dagblog - Comments for "Weeks after the fact, an NBC report further muddles the Kavanaugh saga"

Perhaps I just dont see him

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 03:00:00 +0000

Perhaps I just dont see him as over-the-top as your NY pols- he always seems to have a real point (tho some of his name calling w bowtie biy at Fox is a bit childish)

ok, you win on the nuance

artappraiser — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 02:42:44 +0000

In reply to Aargh, "Avenattism" doesn't

ok, you win on the nuance angle. Still I'd like to say this, as one Independent, take it as a focus group of one: I wouldn't like to see someone who uses Avenatti tactics as my president. He's good at what he does, but president, that's a different kinda job. Also, I've seen what Avenattism and hardball has done to NY State and city Democratic party. They suck, all about getting one over the other guy.

Aargh, "Avenattism" doesn't

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 02:00:09 +0000

In reply to This thread got me thinking

Aargh, "Avenattism" doesn't exist, aand I wouldn't be surprised if there's a big Trump/Russian money burn to spread these memes about him. Avenatti works the press PR and legal avenues as a thorough lawyer. There's nothing new or questionable about fact-checking, being ready with a rebuttal, etc. Whether Avenatti is shown to pull some dubious moves (he's a lawyer - compare w Giuliani and Dershowitz and Cohen before his remake), his politics have been fine in terms of values and shaking up the Republican command. Since when has "fight harder" been impugned as such treachery? Getting Democrats to play for keeps rather than get played has long been needed. Skip the pearl clutching - it's just a fraud pose. Alyssa Milano isn't going all "play nice, fellas" - she's organizing. They'll come for her next.

P.S. This is why I was so

artappraiser — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 01:24:05 +0000

In reply to This thread got me thinking

P.S. This is why I was so intrigued by this which I ran across on twitter and posted here last week. I wonder whether the civility tactic will work out for either of them:

On the front lines, downticket in Charlotte, NC, looks like they're trying something new, maybe it will catch on:

It feels like our divisions are growing deeper each day. So let me just take a moment and commend my opponent on running an honest, positive campaign. She's a good person and deserves your consideration. You can learn more about her here: https://t.co/nnSDB6Nl3e #ncpol #ncga
— Sen. Jeff Jackson (@JeffJacksonNC) October 24, 2018

Congratulations! https://t.co/1HpWD2ls1n
— Nora Trotman (@NoraTrotmanNC) October 19, 2018

by artappraiser on Fri, 10/26/2018 - 1:46am

This thread got me thinking

artappraiser — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:05:31 +0000

In reply to Weeks after the fact, an NBC report further muddles the Kavanaugh saga

This thread got me thinking big picture of the beware of over-reach theme and "Avenattism". Maybe "Avenattism" is the wrong approach, that like Axelrod is saying, the last thing the Dems need to offer is a Trump doppelganger?

All you would get from giving back in like manner to Trump, is that is all kinds and manner of swing voters refrain from politics in disgust, and the bases riled up further in despising each other? That it's not really offering an alternative (keep in mind that majority are now registering as Independents, disgusted with both parties) but just a doppelganger?

I think it's an extra important long term discussion precisely because: Trump and his fan base are not going away soon unless he dies. You can impeach him, send him to jail, he's still not going away, he's going to be there, maybe even with an active fan base as a martyr. This 25% or so of the population that are true fans and have been riled up by him are not going away. If the Dem party wants support of not just its base but enough of those inbetweeners who like neither party, they have to offer alternative to Trump political tactics, not copy them?

I am sure going to be on the lookout for more recent studies about "negative campaigning" after Nov. 6. Not as regards Trump, but as regards the candidates in the election. Past studies always seemed to indicate that Independents say they dislike negative campaigning and attack ads, that this turned them off. But then other studies say that it works. If it works now, how so? By depressing the Independent vote and activating the passionate partisans? Or do the Independents like it now?

I don't know if this will

artappraiser — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 23:37:22 +0000

In reply to Some more on Megan McArdle,

I don't know if this will help you interpret or not but I definitely remember the McArdle name from the pre-Obama blogosphere years. She was a prominent libertarian voice then, trying to straddle a space between all the young righties (making a devil's coalition between neo-cons and family values conservatism) and the Democratic standard. Libertarian especially against nanny state and as far as economics. Against big military and against big state. Don't remember what her opinions about Iraq were exactly, but do remember hot young left bloggers like Matthew Yglesias and Josh Marshall liked to interact with both her and Ross Douhat as not being total idiots and offering interesting input and ideas. Since then, I haven't paid much attention what direction she's gone in.

