. Nothing is beyond the pale for media/politico types concerning reporting and interpretation of events. Maybe things would be different, but we’ve had over a year of Russia Collusion/Treason when the very seeds of that “story” are utterly suspect and should have been the real story all along. Ironic.
It is easy: Anything good that has happened Trump has nothing to do with. I have read or heard for everyone of these things, that Trump gets no credit.
It was admission that groupies are a thing. I mean that’s why the whole controversy was so eye-rollingly stupid.
What I found most interesting in Noah Rothman’s comments during the podcast was that “conservative” groups and individuals a profiting financially from pushing the divide. I get, literally, a dozen or more emails a day proclaiming either some news item that has been around for a day or two or some not too credible but very controversial event involving gun grabs or other leftist take-over nonsense. At the bottom of the email is a request for money. i rarely bother to read the post and I never send money, but these guys are obvously getting support from somewhere.
I tend to disbelieve just about anything I don’t see confirmed on NRO or Ricochet, my two main sites for commentary and discussion. I listen to most of the leading podcasts, Michael in the morning being the start to every day. I may not always agree with Michael’s views of a situation, but I never doubt his veracity. I feel the same about Commentary Magazine podcast.
Moderator Note:
Threadjacking with off topic comments[still off topic]
Yeah, it goes both ways. Good thing for me that so many people/sources I used to trust have shown themselves to be…. unworthy of that level of trust and respect for their knowledge and wisdom. From now on I want to hear the quote myself. From now on my default is that nothing is a big deal until it’s positively proven to be a big deal. I’ve already gotten a head start since July 2016 and my life has been better ever since.
Michael, I believe the President when he says he stands by his apology and it is his voice on the tape. If we are dealing in idiotic beliefs, in this instance I think accepting the word of a source who is unwilling to be identified is an idiotic belief.
“I’m guilty”
“But someone who is unnamed says that you said you’re not guilty.”
“No, I’m guilty”
“Well everyone who supports you believes you said you’re not guilty, and they are idiots for believing that.”
“But I’m standing by my admission of guilt.”
“Doesn’t matter. Your supporters are idiots.”
The neocons have collapsed into a particularly ugly kind of paranoid hysteria, utterly divorced from anything remotely approaching a coherent reality, and at this point aren’t intellectually, morally, ethically or even philosophically distinct from the worst excesses in the comments of places like zerohedge except for choice of brand name.
–And if anyone deserved this fate. It was the neocons.
More Idiots at NRO, I guess:
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/454135/disparate-impact-news
Most of the people I know who have been supporting Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton have done so for very specific reasons. There were clear differences between the two candidates. Trump wanted better federal control over immigration policy and procedures (as did Bernie Sanders, by the way), and he wanted to revisit some of the Democrat-engineered trade deals (especially the ones put in place largely by Bill Clinton), and he wasn’t crazy about our giving millions of dollars to Iran so they could more quickly build weapons with which to destroy the United States.
I don’t care about his personality. I care about what we are doing in the Middle East. I care about immigration that has been increasing faster than our ability to maintain a decent standard of living in the working-class neighborhoods of our cities and suburbs. I care about lop-sided trade deals with foreign countries.
I think he has done a great job. He has some common sense that the Clintons have never had. I agree with Trump on many important issues. So, yes, he is way better than a third Clinton administration would have been.
I simply do not understand the purpose of Michael Graham’s post. What does he want done?
What is his intent?
Michael, like some others commenting at Ricochet, clearly is appalled by our President’s behavior. Okay, we understand that, but given the alternatives, what exactly are we to do?
President Trump, by the accounts of many commenting above with good reason, has done a significantly better job than we could have expected from Hillary Rodham or saw from Buraq Hussein. So where’s the problem? The man is clearly not perfect, but given the alternatives he’s the best we’ve got to choose from – by far.
The Never Trumpers have a reoccurring problem. They simply refuse, like many on the Left, to deal with reality. This does not reflect well on the Never Trumpers, but they continue to dig down into this seemingly bottomless pit of unsubstantiated crap and condescending innuendo, only to succeed in deeply soiling and befouling themselves further. It ain’t a pretty picture and many of us are way past sympathizing with their way over the top angst ridden wailing about the President.
The reality is that President Trump is far and away the best alternative we have. Never Trumpers, please come to your senses and deal with it.
Before I start bristling, I’m getting out my handy sentence-diagramming tool.
Sooo….what is it that I have to believe to be an official Noah Rothman approved “idiot”? 1) that the Access Hollywood tape is fake; 2) that Trump apologized for the tape, and said he regrets his actions; or 3) both.
At the risk of being “dumb,” I find Noah’s prose sufficiently garbled that the answer is unclear. Perhaps he’s just writing down to “idiots,” but this one is having trouble understanding.
Moderator Note:
Insulting, inappropriate language[redacted] while you are dithering about these fine debate society points and the .001 % of who is more offended, I and MILLIONS of Americans had their health insurance stolen by Barack Hussein Obama and his Democratic stooges.
While you do your Thurston Howell III impressions 90% of black children in this country are preparing to graduate high school without being able to read their diplomas. They are looking at a career path that varies between prison inmate and small time criminal. Why? because the DNC needs the rake off from the education system. The opposition party busies itself with arranging the places settings on the Titanic. I guess I am an idiot because I forgot to turn the knife blade TOWARD the plate, goodness.
You have the gall to complain that some voters do not go in for your [redacted] debate society while Detroit burns, Iranians build nukes, and any grocery along the Mexican boarder watches people buy things with 3 or 4 WIC cards in different fraudulent names.
I am an Idiot too, Skyler
Jeffrey T. Bisesi
Heh. It’s funny that @lois-lane recommended your podcast as a reasonable take on Trump.
In the thread, I mentioned that I felt that our podcasters despise Trump supporters. Here, we have two Ricochet podcasters conveying absolute disdain for Trump supporters who are not jumping on every scandal or taking the word of the MSM at face value.
I wonder if this rift is ever going to get better?
I understand @omegapaladin why you must feel as if I steered you wrong per this post. I do think that it was written in part to… how shall I say?… poke the bear?
I totally get how that’s not cool, and I find the counter comments here about Trump’s “taking back of the apology” as having been reported via innuendo and not a direct Tweet or on-the-record quote or whatever interesting to learn, which is one reason I read threads on Ricochet. (I like to hear different opinions and not be in an echo chamber that is all “I hate Trump.”)
I think if you listen to the podcast on a regular basis, however, the host often praises the administration’s actions, even though he is honest when saying he doesn’t like the president, so I stand by the assertion that the podcast is fairly balanced.
I mean, when warranted, he points to the idiocy of Republicans in general, i.e. all those guys in Congress the Bannon faction has decided to hate, and he points continually to the idiocy of the Democrats who are cray-cray. (We all pretty much dislike them right?)
Does Michael Graham have to like Trump?
I also think he isn’t talking to every person out there who voted for Trump or who is pleased with many of the things that have come out of the Trump administration thus far.
I mean… come on. We all know “that guy” who is going to defend whatever no matter what. These people are like those folks who defended President Obama no matter what. Such partisans exist, and it’s not bad to point that out, is it?
Personally, the big thing I took from this morning’s podcast was that Don Willet saved a guy from choking at Chick-Fil-A. I mean… that’s the thing that most caught my interest. Super hero judge in Austin.
I am happy that Trump is trying to elevate Judge Willet out of Texas to a higher court.
He is using someone else to call anyone who supports Trump an idiot. If a Ricochet customer did that, we would get redacted and punished.
Hey, @bryangstephens!
First, let me reiterate that I think the way this particular post has been delivered is poor. Michael Graham understands how to engage in super civil discourse while bringing up even touchy disagreements, and he isn’t in that mode here. Rather, this post seems to me to be designed to poke the bear, and I totally, totally get why hackles are up.
That said, I disagree with the assessment of the content, especially since I listened to the entire podcast. Neither Michael nor Noah are saying “anyone who supports Trump [is] an idiot.” Rather they are saying anyone who accepts one narrative about an event in one moment and then another narrative about an event in the next simply when the source is Trump is an idiot.
That certainly doesn’t apply to all Trump supporters, but it does apply to some.
I think it’s like this.
Have you ever watched any of the “man on the street” interviews in which Obama voters were told Mitt Romney’s ideas and thought they were absolutely awesome?
Those guys were idiots. At least, those guys were so deeply committed to their candidate that they had agreed to simply accept whatever they heard if endorsed by “their guy.”
Did that apply to all Obama voters?
No. It really didn’t. A lot of old Obama voters who switched for Trump in 2016 can tell you that wasn’t the case with them.
Regardless, I can say without any doubt in my mind what-so-ever that Michael Graham is happy that Hilary Clinton isn’t president. He views that as the main positive of Donald Trump. From what I’ve heard him say over the weeks I’ve listened to his podcast, he thinks that a lot of voters were motivated to vote for Trump because Trump was a better alternative than Clinton. He often points out the things that Trump has done that are good for the country. He also points out things he doesn’t think are good.
In my mind, that’s fair.
The idea that all Trump supporters have discarded their critical thinking skills to justify everything the president does? That is never fair because that’s simply not reality.
I completely agree with that sentiment, which I believe you hold with @omegapaladin.
For this reason, I find the post especially unfortunate. I also think the picture with the post and the title set the antagonistic tone before a single word in the body of the article was read, and so that should have been reconsidered, too.
Absolutely.
Yes. I didn’t comment on this post because Michael was trolling Trump supporters. Evident by the insult..
I agree. And I do wonder why. Twas not necessary.