Some more on Megan McArdle,

AmericanDreamer — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 21:24:40 +0000

In reply to Weeks after the fact, an NBC report further muddles the Kavanaugh saga

Some more on Megan McArdle, with whose work I am not familiar, to make of what you will:

her wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_McArdle

From her wikipedia entry: David Brooks in 2012 called her one of the most influential bloggers on the right, describing her as someone who starts from a libertarian perspective but is non-doctrinaire in how she applies those beliefs. She worked as a canvasser for the Nader formed Public Interest Research Groups and said of it that it was "the most, deceptive, evil place I've ever worked." Also that that experience hurried along her transition from ultraliberal to libertarian.

One Alex Nichols, in this September 2017 piece for a publication called The Outline, is not a fan of her work: https://theoutline.com/post/2303/megan-mcardle-has-a-lot-of-bad-ideas?zd...

I feel just little nervous when I see someone purporting to be John Bolton at her Halloween pic twitter post today acting as though he gets on at least ok with her: https://theoutline.com/post/2303/megan-mcardle-has-a-lot-of-bad-ideas?zd... (scroll down to around the 10th or 15th reply) Maybe once you get to know him away from his day job of working to start a nuclear war, John Bolton is just the life of every party and a swell guy to hang with.

With a WaPo column she has megaphone.

If Avenatti takes issue with any of the assertions in the piece she wrote today I don't get the sense he will be a shrinking violet when it comes to publicly challenging it.

Sad

rmrd0000 — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 15:55:37 +0000

In reply to Weeks after the fact, an NBC report further muddles the Kavanaugh saga

Sad

I guess Avenatti doesn’t need to visit Iowa again.

A network spokesman declined

AmericanDreamer — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 15:43:23 +0000

In reply to Weeks after the fact, an NBC report further muddles the Kavanaugh saga

More from McArdle's column:

......

A network spokesman declined to comment on NBC’s editorial process. But on Saturday, Kate Snow, who did the Oct. 1 interview with Swetnick, tweetedan explanation for the delay: “By the time we were able to find the woman independently from Mr. Avenatti, who declined to give us her full legal name and phone number, and fully report and vet her story, the Kavanaugh confirmation process was over and the news value was limited.”

Frankly, the explanation doesn’t make sense.

......

So once more: What was NBC thinking? The conservative theory is that the network, by withholding important information, was trying to help Democrats derail Kavanaugh’s nomination. But there’s a less malevolent explanation, which is simply that news organizations are leery of ever questioning the credibility of a sexual-assault accusation.

That’s understandable. A skeptical response to rape allegations risks re-victimizing someone who has already been brutally violated. It also makes punishing attackers more difficult, leaving them free to assault again. That’s why activists are so adamant that we “believe women” and why they savage anyone who questions an accuser’s reliability. Which only heightens the news media’s reluctance to say “something’s not right here.”

When Rolling Stone magazine in 2014 published an account of a gang rape at the University of Virginia, some reporters, including me, nursed private doubts about its too-cinematic details — but, like me, they were exceedingly wary of publicly casting doubt.

Even after Richard Bradley, the editor of Worth magazine, finally raisedquestions about Rolling Stone’s account on his personal blog, even the writers who declined to attack him for “blaming the victim” treated them gingerly. A lot more reporting was required before we were willing to state outright what we’d suspected privately — that “Jackie,” the alleged victim, had made the whole thing up.

It would, of course, be much simpler if women never lied about rape. Their stories wouldn’t need to be interrogated, no sifting and sorting of the facts in a crime that is notoriously hard to prosecute.

But we know that’s not possible. High-profile false rape accusations such as the ones in the Rolling Stone article reflect the reality that between 2 and 10 percent of rape allegations are provably false; the FBI says 8 percent of forcible-rape allegations are “unfounded.” The number of false accusations that can’t be proved false necessarily pushes that number even higher. To act as if this weren’t the case borders on wishful thinking, and it comes at a cost.

NBC wasn’t the only media outlet that seems to have relaxed its normal standards during the Kavanaugh hearings. The New Yorker, with exceptionally weak evidence, ran allegations of his sexual misbehavior in college. The reporters no doubt believed they were making it easier for victims to be heard. But airing insufficiently vetted allegations encourages the public to distrust the media. Actual victims won’t be heard if no one’s listening.